Re. 18a, I don’t get what the first two words are there for. Apparently “IT” refers to Italian vermouth, though I have never heard of anyone drinking this rather than dry vermouth with gin (as in “gin and it”). But as you say, Smiffy, it is redundant word play.

Also, abbreviating “appeal” to “a” seems arbitrary to me. Similarly, in 7d “bowler” is abbreviated to “b”. What are the rules for this? I used to think that either one used an accepted abbreviation (like for example C for Celsius) or you used some indicator like “initial appeal” or “bowler’s first” to refer to the first letter of a word. (Maybe b is an accepted abbreviation to cricket fans but what about a for appeal?)