Guest Gemma: Fill in the blanks

 

Mary asked me to write for Beaut Commute and I thought ‘Yay!’.

Then I thought ‘Hmmm… I don’t really commute in a useful way for this blog’, given that the offices I’ve generally spent the most time in down in Wellington are either my own living room, or a two-block walk away. I’m a contractor; whoever gets me, gets the benefit of my commute.

Last year, I did have an office in Auckland that was a little further from home, and, Auckland being Auckland, it would have involved two inconvenient buses to get there. Instead, I shared rides with my production manager, editors, fellow producer, sometimes our presenter, all of whom were guaranteed to have a great story to tell to pass the time.  Car-pooling rules.

Then I thought further. Carbon footprint guilt aside, I’ve flown an awful lot in the past two years. Mainly domestically, for work and for gigs, but several times internationally, for love. Though the international travel will hopefully slim down in the future as I settle into a new life in a big old city with a real train service (and the real New Yorker), for now, domestic flights are still a fact of life for my various careers.

In New Zealand, the longest single flight (Auckland to Dunedin) takes 1 hour and 50 minutes. Most of the rest fall somewhere between 35 mins (Wellington to Nelson) and an hour (Wellington to Auckland). It’s not really long enough to do much. By the time you’ve waited for the seatbelt light to go off, the turbulence to settle down and the cuppa and biscuit, you’ll have run out of time to do much more than scan a short script, write half a set-list or listen to Act One of This American Life.  

All of which are fine pursuits.

However. After years of experimentation with these journeys, I’ve figured out the single best use of time on a domestic New Zealand flight.

Crosswords.

Cryptic crosswords, preferably.

There’s really nothing as satisfying as sitting above the clouds, chewing the end of a pen, wondering which letters in a clue have been muddled, mixed, cooked, chewed, unsettled or organised into an anagram.

It’s especially satisfying when the crossword is in a recycled newspaper that you’ve rescued from the large bins that sit in the air-bridge just before boarding. And this, ladies and gents, is my special secret tip. Across the country, every morning, there are people with lounge privileges who sweep through, grab their free paper, read half a section of it before falling asleep over the Cabinet papers they were supposed to be reading on the way to Parliament or wherever, only to chuck the entire newspaper in the bin at the end of the journey.

Don’t let them go to waste! Get in there, rifle around until you find the sections you need, and you’re away laughing and $1.80 richer.

My favourites are the NZ Herald Cryptic and Code Cracker, and the Dominion Post’s 9-Letter, which appeals to the anagrammist within me. (Is there such a thing as anagrammist? Ooh, how about anagramazon?)

I’m not a Sudoku gal, so I tend to share that page with somebody who is (there’s always somebody who is, so be generous). But I loooove the Code Cracker, when the Cryptic is just getting a little hard, or stupid. (Yup, cryptic crosswords do have stupid, unchallenging clues from time to time.) Filling in the Code Cracker blanks has an appeal on a par with getting a really, really wrinkly shirt into shape with a deliciously hot iron.

Recently, something happened that I’m not sure I like the idea of. The NZ Herald’s puzzles turned up online. I went online to have a crack at them, and I’m not convinced. For starters, the Code Cracker already had the first two letters filled out across the puzzle. There goes the pleasure of that little job. The Crossword, on the other hand, was a breeze. I can never seem to do the straight ‘synonym’ crosswords on paper, but online it took me less than five minutes to finish one. But this is partly because the squares change colour as you go (yellow if the letter is wrong, blue if it’s right). This all seems a bit cheat-y.

But not quite as cheat-y as the Dominon Post, which provides the answers to its daily (synonym) crossword online,on the day the crossword comes out!

Call me old-fashioned (go on!), but I reckon if you can call up the answers on the day of the puzzle, there’s no fun in it for anyone.

Which is why doing crosswords on airplanes is great, because even with your fancy-pants iPhones and Blackberries, you have to switch to ‘flight mode’, making the answers inaccessible. So you might as well get your hand in that recycle bin, ask the air steward for a pen, and do it the old-fashioned way.

And thankfully, neither the Herald nor the DomPost’s cryptic crosswords are online yet. So you’re going to have to reach for the pen anyway.

Gemma G 

Gemma Gracewood is a writer, film and television producer, musician with the Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra and anagramazon. 

 

Comments

[financial spread betting]

I find that people watching is the best thing to do on a commute. It is interesting to find out about them.

[Cass Hesom-Williams]

I took a book of cryptic crosswords on my trip to Egypt/Europe a year or so back and it was an absolute godsend on the plane. And I didn't manage to finish it either (nowhere close!) so now every time I dip in to it, I remember sitting on a lush green lawn overlooking hills and forest in the south of France puzzling over a clue that, not being intimately acquainted with The Bible, I was never going to get.

[Rachael King]

I love the way you can agonise over a cryptic late into the night, put it by your bed and finish it when you wake up - a different part of your brain works in the morning.

[Marianne @ Zen Peacekeeping]

I like the idea of activities for carpooling commuters. I spy, anyone?

[Ruth Quibell]

I'm not a great flyer, but a crossword sounds like a terrific way to keep my mind off the ground way below. I can't believe I've never tried it. Thanks for the tip.