Listen With Others

I have got rather behind so this is the first of 4 blogs from me. I didn’t recognise Lionheart but I enjoyed this fine, educational puzzle.

I solved most of the clues, correctly identified the changed words, wondered why “rot” in 1dn wasn’t “red” – and still didn’t get the theme! Once I did, the rest of the gridfill fell into place and the hunt for the cousins german was on! Fortunately Googling “famous cousins” revealed the names – I would never have found them without recourse to the web, but that’s true of most endgames. Turning the highlighted grid on its side I get the resemblance of a family tree – hope I haven’t missed something more significant.

My favourite clues were 27ac, for its lovely surface reading; 6dn for its clever Alt key, and 30dn for its hidden German word. 18ac really fooled me with kind becoming kin, and in 31dn I wanted Brigadoon to become Rigadoon. When I posted One Across I still couldn’t parse 33dn DRAT, Shoot at the b(l)ack spotted for WPBSA tournament (4) but sport isn’t really my thing. I assume the title refers to the family tree relationship.