One of yesterday’s Guardian crossword clues had me stumped (well, most of them did, but there is a point this…). The clue was, roughly, “Fifth-rate celebrities around (for instance) John Donne (7).” I resorted eventually to Googling “John Donne” since I had no idea who he was. The first result revealed him to be a poet. Another result contained one of his works which, given the title of this blog, I really should have known:

No man is an island, entire of itself
every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main
if a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were,
as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were
any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind
and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls
it tolls for thee.

Thanks to this info about him, I did manage to work out the answer. “Fifth-rate celebrities” is “E-list” and “for instance” is “e.g.” which together give John Donne himself: elegist.