No 12863, Thursday 20 Feb 2020, Incognito

ACROSS
7   Bends arms and ribbon loops for ships’ prows? Fiddlesticks! (4) BOWS [MD]
8   Notwithstanding changing spot in fire, abandons a bit of roast (2,5,2) IN SPITE OF {SPOT+IN+FIrE}*
10 Pakistan’s intelligence agency follows donkey to St. Francis’ place (6) ASSISI {ISI} after {ASS}
11 Poet composing sonnet about The Big Apple (8)  TENNYSON {TEN{NY}SON*}
12 Chessmen jump at uncle’s place (8) PAWNSHOP {PAWNS}{HOP}
14 See inside carcass — it’s gory (6) BLOODY {B{LO}ODY}
16 Law for including Chandigarh, say, in Punjab, for example (7) STATUTE {STAT{UT}E}
18 Thousand dollars per annum for ancestor (7) GRANDPA {GRAND}{PA}
21 Mountain where you can see a gunner with one who has deserted (6) ARARAT {A}{RA}{RAT}
23 Small human resources plane crashed into shell fragments (8) SHRAPNEL {S}{HR}{PLANE*}

25 State: Doctor madly ran (8) MARYLAND*
27 Signed off a pattern? (6) DESIGN*
29 Tulsa’s bot produces partial sums (9) SUBTOTALS*
30 Queen arm-twisted Yankee (4) MARY {ARM*}{Y}

DOWN
1   Uninterrupted repair of cantonments in absence of soldiers (8) CONSTANT CANTONmenTS*
2   Liquor available in Hastinapur (4) ASTI [T]
3   Complete language, but no name (6) FINISH FINnISH
4   Atom with same number but different mass is nothing to an endless drinker (7) ISOTOPE {IS}{O}{TO}{PEg?} (Addendum - {IS}{O}{TOPEr} - See comments)
5   Ore found in hotel in California with saloon (8) CINNABAR {C{INN}A}{BAR}
6   Decline destroying expensive new yacht initially (4) DENY Acrostic
9   American car driven round first of Junagadh’s inlet (5) FJORD {F{Ju...h}ORD}
13 Stenographer’s piece of money, right? (5) NOTER {NOTE}{R}
15 Make a clean breast of personal state (3,2) OWN UP {OWN}{UP}
17 Four-footed creature to depart wildly (8) TETRAPOD*
19 Customers at 12 having one penny and account books (8) PLEDGERS {P}{LEDGERS}
20 Secondhand automobile America cared about (4,3) USED CAR {US}{CARED*}
22 Hits around circle and walks about (5) ROAMS {R{O}AMS}
24 Without opening hardish sort of vegetable (6) RADISH hARDISH*
26 Boys maybe uncouth persons (4) YOBS*
28 Amount to nothing in Japanese wrestling (4) SUMO {SUM}{0}

Reference List
The Big Apple = New York(NY, See = LO, Per Annum = PA, Gunner = RA(Royal Artillery), Small = S, Human Resources = HR, Yankee = Y, Soldiers = MEN, Name = N, Right = R, Penny = P

Dr RKE's TalePiece

NOVO NOAH

Francis, today's hero, is  named after the saint of ASSISI.  He is a good GRANDPA who narrates stories to his granddaughter MARY. He CONSTANTly reads the Bible, even at bedtime. One night, snoozing with the Holy Book on his chest, he has a dream in which God warns him of the coming of the Deluge. God commands him to DESIGN an ark to save all the species. Francis has to PLEDGE his USED CAR at a PAWNSHOP to get money for the project. He builds the ark, on a FJORD, using gopherwood and paints its BOWs the colour of CINNABAR. He ROAMS the earth collecting a pair of each species of TETRAPODS and birds,  carefully checking the SUBTOTALS of each category that God ordained. He stocks provisions to last 7 days and nights but does not take RADISH as it is against the STATUTE. IN SPITE of his efforts, he cannot prevent a couple of YOBS, intoxicated with ASTI, staging a BLOODY SUMO contest on board. There is no DENYing that this causes the ark to Break, Break, Break (as TENNYSON would have put it). The ark runs aground to a FINISH on Mount ARARAT, which is the geographical antipode to MARYLAND. With that Grandpa Francis wakes up. 

(I have to OWN UP that the NOTER of this modern Noah's story, unable to face criticism, has gone INCOGNITO!)

No 12862, Wednesday 19 Feb 2020, Neyartha

ACROSS
1   One in Boston laid the seeds of a revolution... (3,5) TEA PARTY [CD]
5   ...against a piece of poetry in the recital (6) VERSUS (~verses)
9   Not good to start off the work of a sailor in a pilot’s field (8) AVIATION nAVIgATION
10 Bully in the plaintiff’s cricket club gets dismissed by Bishop (6) ABUSER A(-cc+b)BUSER
11 Tall male welcoming company assignment in a foreign office (4,10) HIGH COMMISSION {HIGH}{CO}{M}{MISSION}
14 Emu cushioned partially by a slimy protective fluid (5) MUCUS [T]
16 Sensible to get behind a little change to become careful with money (5,4) PENNY WISE {WISE}<=>{PENNY}
17 Seemingly endless university closure following Dana’s disruption (2,7) AD NAUSEUM {DANA}{U}SEUM Anno pending (Addendum - AD NAUSEAM {DANA*}{U}{SEAM} - See comments)
19 Speedy hedgehog making heir push Curie back after confusion at the end (5) SONIC {S(-c)(ONI*}(+c)C} (Addendum - SONIC S(-ci)ON(+ci*)IC )
20 Water shows dust patterning in a particular direction (14) SOUTHWESTWARDS*
23 Coaches daughter for a short time and withdraws (6) DRAINS (-t+d)DRAINS
24 Doctor complicated CEC’s ouster by a foreign office employee (8) DIPLOMAT cOMPLIcATeD*
25 Sailor with an intoxicating cigarette (6) REEFER [DD]
26 Daughter misplaced fruit after the Indian girl’s entry and became emotionally troubled (8) AGITATED {GITA} in {(-d)ATE(+d)D}

DOWN
1   Reportedly pulled along by a despicable person (4) TOAD (~towed)
2   Excuse provided by leaders of ASEAN leveraging Indira’s brazen ideas (5) ALIBI Acrostic
3   Could these be dropped in certain socially inferior circles? (7) AITCHES [CD]
4   Layer found by Oscar, tucking into the wine from the south, on the globe (11) TROPOSPHERE {PORT<=}{O}{SPHERE}
6   Foreign office making the liberal leave the raucous assembly (7) EMBASSY ASSEMBlY*
7   Mistrust making the cousins design an envelope for the Greek letter (9) SUSPICION {SUS{PI}CION*}
8   Inflexibility resulting from contraction after commencement (10) STRINGENCY aSTRINGENCY
12 Coarse carpet containing nickel protects upset Greek character in the emancipation process (11) MANUMITTING {MA{N{MU<=}I}TTING}
13 An Indian car model for the foreign office employee (10) AMBASSADOR [DD]
15 Bone turning up inside an ice-cream holder in a foreign office (9) CONSULATE {CON{TALUS<=}E}
18 Rattle the peacekeepers with a turning device (7) UNHINGE {UN}{HINGE}
19 Vegetable concealed by Field Marshal Lothario (7) SHALLOT [T]

21 Scheduled retreat’s a fancy way to resign (5) DEMIT<=
22 Nail on an upright member in a timber framework (4) STUD [DD]

Reference List
Not = N, Good = G, Cricket Club = CC, Bishop = B, Male = M, University = U, Curie = Ci, Daughter = D, Oscar = O, Liberal = L

Dr RKE's TalePiece

MY NEW FAIR LADY 

Miss Eliza Doolittle sells SHALLOTs for a living and being PENNY WISE, she cannot afford attending a finishing school. Professor Henry Higgins, the famed phonetician, who can accurately place the origin of a man hailing 2 miles SOUTHWESTWARDS of Coventry Garden merely  by his accent, takes on the challenge of MANUMITTING Eliza from her wretchedness by simply teaching her not to drop the 'AITCHES, transforming the language of a guttersnipe into that of a gracious lady. His housekeeper Mrs.Pearce goes about changing Eliza's attire and teaches her the use of a handkerchief to wipe the MUCUS instead of the sleeve of her gown. The STRINGENCY of Higgins' exercise of saying AD NAUSEAM phrases like "In Hertford, Hereford, and Hampshire, hurricanes hardly ever happen" DRAINS her of all energy but she finally  masters the diction of the Queen's English. 

Higgins takes her to a TEA PARTY in the Hungarian HIGH COMMISSION, hosted by the AMBASSADOR. It is attended by CONSULATEs and DIPLOMATs from several nations. Eliza passes off for a lady of high birth, raising no SUSPICION, until she sees a STUD, dressed in a REEFER, one Freddy Eynsford-Hill. Things become UNHINGEd when she drops her guard and shouts out an unladylike profanity in her excitement. AGITATED by this Prof.Higgins turns the ABUSER. Not cowed down by his abuses, Eliza perseveres and joins an AVIATION company. She  becomes the chief of cabin crew on their superSONIC flights, that fly above the TROPOSPHERE. Freddy DEMITs his post in the EMBASSY and joins the same airlines to continue wooing Eliza.