Crossword editor’s desk: seven days of puzzles a week, kicking off on Sundays

A slight rejig of the crosswording week means you won’t go a day without a challenge

Not so long ago, we moved the quiptic – the Guardian’s “puzzle for beginners and those in a hurry” – so that it appears on Sundays. We had no way of knowing it at the time but this has recently proved to be a boon as the subsequent departure of the Observer’s puzzles to their new home left us confronting the unacceptable possibility of there being a horrible day when a new puzzle does not appear at this site, in our app and so on. Not on my watch!

So now the quiptic has an extra role: our crosswording week in effect begins – in gentle mood – on a Sunday. Incidentally, sometimes solvers remark that such-and-such a puzzle is “actually harder than this week’s prize”. It is entirely possible for this to happen. A solver who only has the time to tackle a puzzle at the weekend should not always have to deal with that week’s most beastly crossword. A Saturday puzzle might be tricky; it might also be witty, or timely or charming in some other way. But not always the week’s knottiest challenge.