FT 12,762/ Viking – Do you Bant?

After slogging my way through yesterday’s Monk puzzle last night, I was expecting much easier fare today.  However, this one was no cakewalk either, and I had to use the world of Wiki to justify what was initially an optimistic guess on my part at 12A.

Across
1 THE,O(RISE)D
6 SPECS – double def’n
9 MOOLA – A,LOOM(rev)
10 (-u)NEARTHING – a little bit of a cliche, but I needed Viking to throw me a couple of bones to get started.
11 ELEMENTARY – one of those clues where I suspect you either tumble on the solution immediately, or else have to wait for full checking.  Count me in the latter camp.
12 BA(N)T – I had to confirm the definition of “diet” online… Do you Bant?
15 M(IS,F)ILE – another neat and well-engineered clue.
20 (-t)HICK
22 ASTON,I,SHED – ref A. Villa, those sporting titans of the West Midlands (1874-1982)
26 GREBE – E,BERG(Rev)

Down
1 TE(MP)E – Arizona resort town.
2 EX,ONE,RATE – concise, simple but still tricky.
4 SENATOR – seer with NATO for E(nergy).
6 SAT,I – a variant of Suttee, self-immolation.
7 EVITA – it’s a beheaded reversal of either dative (or sedative?).  The latter fits better with “number”, but less so with “missing original”.
8 SIGH, TREAD
13 A,S(PIR)INGLY – a good plausible surface.
14 FRIGHT,FUL – “journey” = flight (with directional switch of L to R).
21 CARE,T – a.ka the circumflex, ^, “hat” etc
23 D(-u)RESS