One of the real pleasures of being your crossword editor is learning something new (and even often interesting) almost every day that passes. The setter of Quick crossword No 13,906 (3 December) wrote this clue for BASS GUITAR: 'Low pitched, electrically amplified six-stringed instrument (4,6)'. Did I not know that the bass guitar is a four-stringed instrument, came to cry.
As a matter of fact I obviously didn't, but I was quite ready to admit the mistake and to correct it in the archive. However, I thought that, not having checked the original clue, I ought to check the correction. As a result I now know that, though the overwhelming majority of bass guitars sold and played do indeed have four strings, it is also possible to buy a 5- and 6-string version (online, if you want, here or here).
According to the Wikipedia entry for the bass guitar, 8- and 12-string models have been built and I am grateful for Perry M. for the further information that 10- and 15-string versions also exist. Not a lot of people know this.
The outcome of my extensive research was that the readers' editor, in drafting the 'Correction and clarification' published in the paper on 5 December, very kindly inserted the word 'usually' into the phrase 'Bass guitars have four strings, not six'.
Last month I apologised to Reading for the wounding error of allowing it to be described as a city in a Paul Cryptic clue for 18 October (No 26,394, 4 down). For some inexplicable reason, the largest conurbation in Berkshire, with two Members of Parliament, three railway stations and a university, is still just a town.
In doing so, I expressed surprise that such an ancient place had not yet received civic preferment, when others like Brighton and Hove (in 2000) and Preston (in 2002) had done so, asserting that such nouveaux cities did not even have a cathedral or an abbey, whereas Reading has a fine abbey, founded by Henry I in 1121.
But I made the mistake of adding Chelmsford to that list. So now I now also apologise to Chelmsford because, though it did not become a city until 2012, its parish church of St Mary the Virgin was upgraded to cathedral status a century ago in 1914, when the new Anglican diocese of Chelmsford was carved out from the then diocese of St Albans. Not a lot of people know that either.
Here is advance notice that the special Christmas Cryptic, set by Maskarade, will be published on Saturday 20 December, with the solutions and the names of the winners appearing on Friday 2 January.
And here are two other Christmas/New Year-related cryptic crossword delights. First, Eric Westbrook and his team of over 30 volunteers have combined to produce another 3D Calendar Puzzle for 2015 in aid of the BBC Children in Need Appeal and the RNIB Pears Centre for Specialist Learning. The calendar has a cryptic clue for every day of the year, plus competition puzzles for each month of the year, leading to someone being crowned the BBC CiNA 3D Crossword Champion for 2015. The puzzles have been set by, amongst others, Enigmatist, Nutmeg, Pasquale, Puck, Rufus and Tramp from the Guardian and Everyman from the Observer. Eric's software guru has also produced a program, free to download, that allows totally blind solvers access to the puzzles. Both the puzzle calendar and the program can be found at http://calendarpuzzles.co.uk/index.htm
The second is connected with Araucaria (John Graham). For several years his brother, Stephen Graham, has set a cryptic puzzle to raise funds for charity. This year, in memory of Araucaria, the proceeds will be going to Médecines Sans Frontières. To download the puzzle and to make a donation, go to https://www.justgiving.com/quiz-2014/
Incidentally, if you read about the Araucaria puzzle (No 26,427) that we published on 26 November, the first anniversary of his death, in Alan Connor's article in G2 that day or in his crossword blog, a photograph of the grid for it that John Graham filled out in pencil while in hospital can be seen by clicking on the reference at the bottom left-hand corner of the Guardian crossword homepage.
November's Genius (No 137 set by Qaos) was clearly a problem for those of our regulars who are not familiar with the concept of a basic 'Caesar cipher' code, based on alphabetical letter shifts (see my attempt to explain how it worked here). However, there were 16 correct entries on the first day and 129 by the deadline. The first three in were regulars: Dave H, Tony (demon) and PSC from Queeensland. But 'id28 … .eu' was hot on their heels.
Congratulations to Marj MacGregor from South Australia, who is the winner of the November Genius puzzle.
We hope you enjoy our crossword service. If you have any technical problems with it, please email userhelp@theguardian.com . If you have any comments or queries about the crosswords, please email crossword.editor@guardianunlimited.co.uk . For Observer crosswords please crossword.editor@observer.co.uk .
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