Prize Puzzle from the Monday February 28 Financial Times
Falcon’s clues today were all cleanly written; many had particularly clever or smooth surfaces (11 across, 13 across), but some were a bit odd (28 across). The clue of the day was easily the entertaining 16 down.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | BEACH BUGGY BEACH (strand) BUGGY (crazy, American) |
| 7 | ERGO hidden in MothER GOose |
| 9 | DONE homophone of John DONNE |
| 10 | REVELATION E[nglish] V[ersion] in RELATION (member of the family) |
| 11 | PICKLE PICK (best) L[eft] E (close to “plate”) |
| 12 | TROMBONE *(ROBOT MEN) |
| 13 | INSECURE IN (at home) + CUR (vicious dog) in SEE |
| 15 | I-SPY I + SPY (spot) Not terribly cryptic. |
| 19, 17 | ANYTHING GOES *(SONG IN THE GAY) |
| 22 | WELL DONE dd |
| 23 | LILACS I (current) in S[on] CALL (ring), all reversed |
| 25 | SEALING WAX SEALING (homophone of “ceiling” = maximum) WAX (increase) |
| 26 | ILSA hidden in devIL’S Advocate |
| 27 | AGED DEGA[s] (French artist, almost), reversed |
| 28 | OZYMANDIAS [d]OZY (“stupid,” losing head) MAN (vassal) + SAID (repoted) reversed |
| Down | |
| 2 | ETONIAN E[astern] + *(NATION) |
| 3 | CHECK dd |
| 4 | BORDEAUX dd |
| 5 | GIVE THE GAME AWAY d&cd |
| 6 | YELLOW “If struck,” one may YELL “OW” |
| 7 | ESTABLISH *(STABLE) + I’S (one’s) H (“horses,” only initially) |
| 8 | GROWN-UP W[oma]N (heartless woman) in GROUP (class) |
| 14 | EASILY LED *(AIDE YELLS) |
| 16 | DYSLEXIA *(DAILY SEX); regarding the definition, another word for dyslexia is “word blindness” |
| 18 | OVER-EGG OVER (about) E.G. (for example) |
| 20 | NICOSIA *(COIN IS A) |
| 21 | BORNEO BORNE (carried) O (round) |
| 24 | LAIRD cd |
Yes, Agentzero, a nice puzzle and an extraordinary Clue of the Day: as you said, DYSLEXIA (16d).
For those who can’t remember the clue:
“Vigorous daily sex may result in a form of blindness”.
Stunning!
Solved all bar 21d and 28a and thought there were some good clues . I could have got 28a from a solver but didn’t see the point. Hard clue I think.