Well the trip home from Oslo was a lot less eventful than the trip over, but I got back at midnight Friday. Norway is not a puzzling country—at least not in the sense we use “puzzling” around this blog. I looked through several of the local newspapers at breakfast time (waffles with berries, hash browns and bacon, and crispbread with ham and cheese or salmon), and found only a few crosswords. While sudoku might be a worldwide phenomenon, it’s not as universal as it is in other countries. One paper had a daily sudoku, another had one of the simplified 6 by 6 sudokus, and the third had no puzzles at all.
The first of those three papers was the only one with any crosswords: it was of the European style with clues squeezed into the unused boxes instead of black squares. Since I know virtually no Norwegian, I didn’t try any of their crosswords. I did try and sing in church, but that’s another story.
The Nation puzzle 3,367 was waiting when I got home. What a fine example: a theme, some clever wordplay, and plenty of clues that take some work to solve.
Link to puzzle: http://www.thenation.com/article/210273/puzzle-no-3367
Degree of difficulty (by standards of this weekly puzzle): hard
Agility factor: high (and rewarding)
This week’s cluing challenge (share your clues in the comments): a two-parter—OSLO and NORWAY: clue either of them or even both!
Back with the solution and annotation on Monday.
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