No 12894, Friday 27 Mar 2020, Neyartha

Day 3 of 21 Stay safe at home

RULES FOR POSTING COMMENTS ON FRIDAYS ONLY

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PLEASE NOTE, SOLUTIONS WITHOUT ATTEMPTING THE ANNOTATIONS WILL BE DELETED

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Thanks for the response, here's the regular blog.

ACROSS
1   Superior cricket club seen in the pits turns out well (8) SUCCEEDS {S{U}{CC}EEDS}
5   Delay in obtaining a part of the Gothic cupboard (6) HICCUP [T]
9   Relating to the study of matter deformation by the man entering the cool rig at sea (9) RHEOLOGIC {HE} in {COOL+RIG}*
11 Substance to be carried along in a part of a mine (5) DRIFT [DD]
12 You may be required to work it for a free trip to a part of a mine (7) PASSAGE [DD]
14 Unnatural locks protecting the wall from the south (3-4) MAN-MADE {MAN{DAM<=}E}
15 Capable of being fixed, the rabid element gets treated (12) DETERMINABLE*
17 Distended veins of the college teams’ in-charge boarding to pick up the ball (12) VARICOSITIES {VAR{IC}{O}SITIES}
20 German leader at the wrong place showing sensitivity in a part of a mine (7) GALLERY (+g)GALLER(-g)Y
22 Twisting motion sent back group of criminals in front to a part of a mine (7) GANGWAY {YAW<=} after {GANG}
23 Adult getting rid of ego to relocate a part of a mine (5) SHAFT SH(-i+a)AFT
24 Come around and cut short the British textile dealer’s business on the Internet (1-8) E-COMMERCE {COME*}{MERCEry}
26 Department’s ball (6) SPHERE [DD]
27 Loans from government funds to influence Tesla’s participation (8) IMPRESTS {IMPRES{T}S}

DOWN
1   Letters from the maestri peddled as a rank indicator (6) STRIPE [T]
2   Water clock and the frolicking pterodactyls models go missing after the ring's removal (9) CLEPSYDRA PtERoDACtYLS*

3   Lifted cover to reveal a slippery character (3) EEL LEE<=
4   Eyed group rate arrangement for a photograph taken with an outdated method (13) DAGUERREOTYPE* Thanks to Google
6   Nick’s hotel hoarding antidote mixture (11) INDENTATION {IN{ANTIDOTE*}N}
7   Hard to replace worker in a wine shop in the country (5) CHINA C(-ant+h)HINA
8   Oceanic bird delivering a crude-oil derivative to the auditor (6) PETREL (~petrol)

10 Arrival with a clutched box in the class to explain a linguistic element (9,4) COMBINING FORM {COM{BIN}ING}{FORM}
13 Cinema crew member’s rubbish turning up under the refurbished cartridge’s not good (3,8) ART DIRECTOR {ROT<=} under {CARTRIDgE}*
16 Famous ones quoted for remembrance? (4,5) LAST WORDS [CD]
18 Discharges erudite George executing strangely tricky steps first (6) EGESTS Acrostic
19 Cored out fragrant Asian fruit for the French schools (6) LYCEES LYChEES
21 Strain to draw blood reportedly (5) LEACH (~leech)
25 Blemish in the Switzerland-banned parade (3) MAR MARch

Reference List
Superior = U, Cricket club = CC, In charge = IC, Adult = A, Ego = I, Tesla = T, Model = T, Hard = H, Worker = ANT, Switzerland = CH

Dr RKE's TalePiece

It is rare that one SUCCEEDS in making an easy PASSAGE, without any HICCUP,  through a NEYARTHA puzzle without looking up at LAST for WORDS in THCC. Of course, you get the word play - remove T and O from pterodactyls - but how is one know that the remaining letters go on to form a water clock called CLEPSYDRA? Or that those who "eyed group rate" would know about the outdated "DAGUERREOTYPE"? Is it easily DETERMINABLE that it is a  COMBINING FORM of a rabid element? I know most of you got CHINA but did you really get it by working Hard to replace the ant in CANTINA, an Italian wine shop? You also need to be familiar with abstruse SPHEREs such as vascular flow dynamics to get words like RHEOLOGIC or VARICOSITIES. They didn't teach all that in the LYCEES. I suppose you get the DRIFT of what I am driving at.

Even an ART DIRECTOR like Sabu Cyril or Thota Tharani would not be able to create such a perfect MAN MADE setting of a mine, complete with SHAFT, GANGWAY, PASSAGE and GALLERY, as our favourite setter has done. And that too with surfaces as smooth and slippery as an EEL! Some may feel that the verbosity of some clues MAR the beauty but the brevity of 26A is striking. Neyartha proves that he is not a the stormy PETREL like NJ once was. I must say this crossie is a perfect "antidote" to not being able to visit the "inn" during these lockdown times.