Thanks ChrisE - yes, I was thinking of Rowan Atkinson too, hence my first answer! I still don't really get 22d, but it's the only ovbious answer so I'm giving up now
The degree of difficulty, or lack of same, reported by rocky7 would have been clearer to his readers if he had said where he was travelling from to London!
I discovered Private Eye via the puzzle link. The site (and what links I could access) included insider words / phrases familiar to the readers, which were unknown to me as an American outsider. Best-known being "Brenda". The two-word phrase including the country you cited remained a mystery until Wikipedia came to the rescue with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recurring_jokes_in_Private_Eye (the very first one!)
Glad you found it, geeker!
Brenda, Keith, Brian and Yvonne have long since been ingrained in my mind as names of members of the Royal Family (two no longer with us).
I'm still at a loss with 1d. I think I have the right crossers: ( _ E _ R / _ E _ R ) and I've got the beach / canoe reference but I'm not any the wiser so a gentle nudge would be helpful.. I'm assuming it's a two-word idiomatic phrase that perhaps I've not encountered?
1d - I'd never heard the phrase and Chambers says it's American. I suppose a clue could be from the famed poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge "water water everywhere Nor any drop to drink" (in other words close, but not enough)
Bah. Guess-'n'-google a possible phrase and : "... Colloquially dubbed “**** ****" fermented malt beverages containing very low alcohol". New one on me. Hmpf.
I had never heard 1d either, and I don't think it is clued all that fairly, for an unusual expression.
I was more familiar with the "making love in a punt" variant too!