Cassowary Crossing

In 1901, Australian women were entitled to vote for the first time.

In 2008, Kevin Rudd PM said sorry to indigenous Australians for years of anguish.

Last year, David Hicks was freed from Guantanamo Bay.

And this morning, once more prompted by the will of the Australian people, the Fairfax crosswords have been returned to their customary slots. 

In the SMH at least. (Sweeping social reforms take a little while to implement.) Look for a matching abidance in The Age possibly by next week. Soon at least. Clear evidence of the majority speaking, and those at the levers, listening.

To say the uproar verged on jihad is a little purple, but not so remote. One letter I received through the editor’s desk complained of his entire drinking cycle being put out, since he always tried to keep his liver clean on Thursday night in order to preserve a sober mind for Friday’s challenge. Now, he wrote, with the DA puzzle in the weekend papers, he was looking at early cirrhosis.

Something had to happen. Such pathos, such umbrage, such forlorn scenarios, were not in isolation. 

Office bees were out of kilter. Pub think-tanks. Blogs and forums. Entire marriages. And that’s just the positive stuff. The flipside entailed the many thousands who once took a singular pleasure in wrangling with DS as the prize challenge on Saturday. Their grief on losing this ritual was equally loud, if not louder, and so today the levers were thrown.

I hope most solvers can forgive the experiment. The Herald had a theory, pairing my new Saturday column with the same writer’s puzzle, but the theory had a few holes, safe to say. Wordplay, the column remains in situ, a chance to celebrate this loony inheritance we own for a language, as well as exploring the treachery of solving and setting crosswords. (No word yet on whether The Age will pick it up, but fingers Xed.)

To say the switch caused a few grey hairs among the setters is certainly not purple. In fact, solving between the lines of this week’s DA, whenever the puzzle arrives at your door, you’ll see a certain theme emerging that tries to capture a little of the recent quandary.

In the meantime, the deckchairs restored, the Saturday prize reinstated, the Friday gnash-fest honoured, enjoy your unravelling.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 18th, 2009 at 11:59 am and is filed under Crosswords. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.