AFICIONADO comes from the Spanish for ‘arouse affection’ and means an enthusiast or ‘Ardent devotee’ (Demon 22dn).

Most of you Demon aficionados had no trouble with this answer but a few of the less canny crossworders had AFICIANADO, AVICIANADO or even OFFICINADO. The latter caused more problems in across clues, ’Slipstream’ (21ac), which was WAKE not WORE, ‘Japanese martial art’ (29ac) was AIKIDO and ‘Heather’ (42ac) was ERICA.

If you had HILT for ‘Axe handle’ at 56ac then you also had AFICIONADO incorrect. A hilt is also called a HAFT. So it seems being an aficionado has many possible pitfalls.

Our compilers found a couple of new challenging words for our Demon.
At 18dn ‘Dealer in hides’ was a FELLMONGER, a word some of our more senior crossworders might remember from the days when carts carried skins to where the fellmonger expertly separated the wool from the pelt. FELTMONGER appeared in a few entries.

Even more of a challenge was 74dn. ‘Opera singers’ coach’ threw up a new word for many of you. Originally from French, REPETITEUR is sometimes shortened to ‘rep’. Reps are highly skilled musicians who play piano at rehearsals and advise singers on vocal technique. This word proved elusive and a few guesses and blanks were noted.opera-singer

A repetiteur would probably be able to give you the answer to 45ac. ‘Resonant’ was OROTUND, which comes from the Latin for ‘with rounded mouth’ – sounds quite fitting for an opera singer.

Back at 13ac a few errors were spotted. PLAGIARISM is ‘Literary piracy’. This fitted with SKIVE for ‘Malinger’ at 4dn but if you had SCAPE or SKATE or SHAKE you ended up with the incorrect PLAGAIRISM.

Finally for The Demon, 132ac ‘Stamp of approval’ had some of you stumped. The answer which comes from the Latin for ‘let it be printed’ was IMPRIMATUR (not IMPRIMATER).

In the Goliathon 17ac clue ‘Make known’ was IMPART not IMPACT or INPART.
Clue 58ac was unexpectedly controversial. For ‘Seediest’ we had SLEAZIEST but other answers were spotted in entries. Seedy means sordid, disreputable, shabby, squalid, unwell or full of seeds. Looking carefully at these definitions we decided not to accept STEAMIEST, SNEAKIEST or SWEATIEST.

Other clues that caught out a few of you included ‘Early harp’ at 173ac, which was LYRE not LUTE and at 194ac ‘Revitalised’ was RESURRECTED not RESSERECTED.

Not much to note in the Bigcash. At 12dn for ‘Lag behind’ one entry had DRUDGE, perhaps thinking of TRUDGE, but DAWDLE was correct (not DAUDLE).

‘Mount’ at 102ac needed SCALE but a couple of entries had STAGE and we realised that this was also correct. As well as climb, mount can mean organise so you can mount or stage an event. Thanks to reader Linda Martin who emailed us to point this out as well. If our judges find an answer other than the one we expected, they always check the dictionaries to see if it is a valid alternative.

Another BIG month’s contests are waiting to be tackled so sharpen those pencils and dust off those reference books.