No 12916, Wednesday 22 Apr 2020, Avtaar

Day 29 of 40 Stay safe at home

Many annos missing today. Some obscure words did not help the cause.

ACROSS
1   Central Asian king, attacking zealously, accidentally killed his leaders (6) KAZAKH Acrostic
5   Plan to achieve set targets before the end of February (8) STRATEGY {TARGETS}*{f...rY}
9   Hue and cry in dance party by software company after final leg of samba is cancelled (8) BALLYHOO {BALL}{YaHOO}
10 Auditory obstruction from blocking a red and white abscess on the left (6) EARWAX {EX} over {A+R+W+Ab...s}
11 “Holmes vs Moriarty”, say, is distributed mostly with tablets on Firefox’s portals (6,2,4) BATTLE OF WITS {WITh+TABLETS+On+Fi...x}
13 Bottom turned over by fellow (4) FOOT {TOO}{F}<=
14 Lead indicator of a second referendum in UK, perhaps? (4,4) EXIT POLL Anno pending [DD] See comments
17 Tale about this Asian capital is interminable (8) RENMINBI INtERMINaBle* [CA]Had to Google this. Didn't know that YUAN was the basic unit of this!  Definition in the middle? See comments 
18 Even you speak almost completely in Urdu (2,2) ET TU (~ eh thu ?) (Addendum - UTTEr<= - See comments)
20 Thrashing black and blue after record goes missing? (8,4) DRESSING DOWN {DOWN} after DRESSING Anno pending (Addendum - {DepRESSING}{DOWN} - See comments)
23 Lean, urbane dude stripped when dancing for a song in the morning (6) AUBADE {lEAn}{urBAne}{dUDe} New word for me. Don't think I will remember it though
24 During fall, man on board is minting money (6,2) RAKING IN {RA{KING}IN}
25 Switching of sides by leader of anti-national movement leads to a number of issues (8) EDITIONS (-s)EDITION(+s)S
26 Contradict note about tips in yoga, for instance (6) NAYSAY {N}{YogA<=}{SAY}

DOWN
2   Congress follower is arrested by Delhi’s political heads promptly (1,1,1,1)  A S A P {c...eS} in {AAP}
3   Engineer built dam across island without any preparation (2,7) AD LIBITUM {BUILT+DAM}* over {I}
4   One part of an orchestra played this amazing hit originally (2-4) HI-HATS {THIS+Am...g+Hit}*

5   Must call about Ethiopia’s leader having issues and not playing ball (11,4) SHOULDERING ARMS {SHOULD}{Et...a}{RING} {ARMS} Arms/Issues? See comments
6   The art of prose revealed in Herriot novel about dogs (8) RHETORIC {HERRIOT}*{C}
7   Concede fight after the point is docked (5) THROW {ROW} after {THe}
8   Soldiers unwilling to accept worker — one overweight, extremely slow and not seen for ages (5,5) GIANT SLOTH {GI{ANT}S}{LOTH}
12 Centre of English Royals, originally (10) FOREGROUND {OF+E+R}* [RA]
15 Expectation from two articles put out by President Reagan and the First Lady in 1987 (9) PREGNANCY {P}{REaGan}{NANCY}
16 Hamlet, for one, is another complex, absorbing character before Juliet (8) ANTIHERO {ANOTHER}* over {I} I comes before J
19 Needle from Spooner’s fish basket (6) BODKIN ( ~ cod bin)
21 “Hasn’t” is wrongly used for “Won't” (5) SHAN'T*
22 A national park raised capital (4) RIGA {A}{GIR}<=

Reference List
From = EX, Red = R, White = W, Fellow = F, Note = N, Island = I, About = C, Soldiers = GI'S, English = E, Royals = R, President = P

(Except on Fridays, will not be giving the blank grid from tomorrow onwards)

Dr RKE's TalePiece

The evening EDITIONS of the RIGA Times carried the results of the EXIT POLL of the Latvian Presidential Elections. A.Kirilinko who had swayed the masses with his AD LIBITUM RHETORIC was predicted to get a landslide victory. There was a BALLYHOO on the streets with Kirilinko's supporters dancing, singing and drumming on HI HATS.

The campaign had been a BATTLE OF WITS between A.Kirilinko and K.Levito.  Levito was RAKING IN a lot of money in gun running for KAZHAK terrorist organisations.  Levito could not digest the idea of the principled Kirilinko taking over, as it would mean the death of his business. Levito had to act ASAP. He had a STRATEGY meet with his close associates. There was no NAYSAYer in the group when Levito proposed eliminating Kirilinko before the swearing in. They hired an assassin Lubjo Alessandro from their terror contacts. Alessandro was known for his skill of using a BODKIN which when thrust between the skull and the spine, precisely hit the respiratory centre in the medulla oblingata and caused instant death. 

I SHAN'T bore you with the details, but when Alessandro had been close enough to THROW his deadly weapon, the President Elect turned abruptly, alerted by Alessandro's unique perfume. He cried out ET TU Lubjo!  After all Kirilinko and Alessandro had been SHOULDERING ARMS together in Afghanisthan while serving in the erstwhile USSR army. Having spent time at bunkers and trenches with him,  Kirilinko could recognize Alessandro's perfume from a mile. The twist in the tale is that the brand name of the perfume was ASSASSIN!