The changeover to the new format for the crosswords, designed to be more user-friendly on smaller screens, seems to have gone fairly smoothly for most people but very unsmoothly for a minority. Looking through the anguished messages from this unhappy minority, it seems as if many of their problems are arising because the large number of devices, apps, printing arrangements and browsers that people are using produces some combinations that can’t accept the new formats properly. I hope that most of these problems can be dealt with shortly. The most common complaint is that the print for the clues is too small and too light to be easily read. I shall report progress on this front in due course. Meanwhile, please keep sending me information about continuing problems that you may be having, together with details of the computer system and program and browser that you are using.
Here, though, is one immediate note. A high proportion of the complaints seems to come when the browser used is Safari. Why this should be is not yet clear but, if you are still having problems and are using Safari, it would be worth trying another browser. Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome, for example, seem to work better.
One common complaint, however, is unfounded. With the new format you can still search the archive. There is more than one entry point. On the left-hand side of the crossword home page you will find two of them: ‘view all crosswords by date’ and ‘search archive’. With the first of these you will get all the puzzles published in the paper and online on any particular day, including those in the Observer on Sundays; with the second you can search by serial number or by type of puzzle, setter and month. (Note that the Guardian Saturday cryptic prize puzzles are filed under ‘prize’, not under ‘cryptic’.) Then, at the bottom of the page, you are also offered the option to ‘Search our archive’, which takes you to the same place. All of this means that you can search the archive back to the dawn of the New Era, defined here as 29 June 1999, with the first Guardian puzzles in the archive being Cryptic No 21,620 and Quick No 9,093.
In addition, at the bottom of the home page, you are offered ‘Crosswords A-Z’, which opens up an alphabetical treasure trove. Most importantly, it allows you to search by setter for all their puzzles that are in the system. There you will find, for example, 24 pages of Araucaria puzzles, 20 set by Rufus and five by Bunthorne (and much else besides). If, under H, you were to select ‘How to solve crosswords’, you would discover a series of weekly pieces of advice by Colin Dexter of Inspector Morse fame, published between September and December 2005, followed (once he had run out of things to say) by weekly pieces from the Guardian crossword editor up to the end of May 2006. My last offering in the series on 29 May began: ‘Conscious of making a rod for my own back, I said that in my last column I would offer some advice to solvers with ambitions to become setters.’ The burden of my song was that the odds are stacked against making it to become a regular setter on a national paper, because (despite the rotten pay) the world is heavily oversubscribed with highly talented crossword setters. However, for those determined to try, I offered a couple of pieces of advice, ending with: ‘Prepare for endless letters of rejection and develop that knack of being persistent – up to but not beyond the point where you become a pain in the neck’.
(Incidentally, if you find the new home page too cluttered, you can simplify it by clicking on any or all of the ‘hide’ buttons at the right-hand side.)
_____
The October Genius (No 148 set by Paul) produced 241 entries by the deadline. The early birds did not get a fair start as there were problems with the puzzle on the first Monday but 23 entries were in by the end of Tuesday 6 October. First was, I think, a newcomer to these lists, ‘manu…’ at hotmail at 11:11, followed by ‘tony’ with yahoo at 11:13.
Congratulations to Fran Grubert from Sale, who is the winner of the October Genius competition.
If you have any technical problems with our crossword service, please email <a userhelp@theguardian.com. If you have any comments or queries about the crosswords, please email crossword.editor@theguardian.com. For Observer crosswords please email crossword.editor@observer.co.uk.
View all comments >