Financial Times 13,480 / Falcon

A real bran tub today.  Our ports of call range from the dangerously shallow (yes, I’m talking about you, five-letter answers!) to almost uncharted waters (C19th operatic minutiae).

Across
1 PENCHANT – p{oet} + enchant.
5 STOGIE – egoist*.
9,17 THE QUEEN OF SPADES – A clue whose natural home would have been in the Times, c. 1972 (when the working assumption of what constituted “general knowledge” was a lot more highbrow).  It turns out that the pun here is that Peter Ilyich’s brother (Modest) was the librettist for this piece.  If you already knew this then my cap is doffed in your general direction..
10 PATOIS – {h}ospita{l}*.
12 COPSE – cops + e{xamine}.
13 TINDERBOX – tin + der + box.
14 SNAPPY – nap in spy.
16 BARBERA – bar + b{izzar}e + RA.  The chap who, along with his partner in crime Mr Hanna, was responsible for producing a panoply of celluloid delights.  Let’s hear it for Hong Kong Phooey, The Hair Bear Bunch, Snagglepuss et al.
18 FREEMAN – free + man.
20 OCELOT – coolest* – s.
22 PEPPERONI – pepper + on + I.  I thought that using pepper in the wordplay was too close to its related sub-component for comfort.
23 BREAK – double def’n.
24 DARING – dar{l}ing.
25 POLYGLOT– Poly(technic) + l in got.  After a couple of years of remission, we seem to have experienced a recent outbreak of ‘Poly’s across the broadsheet puzzles in recent weeks.
26 SADDLE – DD in sale.  ‘Lumber’ here is a transitive verb.
27 GOVERNOR – as hiddens go, it’s a nice one;  not least because it put me in mind of Fulton Mackay in Porridge.

Down
1 PUTSCH – puts + Ch.
2 NO EXPENSE SPARED – (ex pen’s) in (spread, one)*.
3 HOUSE – H + ouse.
4 NO ENTRY – (neon)< + try.
6 TO A DEGREE
7 GOODBYE TO BERLIN – (It bore golden boy)*.  Again, not a work I’ve ever encountered (it’s by Isherwood), but the anagram fodder was obvious and yielded few possibilities.
8 ESSEX MAN– {w}essex man.  Finally an art/literature reference that I recognized! (Probably helped by being a native West Saxon myself).  Michael ‘Henchard’ is The Mayor of Casterbridge.
11 SNUB – buns<
15 PIMPERNEL – cryptic only if you’re unfamiliar with the Scarlet varietal, Percy B..
19 NOOK – nook{y}.
20 ORINOCO – or + coin* + O.
21 SKATER – s + Kate + r. Re: Christopher Dean, who successfully went from pounding the beat in Nottingham to flouncing the Bolero in Sarajevo.
23 BOYLE – homophone of “boil”.