The new "verification" word system seems to have resulted in genuine comments being diverted to spam–I only just discovered this.  I've just approved nearly a half-dozen comments, at least one from a good ten days ago.  I've turned off 'verification' for now, but if there's a massiv einflux of real spam again, I may need to put it back on.  Apologies for the inconvenience to those whose comments were delayed.