OK as an example using my stated grep command above I got :
<a href="../../wp/c/Cricket.htm" title="Cricket">cricketer</a> who plays for <!--del_lnk--> Lancashire and <a href="../../wp/e/England_cricket_team.htm" title="England cricket team">England</a>. A tall (6' 4"

<!--del_lnk--> fast bowler, aggressive <!--del_lnk--> batsman and fine fielder, he is perceived..several more lines .......blah blah
adding ? as per your suggestion got:
<a href="../../wp/m/Mogadishu_Schools_Close.htm">SOS Schools in Mogadishu forced to close</a></li><li>08/10/2008<br /><a href="../../wp/p/Pakistan_Earthquake_3_Years_On-.htm">Pakistan earthquake - 3 years on</a>
which reduced total output to output.txt from 7.2 MB to 43KB !
A result in my book- thanks for your help :^)
I looked at "$man grep" and didn't see anything about use of "?" whats your url to the best tutorial on grep?