Friday, August 20, 2004

A mother's curse

It must be three years since I worked for more than two weeks in the same location. And nearly 20 (I've just checked my CV, 18, in fact) since I commuted by public transport on a daily basis. Now I am rediscovering one of the joys (honest!) of public transport. I get time to do The Times crossword on a regular basis. Crosswords are a vice I inherited from my mother.

This morning I polished off the easy crossword in the eight minutes between Wandsworth Town and Vauxhall and about a third of the main crossword on the 521 bus from Waterloo to Cannon Street. Mind you the competition winners polish off the hard version in just over four minutes so I have a way to go. Reminds me of the old joke "Q. What is pink and hard in the morning? A. The Financial Times crossword."

Anyhow, in the intervening years I discovered I could amuse myself by looking at the cars in front of me on the M3 and trying to fit words to the last three letters of the registration number. If I could use the prefix letter as well that was a bonus. I told my mother about this and some months later she muttered imprecations along the lines of "Curse you, number one son, ever since then I cannot stop trying to make words to fit number plates!"

1 comment:

Rosa said...

Too funny! Yes, all the years traveling with the hub, I never once picked up his copy (or even one hanging from those lovely "hangers" in hotel lobbies) to skim through. "Who woulda thunk?" I'm now onto the FT though. Isn't it ironic, both our posts are about mothers? Must be the pink.