No 12904, Wednesday 08 Apr 2020, Sunnet

Day 15 of 21 Stay safe at home

ACROSS
1   Season for adder? (6) SUMMER [DD]
4   Included amount admitted by stand-in editor (8) SUBSUMED {SUB{SUM}ED}
10 Notice due to swelling (9) BILLOWING {BILL}{OWING}
11 Mother! I will drop out from this subject (5) MATHS {MA}{THiS}
12 Lift a sire roughly (5) RAISE*
13 Inference in passage about top seed (9) INDUCTION {IN}{DUCT}{NO 1<=}
14 Gather pass that’s overdue (7) COLLATE {COL}{LATE}
16 Egg centre to connect to the audience (4) YOLK (~yoke)
19 Extra discharge around lake (4) PLUS {P{L}US}
21 Write on Guinea's black and white creature (7) PENGUIN {PEN}{GUIN} How does EA get deleted from Guinea? See comments

24 Rent? Super rate for spaces (9) APERTURES*
25 Host engineer entering army corps (5) EMCEE {EM{CE}E}
26 Many that can be obtained from the external operating system (5) THOSE {TH{OS}E}
27 Before power circumvents some deep-seated bias (9) PREJUDICE {PRE}{JU{De...d}ICE}
28 Circle and shade as a means to grab attention (8) RINGTONE {RING}{TONE}
29 Surfaces for aircrafts (6) PLANES [DD]

DOWN
1   Remove sandwich parcel (8) SUBTRACT {SUB}{TRACT}
2   Carelessly pull it in my breed (8) MULTIPLY {M{PULL+IT}*Y}
3   Woman holding approval for Kindle (5) EVOKE {EV{OK}E}
5   Sinful, corrupt, ugly don (7) UNGODLY*
6   Mark to partially attach a part of the intestine (9) SEMICOLON {SEMI}{COLON}
7   Cast melted tar in compound (6) MATRIX {M{TAR*}IX}
8   Giving medicine to act on rat (6) DOSING {DO}{SING}
9   See Princess before split (6) DIVIDE {VIDE}{<=>{DI}
15 Plot to allow men to cross (9) ALLOTMENT [T?] Seems to be an error. W instead of T in ALLOW? (Addendum - {ALLOT}{MEN}{T} - See comments)
17 Do use (8) FUNCTION [DD]
18 and 19 perhaps get siren to go off (8) INTEGERS*
20 Fasten heir’s carriage (5,2) STRAP ON {S{TRAP}ON}
21 Announcement of Model T is inside (6) POSTER {POS{T}ER}
22 Agent of some famous star (6) FACTOR {Fa...s}{ACTOR}
23 Nothing inside to converge (4,2) ZERO IN {ZERO}{IN}
25 Like some positive qualities (5) EQUAL [T]

Reference List
Pass = COL, Lake = L, Army Corps = EME(Electrical and Mechanical Engineers), Power = JUICE, Sandwich = SUB, Princess = DI, Cross = T, Carriage = TRAP

Dr RKE's TalePiece

Malgudi Days

W.S.Swaminathan was in his classroom at Albert Mission School.  His MATHS teacher Vedanayagam was laboring on about INTEGERS and arithmetic FUNCTIONs. Swami was absently watching the rays of the SUMMER sun filtering through the APERTURES in the window. His pal Mani, was reading a PENGUIN paperback hiding it under the desk. They had not FACTORed in the school myth that Vedanayagam had eyes on the back of his head and could pick up THOSE who are not attentive, even when he was writing on the blackboard. 

Vedanayagam called up Swami and checked his classwork book. Swami had not taken down anything of what the master was teaching. There was only a tic-tac-toe MATRIX, marked with X and O, which Swami and his other friend Somu were playing. Swami's argument that they were merely practising 'MULTIPLY' symbol and ZEROes, only served to RAISE the teacher's anger. Vedanayagam bellowed "if you don't pay attention now, how will you ever understand equations like E EQUALs EM CEE squared?". PLUS the fact that Swami had not completed the ALLOTMENT of DIVIDE and SUBTRACT sums in his homework book meant that he was to be punished with some juicy ones from the master's cane. Just then the headmaster, who was opposed to corporal punishment walked by. Vedanayagam had to commute the punishment to standing up on the bench. That was not easy for Swami as the school bench was more of an inclined PLANE. 

It seemed like an UNGODLY amount of time passed before the welcome RING TONE of the school bell was heard. Swami jumped down, STRAPped ON his schoolbag and ran, not to his house in Vinayaka Mudali street, but to the banks of River Sarayu, not even stopping to gawk at the POSTER of Vivian Leigh in Gone with the Wind. His baggy khaki half pants were BILLOWING in the wind. He was excited as his friend Samuel had promised to bring an egg YOLK omelette for Swami to taste. Eating eggs was something Swami's family was PREJUDICEd against. The thrill of tasting the egg even made Swami forget about the weekly DOSING of castor oil from his martinet grandmother, due that day.