From the New Year we will start to cover the advanced cryptic puzzles that appear on a Saturday in the Independent Weekend Magazine. These puzzles are edited by Mike Laws and are generally easier than the Listener or Enigmatic Variations puzzles but a bit harder than a plain barred crossword so they’re ideal if you want to start exploring the world of special advanced cryptics. A review of a recent puzzle, “Squares” will appear on the 22^nd of Dec as a taste of things to come.

Another amazing tour de force by Virgilius, whose weekly Indy puzzles usually have a theme.

This time (1) all the sixteen perimeter cells contain the letter F (2) there are seven rows and seven columns with entries.    In each one the first entry begins with F and the last entry ends in F.    The only “non-F words” are the central ones in the middle column and row.     Incredible!

Solving time:   19 mins.        Theme came fairly quickly.

 * = anagram

ACROSS 

6  ALF    alfalf(a) is the fodder crop which ALF ”repeatedly” “makes most of”

9 FAUNA    “fawn” + A      Fauna are all animals listed  cf flora for plants

10  WINDSURF   Thought about this and especially whether “on board” indicated container wordplay.    Knowing nothing about windsurfing, I think the whole clue is a definition of what it comprises.

17  GOOF (Foolish error)  “Almost” GO OF(f)  = explode

23  FOLLOWER  Liked this with a good surface reading, suggesting a compromise. O = old + L = left in FLOWER (elite i.e. the best)

25  STAFF   Double definition, but thought “use” should have been in past tense as that’s history now.

27  FA(i)L   River familiar to solvers     Bomb used here in the sense of “fail” in the cryptic reading - originally American slang.    The I is “dumped”

DOWN

2   FEMALE    (ME) ”turning over” i.e. reversed in a down clue in (LEAF)* .    The wording seems the opposite to the natural order, but that’s OK in a crossword, I think.    F is an abbreviation for Female and this is used in the next clue.

3  F  -  abbreviation for FEMALE (2) or FORTE (8) + LAW = rule

4  FAR NORTH   The Arctic Regions.     Favourite clue, with misleading context of the hit parade.

8  FORTE     Got this from 3 above.     It means loud (music) opposite to soft (p= piano) that we see more often in crosswords.    Don’t understand “Like a couple in song” - reference to some tune, I guess, but I’ve little doubt about the answer in the context of this puzzle.

13  HEART(s)     Double context of playing cards and football.    Heart of Midlothian is  Scottish football team based in Edinburgh, usually known as Hearts, so s = second is sent off.

16  AARDWOLF   An African mammal of the hyena family, feeding mainly on termites, if you want to know.     Glad the “easy clue to a hard word” policy was followed here as, unlike AARDVARK, which, as the first word in the dictionary, companies have used to get to the top of lists sorted in ABC order, I’d never heard of this one.   It’s (A WORD)* in ALF (6 across) 

18  OFF OF   (I think)     Maybe the constraints of the puzzle were pushing Virgilius to the edge, but I think it’s clear enough from the clue - and I’ve heard it used (and corrected!)

24  RUFF   As a non-bridge player, had to verify this.    (RUFF appears frequently in advanced crosswords, but usually as a bird.)     It means trumping using a different suit so e.g. diamond winning over a heart.     All this going with an excellent surface reading suggesting an entirely different romantic context.

26  AS OF   Definition:   Since (with effect from a certain time)    SOFA with the A (article) lifted to the top.

I thought that this puzzle was quite tough for a Tuesday morning, or maybe my brain is starting to wind down for the festive season.  As usual. Paul demonstrated some clever wordplay, but he does take some liberties with the definitions in a couple of his clues.

 Solving time - 22 minutes

 ACROSS

1 - SUNFLOWER STATE - Kansas’s nickname and “Sunflowers” Tate may be a gallery for Van Gogh’s work.

8  - OXBOW - O(X)BOW where O=”old”.  Bow is a district in the East End of London.  An oxbow lake is a lake formed when a bend in a river becomes separated from the river by falling water levels.  I liked “where treasure found” for X.

11 - MELDREW - ME(L)DREW  Victor Meldrew, the curmudgeonly character from BBCs “One Foot in the Grave”, whose catchphrase was “I don’t believe it!”

15 - GERMICIDE - anagram of “regime” with CID infiltrating.

17  - TRIATOMIC - chemical description of water guessed at by the wordplay (anagram of “it to air” absorbing “m” at “c”)

23 - ARBITER - I suppose a savage dog would be a “biter”

26 - THROW - In cricket, a throw is an illegal delivery where the bowler bends his elbow beyond the allowed angle, also known as “chuck”

27 - PLASTIC SURGERY - loved this clue

DOWN

1 - STORMY PETREL - Don’t like “what might go woof” as a definition for petrol, but a clever clue otherwise.

4 - WYSIWYG - What You See is What You Get

7 - TEST DRIVE - Another reference to cricket.  A drive is a firm shot, normally with a straight bat, and a test match is scheduled to last five days, although not all matches last that long.  And a first spin (in a car) would be a test drive.  Clever.

10 - CREEPY CRAWLY - C(REEP=peer rev.)Y CRAWLY.  CY is clued by “deserted city” indicating that there is nothing in city.  Personally, I don’t like it, but some people don’t mind stretching the imagery a bit.  CRAWLY sounds like Crawley, a town in West Sussex.

16 - INCUBATOR - IN CUBA followed by TOR (hill) - the pedant in me would prefer “Where Castro is”.

18 - MARTINI - again the pedant in me would say that a martin and swallow are similar, but not the same.  However, setters require some licence and this is an example where that licence makes the surface better.

19 - COAL GAS - ALGA = “main thing”entering COS (island).  COS is a common crossword island, along with MAN, SKYE, MULL etc, and MAIN more often than not indicates something to do with the sea, but, in my opinion, “main thing” is a weak clue for ALGA.  It is too general.

24 - THREE - is the “should” necessary?