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What is the clue number at the start (or near the start?) of your row 3, lumen - if you're counting bottom up it would be '40' and it would be the 9 letter love item, but even counting up from row 5 (clue number '34') I have 52 cells highlighted to the top of the grid. As it is, I'm counting row 1 as the top of the grid and my thematic entries get progressively bigger as I go down.

...and my row 3 isn't loveable - it's quite hostile.

...and my rows 5 to 12 = 61 cells (+12 in row 13).

OK, Thanks I hadmanaged to put 'hostile' (4) much lower down. That makes sense now.

Hey on the bright side I have half of this week's done - after an hour!

Lumen - i am going to put the thematic lengths (in row order) in the Pedants thread - so look there if you want to know them

This week's theme has affected me more than I realised because I seem to have lost the endgame as well.

Spam post @ 2.15 reported

lumen, what the shape is meant to be I think is a representation (very broadly) of the thematic location. This will help make sense of the lengths of the group member you find in each row.

So, like others I see, I am struggling a bit with the associated references — which fortunately are not needed for the solve but which I would like to get for completeness. I don’t want to accidentally give unasked-for hints to the theme, so let’s just say that I can persuade myself that maybe that I can see references for most of the group, but can anyone hint as to where references to the members in rows 7 and 10 might be found? And the “two others”?

Hi mooncow,
Your post suggests to me that there are individual references to each of the members within the clues, except for those in rows 7 and 10. If that is the case, I fear I can't help but I can point out that the "two others" are 7 and the subject of 39. (I think!)