TLS Crossword 1163 by Broteas – February 17, 2017: Definite Alcohols

Also an unusual number of answers beginning with a definite article – one of them is Spanish, but still counts. What can it all mean? Anyway I shall now thank the setter and let you get on with perusing the parsings. A lot of them are really quite clever, to the point where I’m worried I may have missed some cunning literary allusions elsewhere. Additional insights gratefully received!

Across

1 The wine that could be poisoned in a P D James mystery (3,5,5)
THE BLACK TOWER – Both a 1975 Adam Dalgliesh novel by PD James, and a popular brand of German wine. I’m not sure if Black Tower wine is more likely to be poisoned than other wines, despite its foreboding name?

8 A timely prize-winning title? (9)
LONGITUDE – Dava Sobel’s book – winner of the 1997 British Book of the Year – about John Harrison, inventor of the first clock sufficiently accurate for determining longitude at sea, hence “time”-ly.

9 Point outside of India that has some pyramids (5)
NUBIA – NUB [point] + I{ndi}A

11 One who came, to kill in cold blood? (6)
ICEMAN – referring to Eugene O’Neill’s 1939 play The Iceman Cometh.

12 British novelist’s intrusion that’s about to … (8)
SILLITOE – SILL [intrusion, in a geological sense] + I.E. [that is] about TO. Angry young British novelist Alan Sillitoe, author of The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner etc.

14 … capture one in spirit (4)
GAIN – A [one] in GIN [spirit]

15 Rocky lairs I have, as a mythical mother (4,6)
RHEA SILVIA – (LAIRS I HAVE*) [“rocky”]. Romulus and Remus’ mum, maybe a friend to rocky-laired wolves.

18 The last character in Pickwick Papers? (3,7)
THE COBBLER – The cobbler in Pickwick Papers is a typically colourful Dickensian, who makes his bed under a table due to having been used in happier, pre-imprisonment times to a four-poster. A cryptic definition based on the fact that a cobbler works at a last.

19 Where you’ll see Lee at first in depressed part of Gloucestershire (4)
SLAD – L{ee} in SAD [depressed]. Slad is a Gloucestershire village in the Slad Valley. Referencing the fact that Laurie Lee (Cider With Rosie) was a Slad native.

21 Very short bit of verse about a poet (8)
VERLAINE – VER{y} + LINE [bit of verse] about A. Though of course poet is only one of the many strings to his bow.

23 Actor and playwright’s plot with a monarch (6)
PLANER – PLAN [plot] with E.R. [monarch]. You can call him an “actor and playwright” all you like, he’ll always be Neil off The Young Ones to me.

25 Ponderosa’s one tree in part, not bay (5)
RANCH – {b}RANCH [tree in part], without the B [bay]

26 Poem I’d heard on champagne — very old and very dry (9)
MUMMIFIED – IF [the Kipling poem] plus IDE [homophone of I’d] on MUMM [champagne]

27 I can’t locate North America when it’s stormy (8,5)
ATLANTIC OCEAN – (I CAN’T LOCATE N.A.*) [“when it’s stormy”], semi-&lit.

Down

1 Barnes’s love triangle kit? — without the French involved (7,2,4)
TALKING IT OVER – (LOVE TRIANG{le} KIT*) [“without the French”, i.e. LE, and “involved”]. As the novel concerns a love triangle this is another &lit-type clue.

2 British writer of plays, who specialised in comedy (5,4)
ERNIE WISE – I think this refers to Wise’s “plays what I wrote” in the Morecambe & Wise show? But that was all a bit before my time. Unlike the Dickens and Shakespeare obviously.

3 I call a revolutionary “secular” (6)
LAICAL – (I CALL A*) [“revolutionary”]

4 Culture regularly provides a bit of information (4)
CLUE – C{u}L{t}U{r}E

5 Cronin’s top title, one he’d contrived (3,7)
THE CITADEL – (C{ronin} TITLE A [one] HE’D*) [“contrived”], &lit. AJ Cronin’s best-known novel, an expose of ethics within the medical profession that laid the ground for the foundation of the NHS.

6 Achieve something with humour, holding a particular view (6,2)
WANGLE IT – WIT [humour] holding ANGLE [a particular view]

7 Sailor trapped by traitor in an Atlantic port (5)
RABAT – AB [sailor] trapped by RAT [traitor]

10 Kentish gentleman and revolutionary a northern leader nixed (9,4)
ALEXANDER IDEN – (A N LEADER NIXED*) [“revolutionary”]. Takes out the rebellious Jack Cade in Henry VI Part 2, when he discovers him starved and stealing from his garden.

13 Caine’s key position in British film-making? (3,7)
THE BONDMAN – An 1890 bestseller by Hall Caine. I think the clue references the UK film industry prestige of being “the Bond man” (position currently occupied by Daniel Craig).

16 Speed worked for this gentleman (9)
VALENTINE – cryptic def, referring to Shakespeare’s The Two Gentlemen of Verona, wherein Speed is Valentine’s servant. Everyone remembers Proteus’s man Launce better, because of his hilarious dog.

17 An Irish sea island once had Charlie and a prince as men living in cells (8)
MONACHAL – MONA [an Irish Sea island – aka Anglesey] + C [Charlie] + HAL [a prince]

20 Online confusion — a source of trouble in South America? (2,4)
EL NINO (ONLINE*) [“confusion”]. El Nino “refers to the large-scale ocean-atmosphere climate interaction linked to a periodic warming in sea surface temperatures across the central and east-central Equatorial Pacific.” A source of historic and present-day climatic disruption in e.g. Peru.

22 Rhymester engaged in Japanese poetry? Just the reverse (5)
RENGA – {rhymeste}R ENGA{ged}. A form of Japanese collaborative poetry of which Matsuo Basho was perhaps the most famous master.

24 A demon and I — we fight (4)
IMPI – IMP [a demon] + I. An impi is a Zulu regiment.