A real pleasure for a crossword editor is the way that one gets led down totally unexpected paths. I asked here recently how long we could go on using the crossword conventions that ‘ship’ = SS and that wording in a clue such as ‘on board’ indicates that one S should go at the front and the other S at the back of a solution. But I knew for a fact that SS stands for steamship. How wrong I was.

A steamship (or steamer) is (or was) an ocean-going vessel propelled by one or more steam engines, driving paddlewheels or propellers (screws). These ships were designated as either PS (paddle steamship) or SS (screw steamship). As PSs disappeared, it became popularly assumed that SS stood for steamship, an error that I have perpetrated, man and boy, ever since I started going down to the sea in ships. Now, of course, almost all shipping is driven by internal combustion engines of one sort of another and so they are MVs (motor vessels). I doubt whether there is a single ocean-going vessel still afloat in a seaworthy condition that is an SS.

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You may remember the Saturday prize puzzle No 27,046 (19 November 2016), set by Arachne, Nutmeg and Puck under the joint nom de plume of Bogus. It marked World Toilet Day and invited donations to a charity bringing clean water and safe sanitation to people lacking them in the 12 poorest countries in Africa and Asia (www.toilettwinning.org). The charity has just told us that £3,432 of the donations made since that date specifically mentioned that they were being made because of that puzzle. As Sir John Major might say, that it ‘not an inconsiderable amount’, for it can provide a single toilet for £60, or a school toilet block for £240.

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December’s Genius No 162 by Enigmatist produced 31 entries on the first day and 256 by the deadline. PSC from Australia was first in again at 03:46, followed by PC3542 at 04:18 and m1f at 04:52.

The January Genius No 163 by Qaos got off to a very slow start because of a system failure, for which I apologise and which must have been very frustrating for the waiting night owls. Eventually, the first in was a newcomer, DR in New Zealand at 09:43. SC@btinternet would have been second at 11:46, but for a slip in filling in the wrong solution for 26 across. So the second correct entry was from PSC in Australia at 11:55. There were 20 entries on the first day and 213 by the end. As some of you pointed out, there was an ambiguity in the word to enter for 9 across: ‘One suggesting expert puzzle?’ produced PROPOSER, but there were then alternative two-letter symbols for chemical elements that might be removed: Os for osmium or Po for polonium, leading respectively to PROPER or PROSER (to be found in both Chambers and Collins as a person who writes prose), either of which fitted into the grid. The great majority went for PROPER, but both solutions were accepted as correct.

While on the subject of the Genius puzzle, it is accepted that a less clunky way of entering each month than the existing online form is devoutly to be wished. However, in the present tough financial climate for newspapers, I have to be straight and say that there is no indication of this item on the crossword ‘wish list’ coming over the horizon any time soon. (The same, I fear, is the case with the wish to make it possible to enter online for the weekly Saturday prize Cryptic, as well as by post and fax.) So, as the ‘provisional’ is likely to endure for some time, may I make these points?

a) Solutions entered in the form should be the words as they are required to be entered in the grid, ie if the required solution reads backwards or is gobbledegook for some other reason, that is how it should be entered.

b) It matters not if spaces or hyphens are include or left out, nor whether Shakespeare, say, is written as Bard, bard or BARD.

c) The software for filling in the form is standard for most such online operations, ie hitting the ‘enter’ key tells the system that you are finished. In our case, pressing it will send your entry form off smartly to the Guardian. If you want just to move to the next box to be filled in, you should use the space alignment key (usually to be found on the left-hand side or your keyboard), or else move your cursor to the next box and click.

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