Oddly, I thought that the second one was far harder than the first!
I've got a friend in Italy who likes doing crosswords. He gets annoyed if he can't do mine!
He's got a flat here in the UK, near to me, so I see him quite often. He joins in our Sunday evening crossword sessions in the pub when he's here and, even though English is his second language, he puts the rest of us to shame when it comes to getting the really obscure answers. He's not exactly thick though ;-)
http://www.phys.virginia.edu/People/personal.asp?UID=sc2k