Agreed that this was a relatively easy but well-clued.

Every time an English county comes up I shudder (having never even set foot there) but I got this one (DERBYSHIRE) without assistance

Thanks to Armonie and scchua

My perception from comments on this site is that some people can find a particular puzzle hard whilst other say it was easy. Also, my own experience is that puzzles from the same setter can vary widely so far as degree of difficulty is concerned, though a few setters do seem to be consistently at the harder end of the spectrum and others at the easier one.

There have also been comments on this site to the effect that “why does the ‘Setters’ page say this setter is hard when this puzzle was so easy?”, and vice versa. A further complication is that a setter can change with time. A few months ago I solved a Nimrod that originally appeared some years ago and the difference in level of difficulty compared with his current offerings was like chalk and cheese.

I therefore decided to remove the very subjective ‘difficulty’ indicator and instead to provide links to Michael Curl’s excellent Crossword Who’s Who which I felt would be of more use.

I have just looked back at the old ‘Setters’ page and found that Armonie was listed as ‘easy’ and Chifonie ‘hard’.

Gaufrid, this seemed surprisingly easy for an Armonie or maybe my recollection is poor. Anyway, it prompted me to look for the listing of setters by difficulty, which I thought I’d seen previously on this site (on the aforementioned ‘Setters’ page), but without luck. Are you able to point me in the right direction? Thanks.

Because, as indicated in the ‘Setters’ page, they are one and the same person.

This was very enjoyable and thoroughly Armonious.

However, I do keep wondering why this setter’s style reminds me so much of The Grauniad’s Chifonie.