Monthly Club Special 20,230: No Dirish Hacks Or Blogs

ACROSS
1 Recess (holy apse) fashioned on unknown pair of pieces linking bones in column (13)
ZYGAPOPHYSEAL – “recess” is GAP and (HOLY APSE*) [“fashioned”] is OPHYSEAL. Put those together and on the end of Z Y, a “pair of unknowns”, to get a word meaning relating to the zygapophyses, which are the “yoke-pieces of the vertebrae”, nice.

9 Old explorer spoken of harshly (5)
RAWLY – a legitimate homophone, would you believe it of (Walter) RALEIGH.

10 Abandoned Jesuit, Irish, travelling west, having acquired a fare from Indonesia (9)
RIJSTAFEL – reverse all of LEFT SJ IR [abandoned | Jesuit | Irish], and insert the extra A. SJ = Society of Jesus. A smorgasbord of rice dishes with a name hinting at Indonesia’s history with the Dutch.1

11 Walk in the park and round square that helps malaria sufferers (10)
CINCHONINE – CINCH O NINE [walk in the park | round | square (of three)]. Something coming from the same bark as and not unlike quinine.

12 Took in Perth, Western Australia, returning by steamboat after vacation (4)
STAW – reversed W.A., after S{teamboa}T. One Scots version of “stole”, and my FOI.

14 Pancake Tuesday’s first light snacks mostly filling I’m thinking (7)
UTTAPAM – T{uesday} TAPA{s}, “filling” UM… [I’m thinking]. Delicious thick, topped, South Indian dosa.

16 Dung that is a brown colour (7)
SCUMBER – SC. UMBER [that is | a brown colour]

17 Employee on croft, perhaps with duck was quick to corner sheep (4,3)
ORRA MAN – O RAN [duck | was quick], to “corner” RAM [sheep]. A Scottish odd-job man.

19 Short story reflected top barrister’s violent struggle in the past (7)
CONTECK – CONTE [short story] + reversed K.C.

20 Bore in Glasgow bar reeling off Genesis’s number ones (4)
BROG – B{ar} R{eeling} O{ff} G{enesis}. A Scottish awl, rather than an actual windbag.

21 Spinner putting pronounced damper on too-good-to-be-true run out (10)
PIROUETTER – add a homophone of WETTER [damper] on PI R.O. [too-good-to-be-true | run out]

24 Eastern airline’s ruined: their output took a hammering (9)
NAILERIES – (E AIRLINE’S*) [“ruined”]

25 For singing in cathedral, maybe, with chapter out of hours (5)
HORAL – {c}HORAL [for singing in cathedral, maybe, “with (C for) chapter out”]

26 Longed to ditch English after great hosts help to restore places for native tongue (13)
GAIDHEALTACHD – ACH{e}D [longed, “to ditch (E for) English] after GT [great] “hosts” AID HEAL [help | to restore]. I knew and could just about cope with this word in its “Gaeltacht” spelling, but this particular rendition seemed cruel and unusual 🙂

DOWN
1 Share of nearly all booze pronounced dodgy (4-6,4)
ZERO-COUPON BOND – (BOOZ{e} PRONOUNCED*) [“dodgy”]

2 Get pasty and bloomer that’s hand-picked for chain in north? (5)
GOWAN – or GO WAN [get pasty]. A word for the daisy in Scotland and the Scots-adjoining north.

3 Mentally ready to have old Englishman immigrant replace university’s late guide (10)
PSYCHOPOMP – take “PSYCHED UP” [mentally ready] and replace EDU [university] with O POM [old | Englishman immigrant]

4 Normal, some claim ultimately, to get it for sex, say (7)
PARANYM – PAR ANY [normal | some] + {clai}M. A paranym is “a word whose meaning is altered to conceal an evasion or untruth, e.g. liberation used for conquest“. I would’ve thought “it” for “sex” was a bit less sinister than that, but you can see where the setter’s coming from.

5 Hospital area transport turning up at least sixteen miles from Kolkata? (7)
YOJANAS – reverse SAN A JOY [hospital | area | transport]. As a “yojana” is an Indian distance equating to “about 8 or 9 miles”, it stands to mathematical reason that plural yojanas must comprise a minimum of 16 miles.

6 Old poet’s child’s play partially upset playwright aesthetically (4)
EATH – hidden reversed in {playwrig}HT AE{sthetically}. Spenserian equivalent of “easy”.

7 That can be raised with minimum of effort in set of stats (4,5)
LIFE TABLE – LIFTABLE [that can be raised], with E{ffort} inserted

8 Old John’s in colourful slip for tri-weekly exercises with large daughter (7-7)
FLOWERY-KIRTLED – (FOR TRI-WEEKLY + L D*) [“exercises”]. I guess Old John is Milton, as this appears in Comus, describing the floral petticoats of some Naiades, a passage well-known to every English schoolchild [citation needed].

13 Big fan of Rick Parfitt & co keeping third son in shelter across pond (7,3)
QUONSET HUT – QUO NUT [big fan of Rick Parfitt & co!] keeping SETH [third son, after Cain and Abel]. The American equivalent of a Nissen hut, so I’m told.

15 Rosyth’s hesitant Romeo sailor in the red trousers (9)
TARROWING – R [Romeo], “trousered” by TAR OWING [sailor | in the red]. Another colourful Scots word, for to hesitate, or be unwilling.

18 Letter’s discriminatory notice once, evoking certain pictures (7)
NOIRISH – or NO IRISH, a discriminatory notice you might have seen in the windows of rooms to let, in the bad old days.

19 Translation of hoc, say — one making Latin blossom (7)
CHOISYA – (HOC SAY I*) [“translation of…”]. Not actually a Roman genus, but the Mexican orange blossom.

22 Old pack: presumably not the only member of rowdy one to show up? (5)
TAROC – always spelt Tarot these days. If you are in the capacity of a CO-RAT, you are presumably not the only member of the rowdy Rat Pack to have made an appearance. Aaaaaand reverse.

23 Uneven contributions from emcee ruin failing club Down Under (4)
MERI – so keep only the even contributions to {e}M{c}E{e} R{u}I{n}, to find this Maori war-club.