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So long as it isn't Desert Orchid sounds like you're on track. The overall theme is a very popular one - I'd be astonished if you were unaware of it unless you lived on Mars. Two thematic clashes are on either side of the central item and contribute to the characters mentioned in the pre-amble. The other two clashes are below it in an across entry. You will kick yourself ...

Thanks s_pugh, it's not Dessie so I'll ponder on. I'm obviously having a 'dim' day. Perhaps a glass of Chardonnay will help......

D'oh! Very clever

I envy planks - that his (her?) earlier "heavy weather" has passed into the bright sunlit uplands of illumination. There are pointers here that a well-known bit of popular culture involving somewhere between three and five simple forms of illumination might be involved: the things from the acrosses are there, and so are one of the possibilities at 30A. But the writer has only 6 letters to his name. Is this particular piece of entertainment a red herring? And where do the strange collection of thematic entities from the down fit in?

Hi cockie, are you sure you have the correct bit of popular culture. The down thematics collectively could describe the title of the bit of popular culture and its writer's surname is 8 letters.

Not that particular comedic moment. Try splitting the down items into 2 sets of three.

"The overall theme is a very popular one - I'd be astonished if you were unaware of it unless you lived on Mars. "

I leave in the US and was unaware of it. But Google was aware...

The line in the preamble about mirror symmetry is somewhat misleading. If you trace the object in the natural way with lines you do not get symmetry. HIghlighting the cells gives symmetry; you get symmetry if you draw curves as long as you don't mind re-entering already used cells.

'live' not 'leave'!!!

Profuse apologies Buzzb - I'd no idea we had a US audience here, and acknowledge the subject matter is very definitely British. But here it is most certainly very popular. To anyone struggling I wouldn't be too reliant on the symmetry and line issues - the principal thematic object is perfectly symmetrical in the grid. And that's it for clues from me ... ! ;-)

Got the theme OK, everything is in place (I think), but I can't make head or tail of 32D so I'm not sure of the bottom row, still a couple of letters that could go either way...