Apologies for the problems you all experienced yesterday in trying to reach the blog - it was out of action for pretty much for the whole day. Unfortunately the problem was at the server end, that is, with the company that hosts the site rather than with the blog itself, so there was nothing I could do to fix things, which was somewhat frustrating. I’m now trying to find out from the hosting company what the problem actually was and if it was solved satisfactorily.

Neil

Following on from the non-appearance of a post on an Araucaria puzzle this week, we’re going to start using placeholders. This is how it will work:

• Either a full post or a placeholder will appear  by 3.30pm. That’s your cue to start commenting. If a comment is made on another post asking after the whereabouts of either the post or the placeholder it will be deleted.  The same goes for questions/comments about clues for other puzzles.
• If a full post has not appeared by around 7pm-ish, it will be considered fair game for anyone to post a blog of their own - I will edit the placeholder at the time to confirm this. If you’re not on the blogging team then your blog will have to appear as a comment but this has happened a couple of times in the past and it seemed to work ok. All I ask is that if you plan to write something of your own, you let everyone else know in a comment so that we don’t have more than one person writing about the same puzzle.
• This will apply to all puzzles, not just the Guardian.
• That’s it.

We’ll see how it goes and have a rethink if it doesn’t work. I’ll turn this post into a permanent page (like the Bloggers, Setters and FAQ pages) so that it’s always available for people to read.

Can I also just say thanks to muck and Beermagnet for providing a blog to the Araucaria puzzle yesterday.

Neil

http://picasaweb.google.com/fifteensquared

Edit:  as Rishi points out in his comments, the photos could do with some captions to identify who’s who. Anyone can add a comment to any photo so if you recognise someone or if you’re in a photo then feel free to add your own caption. Be nice though. 

…to all of our readers. Thanks for all your help, support and encouragement in 2007 - we couldn’t have done it without you.

 We’ll aim to blog every day next week except the 25th so do drop by if the festivities get too much for you. Indy solvers will be pleased to hear that nmsindy will be again be producing his review of the year’s puzzles so keep an eye out for that.

Neil 

There’s an article on cryptic crosswords and the competition they face from <affects disdainful look> Sudoku in the Independent today:

 http://news.independent.co.uk/media/article3255986.ece

It’s a bit depressing really.