Question Author
Climbingxcat:
The preamble to the crossword says that there are four received items in the quotation. It's from "The Smugglers' song" and the received items are "Brandy for the parson, Baccy for the clerk, Laces for the lady and Letters for the spy." The preamble goes on to say that there are four examples of each in some of the clues, each of which consists of a cryptic indication of the UNCHECKED letters. "Hotel's odd" as you say are "H""T"and"L", which are the only unchecked letters in 31a. One of the received items is "lace" and Chantilly is a lace. (Those of us old enough will remember the Big Bopper). Similarly, 1a has two unchecked letters. Northern female = "N" and "F". We already have a "U" as the third letter and an "F" as the last letter. Add the two unchecked letters and you have ?NUFF. Snuff is a sort of "Baccy". Hope that helps and that you can finish the puzzle and enlighten me as to my missing links. Right now there is a glass of something wet and alcoholic demanding my attention!