No 12880, Wednesday 11 Mar 2020, Hypatia

ACROSS
1   Dull stone in front of diamond (5) JADED {JADE}{D}
4   Girl gets left in city near Dubai once more (5) AGAIN {A(-l+g)G AIN}
11 Removing Selenium, engineer separated electrical accessory (7) ADAPTER sePARATED*
12 Mark it! Chennai showcases area for food (7) KITCHEN [T]
13 Lizard in sacred text (5) AGAMA [DD]
14 Person who doesn’t tidy up is Spooner's “grumpy bear” (9) LITTERBUG (~ bitter lug)
15 Places outside had everything except any dishes (10) SATELLITES {S{ATE}{aLL}ITES} I don't think a Satellite can be called a Dish?
17 Time in place that’s not subject to change (4) STET {S{T}ET}
19 Represent people around area (4) MEAN {ME{A}N}
21 Ram morphed animated tool (4,6) DROP HAMMER*

25 Study about trapping rodents? Forget It! (5,4) NEVER MIND {NE{VERMIN}D<=}
27 Initially kept in trust, equity dealer wrote bad cheques (5) KITED Acrostic
28 Hat trimmed from behind with lace at the edges to make dignified (7) ENNOBLE {BONNEt<=}{LacE}
29 Small child needs friend — Absolutely! (7) TOTALLY {TOT}{ALLY}
30 Student checked out fancy blazer and one with stripes (5) ZEBRA BlAZER*
31 Home Alone: Do baddies keep coming back? (5) ABODE [T<=]

DOWN
2   Stubborn worker follows lady, scratching head (7) ADAMANT {mADAM}{ANT}
3   E-book criticizes guts, perhaps (8) ENTRAILS {E}{NT}{RAILS}
5   Ditch girl, say (6) GUTTER {G}{UTTER}
6   People stop exchanging tips between iOS and Android (7) INHABIT INH(-i+a)ABIT
7   Badger artist tucking into eats, taking seconds (6) HARASS {HA{RA}S}{S}
8   Queen wearing stuff that is red on top and more showy (8) FRILLIER {F{R}ILL}{IE}{Red}
9   Type of fabric in beatnik attire (4) IKAT [T]

10 Going north, recollect capturing good soldier (6) KNIGHT {TH{G}INK<=}
16 Old fashioned diet, incorporating work-out and fast (8) EXPEDITE {EX}{PE}{DIET*}
18 How to make bats sell down the river? (8) BACKSTAB BATS<=
19 Stable or crazy German? (6) MANGER*
20 Promote a varnam, inititally depicted in Bharatanatyam, say (7) ADVANCE {A}{D{Va...m}ANCE}
22 Model model draping model model with a colourful pattern (7) MOTTLED {MO{T}{T}LED*}
23 Report I studied before long-haul flight (6) REDEYE (~read i){RED}{EYE}
24 He tries to corrupt engineer refusing initially to cover crack (6) BRIBER {B{RIB}E}{Re...g}
26 One starts baking with old butter? (4) IBEX {1}{Ba...g}{EX}

Reference List
Diamond = D, Girl = G, Left = L, Any = A, Time = T, Area = A, Student = L, Book = NT(New Testament), Artist = RA, Second = S, Queen = R, Good = G, Old = EX, Work-out = PE, Model = T

Dr RKE's TalePiece

This morning, I was TOTALLY engrossed in reading about how Scindia BACKSTABbed Kamalnath, when my wife called out from the KITCHEN. Not normally a person to HARASS me, today she was irritated that she could not once AGAIN find the ADAPTER to plug in the mixie. She always felt that my being a LITTERBUG was responsible for her woes. "Before the marriage you appeared to be a KNIGHT in shining armour, but now, JADED with age,  you NEVER seem to MIND my troubles" she said. That was such a MEAN thing to say, considering the fact that I had used up the entire salary ADVANCE to buy her a FRILLIER outfit, of IKAT for her birthday just a week back. She was ADAMANT that I put down the newspaper and help her out to EXPEDITE the search. You know the AGAMAs say that men who do not help out in their ABODEs, would be born as ZEBRA or IBEX in their next janma and would be forced to feed from a MANGER. That was not an ENNOBLing prospect, and so I reluctantly put down the newspaper and tried DROPping the HAMMER, to prove that I was a mere SATELLITE to her like million other husbands who INHABIT this planet.