Fifteensquared

This was a fairly straightforward puzzle, which I initially made more difficult by insisting that 16d was TATTLER and 23d was ACRE. They aren’t.

Music is “Dead Bodies” by Air - the best “air drums” music ever

ACROSS

1 ARTEMIS - (IMASTER)* Artemis is the Roman name for the greek goddess Diana

5 CA(DAVE)R 

9 SAC-CHAR-IN

10 NARKS - SNARK with first letter last (Lewis Carroll very much in vogue at the moment)

11 NAAN - didn’t get the wordplay

12 Straightforward anagram, omitted at my discretion 

14 CANNAE - A battle and a Glaswegian’s inability to cope

15 EX WORKS

16 NIT-RATE

18 CO(R)PSE

20 B(OARD)ROOMS - i.e “brooms” with (road)* inside

21 S-CAT

24 LUPIN(e)

25 VENER-ABLE - as in “the Venerable Bede” (never)* with “able”

26 S-PRAYER 

27 YAN-GTSE - (ANY GETS)* - 

 DOWN

1 (p)ARSON - Trad. crossword clue

2 TOC(CAT)A

3 MOHR - sounds like “more”

4 SERVICE REVOLVER - reference to the “Lazy Susan” style of dumb waiter, rather than the little lift

5 CON-SCIENCE MONEY - “CON” is “for”,  “SCIENCE MONEY” is what the government give for research

6 DON-KEY WORK

7 V(ERNIE)R - a scale for precise measurement. I think the device is ERNIE (Premium Bonds computer) and the wise old queen was Victoria (VR).  Was she really so wise ?

8 RI-SINGS

13 ONE AND ONLY - (ANY E LONDON)*

16 NIBBLES - why “publisher” ? A writer is a nib and nibbles are titbits

17 T-RAPPER

19 SACK-BUT

22 THE-ME

23 O-RAN - as in “none ran”