The NI Crossword
No. 17 by Axe

CRYPTIC

Across
1 Flood following Ursa Major siting is a feature in Canada (5,4,4)
10 Formosa trades Western capital for jade in northern Chinese city (7)
11 Town in Upper Silesia mixes rotas with Virginia (7)
12 God, what a hullabaloo round the front! (4)
13 Secretary taken in a month to the country (5)
14 See 27
17 This part of Italy is abuzz with the Rhode Island inter-link (7)
18 Love orange crush and wild marjoram (7)
19 America gives king publicity – that is to make a return around the Basque Country... (7)
22 ...the (Italian) king who presented untidy tramp to the queen earlier (7)
24 A little dog ahead of this stage of development (4)
25 Firm about display in North Africa (5)
26 Overt attempt to leave nothing out on the Volga (4)
29 Motor from 13, joining the little road to the Welsh valley (7)
30 Generate from within home produce (7)
31 28 out east, begins in spring to clean up chateau (13)

Down
2 Prince to mount? (7)
3 A spirit returning to Asian waterway... (4)
4 ...the Asian character immersing little Englander in Asian island environment (7)
5 A party sees endless vocal training starting to bear fruit (7)
6 Charter given to Tallinn – capital of the Baltic people (4)
7 Family has a holding – Imperial India to Serbian Croatia (7)
8 German fellow territory, this fallen dominion (7,6)
9 Distort journalist’s point over people of mixed race (4,9)
15 25’s university – hard three-quarters start with alphabet (5)
16 Classic English city? (5)
20 Curiously apropos, this city of 13... (7)
21 ...another city of 13 one reaches bar before saki takes the head off (7)
22 Country guitar permeated by moisture from 2 (7)
23 Nice surroundings! – literal, too, it sounds (7)
27,14 Dinamite is miss-spelt – extracts in 11 or 29 perhaps? (4,4)
28 Murder One (4)

QUICK

Across
1 Body of water bisected by the Arctic Circle in Canada (5,4,4)
10 Chinese city of 2 million people – the capital of Shanxi province (7)
11 Capital of North Moravia (Czech Republic), in the coal-mining region of Upper Silesia (7)
12 Norse god of magic and runes (4)
13 To lacquer or make black, from the name of an Asian country (5)
14 See 27
17 Rural region of Central Italy, largest city Pescara (7)
18 Mediterranean herb originating from Latin America (7)
19 Basque name for the Basque Country (7)
22 ------- II, the last king of Italy, who ruled for 9 weeks in 1946 (7)
24 Chrysalis (4)
25 Africa’s largest city, founded in 969 (5)
26 Russian city on the Volga, formerly called Kalinin (4)
29 Welsh mining valley(s) which produced 90 per cent of the Royal Navy’s coal in World War One (7)
30 Produce a strain from closely-related parents (7)
31 Forest of France with a palace built by Francis I (13)

Down
2 Volcano in the Cascade Mountains – or Head of State of a famous principality (7)
3 River of China and Siberia which drains into the Sea of Okhotsk (4)
4 Asian of North-East India and Bangladesh (7)
5 Tree and fruit of the laurel family given to the conquistadores by the Aztecs (7)
6 Latvian (4)
7 Area of Croatia declared independent by indigenous Serbs in 1991 (7)
8 Dominion of the eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East between 1299 and 1922 (7,6)
9 South African citizens of mixed breed as classified under apartheid laws (4,9)
15 Reputedly the world’s first university, usually prefixed ‘El’, established in 25 in 970 (5)
16 English Midlands city synonymous with a type of hat and a horse-race (5)
20 City, the largest on the island of Hokkaido, and host to the Winter Olympics of 1972 (7)
21 City of 250,000, near Osaka (7)
22 Autonomous Eastern European state, the home of the former Soviet Black Sea fleet (7)
23 It stretches from Marseilles to Portofino (7)
27,14 Alternative access to coal, for example, to the deep shaft (4,4)
28 The Bible’s first murder victim (4)

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