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Thank you all. Got it at last. I had heard of that animal actually - used it in Scrabble, often with a D in front of it. I never thought I'd get there but I did in the end!!

Chambers give 4 for the cross in general, then another 2 to specify the male and 2 more for the female.

Such a short word but with so many spellings!

Did you do it Brendan? Definitely worth while. I hope Maskarade is working on a Christmas special (I’ve just remembered all those little fish of his from last Christmas ;-)

Hi Jono,

Not yet, but after reading all the positive comments I'll try and do it over the next few days. However, I've still got a particularly thorny EV to finish so I might have to hold it over until next week - or it might take that long anyway!!

Re the theme words going round the grid. The two three letter words surely indicated the order they went in?

I've struggled, like most people, to accomplish the gargantuan task of finishing this puzzle, and am two-thirds of the way there. Can anyone tell me where the fourth 4-letter clue is? I've seen, and solved, "Afraid, left", "Where lines meet" and "Andre the violinist" but can't see the other 4-letter clue anywhere.

Rocketman. It is part of the 2-word theme which is to be entered in two separate places in the grid.

In the preamble where it says “A theme is indicated by a two-word solution”… this needs to be split in the grid and will give you the other four letter clue you’re looking for ;-)

Many thanks, Buzzybee and Jono - I thought it was only the 6-letter word that was split in two and I didn't quite register on the other one.

I'm a newbie and have joined to say thanks for the tips of which two were really useful....
The starting point of the perimeter....
The fact that only ONE normal solution had to be split.
I managed to solve most of the clues then used Google for others.This in my opinion is cheating but having spent 8 hours or more on it I refused to accept defeat and finally finished at 2 am. Brilliant! Zzzz