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Thanks very much for that, Carpox1. I can now understand 17dn (though the hyphen seems a bit lame) but I shall need another espresso to comprehend 29ac (and why is 26ac BOIL?).

Bovril?

Swelling?

Thanks Rickye, that makes absolute sense ; and I've just seen the P in PIER for 29ac. The second espresso worked.

Grinding away here with just the bottom right to finish. Are the the things at 12a really what I pay every year? If so what is the last letter at 7d? Y?

It sounds to me as if you have 12a wrong. You may have the first word correct, but not the second. The penultimate word, thematically modified, is an example of the answer, hence 'say' at the end.
7d does not end in Y. It's a very unusual word meaning horse (nag). It's listed in Bradford's under 4-letter horses, beginning with P (positive).

Be careful when it comes to identifying the extra letter in the clue (the first word). It's very ambiguous because two different deductions will give two words, both of which mean the sam as the three letters to follow P.

Hope this helps.

Rickye, 12ac are aquatic flying creatures.

Many thanks to you both. What a strange word!

Hooray. All done save for fiddling out the missing letters etc. Will this be needed I wonder? Found little and great and writer and trap.

If you know what the quotation is you don't need to work out the messages as the "place" and the "subject" are obvious.