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xij - I too wondered initially if the answer to the last riddle should have an s in the external cell but the wording of the riddle does not require it. Indeed that cell needs to be occupied by you.
Also (minor quibble) anybody - including convicts - can make entries in the answer.

Now I’m really confused drxx. The preamble says “ending up in one of the blank external cells”. Surely an S must go in there, otherwise you’re still in the room. Unless the line just goes out, is that the answer.

Thank you drxx, that’s helped me move things on considerably.

Sorry, crossed over. Thanks smithsax, that makes sense.

There's only one letter travelling through the grid on its way out, xij - the letter U (the riddles plot its route from start to finish).

Re: the comments about Answerbank, where I post on the Listener thread pretty well every week. I, for one, visit neither AB nor here until I have completed the puzzle. If I get totally stuck and need a hint from here for a tricky endgame I always say so when I post on AB.

I think that the reason that Listener posts are slower to appear on AB than before is that many of us realised that starting a thread at 5.30 pm UK time on Friday sends a message of "I've finished already, aren't I clever!" I often wait for someone else to start a thread for that reason, and I'm fairly sure others do the same. I could have started a thread at when I finished this puzzle at 6.00 pm UK time this Friday, but I felt that was unseemly haste and waited until the next day to start the thread.

It doesn't help that Answerbank search is useless and sometimes two or three threads get started before any of them show up in a search. I've been caught out a few times by that and, to save embarrassment, I often wait until a thread does show up before posting.

Obviously I can't speak for other posters there, but I certainly don't feel any sense of superiority over the contributors to this site or anyone else.

Loge.. I am in complete agreement with you. I don’t post on AB, having looked at it over the years and thinking contributors were unbearably smug. Only recently joined this forum when in desperate need of a nudge that was sports related. Like you, I (actually we) prefer to have finished before looking at this site. A fine line then has to be drawn between helping too much or sitting back and watching solvers go down blind alleys. Being magnanimous today as it’s my birthday. Stay safe

Sorry loge, but I'm struggling with the idea of modesty when you throw out a typical 5-30pm Friday finish time for a Listener and then add on a mere half hour for finishing this quite tricky puzzle (I posted around 9-00pm having started the puzzle shortly after it came online).
Anyway - well done either way.

Thanks for the reply, Simple Simon. What you say about the fine line is absolutely right. I signed up here in March, after being a long-time lurker, to put people out of their misery on Guardian Genius 201 (the Victor Borge one). It just happened that I did the puzzle on the one day of the year my brain works properly, and managed to finish the puzzle after MUCH frustration. I thought it only right to offer some hints on that one. I take the same approach here with the barred puzzles,; if I've got something and it looks like nobody else has, I'll chip in with a hint. That's seldom necessary as there are some excellent solvers here who usually get there well before I do!

I find my fellow posters on AB very pleasant company these days, and I think that any smugness that might have existed has long gone. I've never understood the antagonism that sometimes is evident between the two sites. As I see it the AB Listener section is a way of giving feedback to the setters, whereas here people who share a common interest can help each other when needed.

I see the AB comments as a bit like book reviews - to state one's enjoyment (or otherwise) of the puzzle without giving anything away. That's why I no longer read Amazon book reviews before the book itself, because there's always someone who writes something like "I really didn't like the way it was the butler whodunnit". On the other hand, if I don't understand a plot point in a book I go to sites where the story is discussed in detail, which is (sort of) analogous to the service this site provides.

Drxx - I assure you I wasn't boasting about my finish time for this puzzle, merely trying to back up the points I was making. On reflection I realise that probably wasn't the best way to go about it!