I thought this was a terrific crossword, witty, entertaining and erudite. The bad news was that though I solved it I feel that sometimes I had answers without full understanding. So, more than usual, I look forward to comments and explanations from those that have them and would be good enough to post them.  
Across
1  SEANCES - amusing clue which was just the start of a really entertaining puzzle.

5  TI PST ER - which is a tier around post minus ‘o’, love. A tipster is someone who sells tips on sporting results on which one is prepared to gamble , and, therefore, loosely, a financial adviser, possibly as dodgy as a Northern Rock lending policy.

9  UNDERTONE - anagram

10 GRACE - G(ood) and race, for people.

12 ETHOLOGIST - anagram of ‘TO’ ‘LT’ ‘HIS’ and ‘EGO’

14 CYPRUS, concealed within the clue.

15 SCHE M ER - the Admiral was Scheer, and Bond

16 SICKERT - the Model referred to is the Model T, and Sicker is not so well in front. He was an EnglishImpressionist painter, and currently has an exhibition at the Courtauld, in London.

18 FULL OF THE JOYS OF SPRING20 RADIOGRAPH. The artist is RA (Royal Academy), DIOgenese was the Cynic, and RAPHael is the forepart of an artist. A radiograph is what you get when you take an X Ray.

25 I TINE RAN T - a tine is a prong of a fork, ‘ran’ is managed, and the whole infiltrating ‘IT’

26 ESS AYER  a feminine form of a profession often ends in ESS, though now Political Correctness means that actresses would rather be known as actors, goodness knows why…and an essayer is one who attempts.

27 GU TL ESS which is guess, the Americanism for ‘think’ around the letters that stand for Thallium. 

Down

1,2 SOUND AND FURY I am confused as to how all the elements of this clue come together. Maybe someone cleverer than I can explain. The long and sad tale refers to the Mouse’s tale in Alice in Wonderland, which Alice misunderstands to be a ‘tail’. The reference to “full of sound and fury (and signifying nothing)” is from Macbeth, where he describes life as  “a tale told by an idiot, full of etc.”So could someone now join those two references together?

3   This refers to a quote from W H Davies, the Tramp Poet of Newport who wrote “What is this life if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare?”‘Many are’  corroborates with ‘c’(100) followed by ‘are’

4   SCOTTISH TERRIER

6   PI GEO NHOLE - anagram of ‘ego’ within ‘pinhole’

7   T SARIS M - Saris are the costumes and TM is Turkmenistan, which used to be part of Russia.

8   RE E NTER - renter around an ‘e’

13  GRUESOMELY - anagram of ‘me + your + legs’

16,22 “(Full of) STRANGE OATHS” is a quote from the Seven Ages of Man speech in ‘As You Like It’. ‘Oaths’ is also an anagram of Athos.

17  CAD DIES - A cad is not a gentleman, dies = succumbs, and caddies are the assistants on golf courses, who carry the player’s clubs.19  (y)OU TRAGE(dy).

23  MEET = come across, and (1 down) sounds like meat, which is a reference to Mercutio’s line ”Thy head is as fun of quarrels as an egg is full of meat”

I have a number of crossword wishes waiting to be carried out by the crossword genie and one of them is for Scorpion puzzles to appear more often. Yes, they are very tough but I find them very satisfying to solve. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed every Scorpion puzzle I’ve solved and this was no exception. Lots of great clues to savour here but, for me, 14d is simply brilliant, and brilliantly simple.

The title - Proceedings - alludes to ‘Carry on’, so this crossword was an entertaining romp down the history of ‘Carry On …….’ films, of which there were twenty-nine original and one compilation made between 1958 and 1978.

We were told that extra letters in the wordplay of most clues, in clue order, would spell out a quotation. Thirty-three of the forty-three clues yielded an extra letter to give the immortal words of Kenneth Williams as Julius Caesar in Carry on Cleo:

Infamy! Infamy! They’ve all got it in for me.

The answers to the remaining ten clues had to be altered thematically. It became apparent that these ten clues generated a word that was one letter different from the subject of a Carry On film, or in one particular case, one letter different from ‘Carry On’ itself.

For example, COBBY was changed to CABBY to give Carry On Cabby and CARPING was changed to CAMPING etc.

The answers to 2 down and 5 down also got adjusted as a consequence of altering the ‘Carry On’ subject, to yield ANIONS and MAIM respectively. All the entries in the grid were real words.

Finally we were asked to highlight one row in the grid. During solving, the plethora of O’s at the left hand end of row 4 seemed to suggest that this would be the row to highlight. With the required adjustment of LATRON to MATRON at the right hand end, we were left with another of Kenneth Williams’ well known phrases:

Ooooooh Matron!

I suspect we could debate how many Os there should be in Oo…oh but the constraints of a crossword allow artistic licence!

Solving time - one evening session, with a little bit of extra time satisfying myself as to the exact positioning of the extra letters in the wordplay. All in all, an excellent celebration of the Carry On era.

An excellent puzzle, with great manipulation of letters in anagrams in many cases to give &lit clues where the whole clue, as well as providing the wordplay, also gives the definition of the answer.   The highish proportion of anagrams made it a reasonably fast solve for me, 22 mins.

* = anagram   < = reversed

ACROSS

1 SATELLITE TOWNS    (Estates will not)*     The first &lit.

12 ENCODES    D (diameter) for R (radius) in encores (repeats).      You know a diameter is twice the length of a radius, don’t you?

13 TR (ACHE) A   art<    The windpipe.

14 STAVE, I think.   This was my last entry, toyed with SOAVE for a bit, but I think it’s a double reference to wood used in barrels and staves in musical bars.

16 APPLE JACK    The Garden of Eden’s temptation

19 FRESCOERS    (socer refs)*    Half-hearted = only one of the cs

20 TITHE    (i = one  tenth less n = number)*     Subtle

25 HO (T SP) TO    tsp = teaspoon(ful)

29 SELF-EXPRESSION      This, if I’ve interpreted it right, refers to Descartes’ famous saying - Cogito ergo sum (Latin) = I think, therefore I am

DOWN

1 AUTOCLAVE    (a cute oval)*    Used in cooking and also in science.

3 E(ng)LAND

6 TEST AMEN T     Another &lit

7 WRATH    hidden

8 SKY LARK

9 LEVEES     (sea-level)* less al(l)    Another excellent &lit

16 AN TIP AS TO

21 E STEEM    Meets<

23 NASA L(middle letter)

24 (An) TWERP

26 TRAMS   smart<