A record-breaking month

Welcome to the crossword email update from guardian.co.uk.

The new Genius is now available at guardian.co.uk/crossword/genius.

The solutions to last month's puzzle can be viewed at guardian.co.uk/crossword/solutions. Congratulations to Brian Piggott from Oxfordshire who is October's winner.

We hope you enjoy our crossword service. If you have any problems with the service, please email subshelp@guardian.co.uk. If you have any comments or queries about the crosswords, please email crossword.editor@guardian.co.uk.

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Either people found Locum's October "all-the-A's" Genius puzzle slightly easier than average or the fact that the crosswords are now freely available is reaching a wider audience. For the number of correct entries for October was an all time record at 398. The first correct entry was timed at 13.51 on Monday October 6 and was from London N14; there were no fewer that 26 in total that day. You may find the November offering a bit harder and something that should keep most people going until Hogmanay is in the pipeline for December.

In passing may I explain why the new Genius puzzle appears on different days each month? It is because the changeover is set for the first Monday of each month and can, therefore, vary between the 1st and the 7th. The deadline for submission floats as well, so you still have a full month to solve each one. The deadline is 23.59 GMT (or UT if you prefer) on the Saturday before the first Monday of the following month. If you are still with me, this means that the deadline can float between the 29th of one month (or, indeed, the 27th if we are talking February) and the 5th of the next.

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Being of an essentially conservative nature, I like anachronisms that hang on long after anyone can remember their original justification. When I first travelled by train you asked for a third class ticket (unless you were the sort of person who bought a first class one). Presumably at some point the railway companies abolished second class tickets (and maybe fourth as well for all I know). It was said that the change was essential because visitors to our shores felt demeaned at having to ask for something third class, when what they felt was only second class. That seemed to me as much bureaucratic nonsense as the argument that our currency had to go decimal because £.s.d was confusing to the same foreigners, who actually just found it quaint. All of this long digression is by way of coming to the point that the address for your technical questions and complaints remains subshelp@guardian.co.uk (not crossword.editor@guardian.co.uk) and I hope that at some future point my successor as crossword editor will resist the suggestion that this has to be changed to something else on the feeble grounds that since 2008 there have no longer been any subscribers to help.

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In this month's Corrections & Clarifications department, I have to apologise for the fact that the clue published in the paper for 26 across in Paul's Saturday puzzle offered an anagram that did not produce the required solution - SAO PAULO. The clue was changed online as soon as the error was pointed out to one that worked, but I hope that hundreds of you were not beating your brains out as a result for the whole of that weekend.

On the other hand, no apology was needed and none was given in response to the flood of complaints about a clue in the Quick crossword for October 11, where "Roman emperor (6)" led to CAESAR. Most of these complaints were more in pity than in anger at the woeful lack of knowledge about ancient history that the clue revealed. But, even if the clue had been "Roman emperor (6,6)", the answer JULIUS CAESAR would have been wrong, for (as we all know) Gaius Julius had not managed to get himself made Emperor by the time that Brutus and the others did for him. But the word count was, in any case, (6) not (6,6) and Caesar was the title given to any Roman emperor, especially those from Augustus to Hadrian.

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One FAQ is whether the Guardian publishes books of and about crosswords. The answer is yes and the list can be seen at guardianbooks.co.uk.

In addition to what is there I can warmly recommend for Christmas a new volume of puzzles by Araucaria, originally published between 1986 and 1991 in the subscription magazine 1 Across. It is published by Chambers (ISBN 978 0550 10409 0).