Crossword Help Forum
Forum Rules

This was almost a complete on first walk through job. Had not even finished my coffee!

I’m done and dusted too. I had to search a couple of unfamiliar names but I knew most of them; got a nice thrill when it clicked. :)

We've had this theme before!!

Kirky, I thought that too. Seeing the theme rebounded for me - it just served to remind me of how much we miss out on now!

Is it just me or is the yellow cell anagram slightly jinxed by the cell numbered 11? The clued answer there gives H whereas the anagram seems to require an A. In fact there is no H in the thematic answer I am assuming it represents.

Not terribly testing, but deeply unfair. No crossword should ever assume knowledge of this keep-it-in-the-family kind. It's fine for the family - most of us here, I guess - but hopeless for someone who picks up the Speccy casually, however skilled a solver (s)he is.

Indeed, far too "inside baseball" as we'd say over here.

damstraat, the cell numbered 11 is not shaded therefore not part of the theme

As is said I knew most of the names but also made use of a helpful Spec article listing them all, e.g. 11a/6d were new to me. It would indeed be all Greek to a casual solver though.

The clues were very gentle and the theme was a bit specialist for a casual solver.
I normally highlight the unclued lights to avoid repeatedly looking for their clues but the setter's highlighting rather confused matters.

Hi Upsetter
My method is to write out a list of unclued lights with the correct number of letters as underlines. I then fill in checked letters on the underlines as they appear. After a while, this permits guesses at the full solutions.