Cross words over crossword. That's my lame way of making light of a production difficulty we encountered in last week's issue.

Without going into any finite details a wrongly positioned advertisement obliterated the answers to the previous week's crossword clues. My apologies for any inconvenience this caused readers, especially those who contacted us last Friday to point out the error.

The page is checked before the advertisements are electronically called onto the page. At that stage the answers were in position.

Unfortunately when the adverts were applied one had been planned in the wrong columns and...zap it covered the answers. Human error!

The interesting issue the error has raised is that it has given us the confirmation we needed about the popularity of the crossword. We are currently planning changes - for the better - to this newspaper and the positioning of the crossword is one of them.

Your calls have been of great assistance in the decision making process. Whatever the outcome the crossword will still occupy a prominent position on an outside page.

It is all part and parcel of the plans we are making here in preparation for the new presses being installed in our press room. It is a multi-million pound project and when completed we will be able to reap huge benefits in quality and style of product. I'll keep you posted.

Another apology - this time to the world's most successful treasure hunter - Keighley's one and only Keith Jessop.In last week's issue we wrongly stated his aged as 66. Keith called me to tell me he is only 64-years-old. My head is hung with shame on both counts.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.