No 13426, Monday 13 Dec 2021, Vulcan

Solution to 17D has been deliberately left unsolved and is to be answered only by a non-regular / novice commenter, with proper annotation. Those who have answered earlier in the week, please give others a chance.

ACROSS

1   Compiler’s second message, not the first (6) SETTER {S}{lETTER}

4   Start fire (6) LAUNCH [DD]

8   Friendly female in a story (7) AFFABLE {A}{F}{FABLE}

9   Pink gin ordered for someone important (7) KINGPIN*

11 Different stars never cross (10) TRANSVERSE*

12 Measure an opening from the right (4) ROOD<=

13 Overall, this article is about an expert (5) APRON {A{PRO}N}

14 Lovely and productive drinks party (8) ADORABLE {A{DO}RABLE}

16 Awarded in DC — timeless Art Deco building (8) ACCORDED {DC+ARt+DECO}*

18 Sortie? Mostly out in trunks (5) TORSI SORTIe*

20 Jack is in Paris with kid (4) JEST {J}{EST}

21 Friend’s been troubled by a thing (10) BENEFACTOR {BEEN*}{FACTOR}

23 Strange business a couple of Republicans established initially (7) BIZARRE {BIZ}{A}{RR}{Es...d}

24 Sentence in Arabic on victory (7) CONVICT [T]

25 Accepting a leader after elections essentially (6) TAKING {A}{KING}<=>{e..cTi..s}

26 Catcher nears ground and runs (6) SNARER {NEARS*}{R}

DOWN

1   Tower’s loud to some extent (2,3) SO FAR {SO{F}AR}

2   Shoe guide (7) TRAINER [DD]

3   New eleven in squad, finally excited (9) ENLIVENED {ELEVEN+IN}*{squaD}

5   The greatest in boxing and karate extremely similar (5) ALIKE {ALI}{Ka..tE}

6   Program airing about Ebola’s origin in country (7) NIGERIA {NIG{Eb..a}RIA*}

7   Independent survey in Ohio designed for common people (3,6) HOI POLLOI {I}{POLL} in {OHIO}*

10 Dog, in tea garden, let loose (5,4) GREAT DANE*

13 One who experiments with the claims made (9) ALCHEMIST*

15 Travelling in private around Utah with broken foot (3,2,4) OUT OF TOWN {O{UT}{FOOT*}WN}

17 Beat by 1000 and excel (7) O?T?A?K (Addendum - OUTRANK {OUTRAN}{K} - See comments)

19 Improve record throughout (7) RECOVER {REC}{OVER}

21 Staff working for wealthy industrialist (5) BARON {BAR}{ON}

22 Appear with our copies included (5) OCCUR {O{CC}UR}

Reference List

Second = S, Female = F, Party = DO, Time = T, Jack = J, Is in French = EST, Republican = R, Runs = R, Loud = F, Independent = I, 1000 = K, Copies = CC

TalePiece

By Dr RKE

I do not know if any of you, fellow-solvers, have SO FAR travelled OUT OF TOWN with a newspaper in your hand. I have made it a habit of TAKING the neatly folded crossword sheets alone of the previous 5-6 days to solve on train journeys.    I have experienced all sorts of BIZARRE reactions from fellow travellers.  There was once a person who wanted to badly LAUNCH a conversation, but found my pre-occupation with the word jugglery of the SETTER a hindrance. The next thing he did was to ask me for a sheet of the paper. Didn’t I love watching in JEST the look he ACCORDED me on realizing that it was not that day’s paper?

And then there was this Catholic Father, who looked over my shoulder and saw that the grid had a ROOD of black squares right in the centre. He showed me his cross that had a similar shape and asked “do they always put our order’s cross in the middle?” It OCCURred to me then that I should look up what word would best suit his vestment- APRON was obviously wrong- was it a cassock/ alb / cassalb / habit?

A college student watched me fill in the squares in fascination and asked “Sir, how did you learn all this? Are there some TRAINERS for this kind of thing?” And then an AFFABLE old aunt who ENLIVENED the compartment with her anecdotes and observations, saw me not joining in the mirth and said “son, you would spoil your eyes reading the small print on a moving train. Put the paper down, enjoy your journey”. Then there was this know-all who explained to his little boy, “see uncle has finished filling in all the TRANSVERSE white squares, now he is going to write from top to bottom like the Chinese do”. Then a young Marxist who scoffed “crosswords are for the bourgeois, not for us the HOI POLLOI”. There have been the suspicious folk, who have thought that I buried my face in the paper as I must be a CONVICT escaping from the police. Rarely have I met a BENEFACTOR who hands over his own newspaper for me to do the crossword. An ADORABLE girl once asked “how much prize money do you get uncle?” When I told her that it was zilch, she said “then why are you wasting your time?”  And then a child who filled in all the lights in the grid with X’s when I put down the paper to go to the restroom.

In all my life and travels, only once did I meet a fellow solver. We were on a flight and she was a portly woman from, maybe NIGERIA. The clue was 10D “Gold maker halts mice (9)”. She looked at the paper with a corner of her eye, without even turning her TORSO and said as I was about to put away the half-done crossword “try ALCHEMIST for 10D”. We then fell talking about all the abstruse things that two LIKE minded cruciverbalists are wont to talk about but her parting shot showed me that she OUTRANKEDed me. “You have filled in GRAND for 24A from the anagram fodder of “tea garden” and so can’t get the second half of the solution. Try GREAT instead.” That got me GREAT DANE in a flash.  

Nowadays, I have switched to doing the crossword on the phone. All fellow travellers are also busy with their own phones and so no one takes notice these days.