A perfectly good puzzle. But there are an increasing number of this level of difficulty. Meaty ones are becoming very few and far between. Fine if they want to encourage new solvers, but: how are they supposed to know it has been dumbed down and made more approachable? The hardest part of this was understanding the preamble, which is where a novice would be put off. Surely a grading system like the Magpie would at least give a hint. Or maybe the preponderance of A (and occasional B) grades would reveal an awkward truth. A bit like real life, I suppose. Or are we all becoming cleverer at a rate of knots? Yep, that must be it