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From preamble:
Do the "characters" include commas, apostrophes etc? spaces?
Would " count as 1 or 2?

I don't know this particular puzzle, but normally "characters" would mean letters only, not punctuation ( including inverted commas ) --- is that possible here?

it is looking like it includes commas and apostrophes - that's why I'm not sure if " would be counted as 1 or 2 characters

I'm pretty sure a character in this puzzle is something you can generate with a single press on a keyboard, including punctuation and spaces, and with " counting as one, not two.

thanks throck - I will proceed thus..........

28 looks very obvious, but I can't see how the wordplay leads to the answer.

I've got the obvious 1st name. I think it's an anagram of mandelas son minus adams

I'm stuck on the highlighting. Has anyone got that far?
Thanks for any nudges.

Well I think I have the entry to highlight but can't think of what words to associate with it and am a bit puzzled by axis of symmetry. Is that going to be circular or diagonal?

At the risk of either giving too much away (surely not?) or showing myself to be a complete dunce I have interpreted the title as implying hidden Johns, to be revealed. And the only one I can find is Elton, and he's displayed symmetrically. Is this a red herring, or am I on the tight track? I can find no other Johns though.