Crataegus responds to criticism from Chris Philpott

Crataegus, our crossword compiler, responds to previous criticism of the Village Pump crossword

Dear Ray,

I should like to comment on Chris Philpott's E-mail to you concerning the Village Pump crossword. Yes, there have been errors on occasion, not very often, but these are just keystroke errors. The crossword is compiled correctly, following Chambers Dictionary for both word meaning and spelling, and I personally check that the winning entry is correct. I believe that the editor has confessed that any errors are down to him, but then consider the number of mistakes that you see in a newspaper every day - it is just part of the territory.

Going on to the assertion that because of these few errors, how accurate are the articles in the Pump, I have seldom heard such a fatuous and unrelated remark. I would also like to point out that in your E-mail there were at least five spelling mistakes or pieces of bad grammar, so maybe the editor, in future, will have to edit contributions to the Pump more carefully.

Crataegus