Oh dear...

[venta]

Today, some generous commuter had left me the whole of the Times, spread all over one of the few free seats on the (delayed, of course) train I caught at Oxford.

I couldn't face reading any more about Cherie Blair, so went straight to the crosswords. Couldn't quite finish the quick one, and had only got two words in the cryptic one by the time I got to Reading. Now that I don't have Felix ringing me up all hours of the day, asking me about the clues he's stuck on, I seem to have quite lost the ability to do crosswords.

The bus to work, at the Reading end, was afflicted with a very piercing "Something's Wrong" alarm. It was sufficiently inspecific that the driver had to walk round for about five minutes, checking assorted fire exits, doors, and mysterious things that went clunk before he identified the cause. When the beep started, it was a loud, irritating beep. Once I looked down at the newspaper on my knee, it became a differently-toned, acutely painful beep. I looked up, it became merely loud again.

Now, I know hearing is directional, and all, but I'm surprised at the extent of the effect. I don't believe I move my head fast enough to get the Doppler effect...

On the plus side, opposite me on the bus was a Sikh gentleman with the most fantastic moustache, waxed into enormous curls.

Comments

[ealuscerwen.livejournal.com]

I used to work on the bar at Linacre during lunchtimes, and with the regulars there tried to do the Times easy crossword. We never, ever finished it, which is quite embarrassing for four or five graduate students. In fact, our general knowledge en masse was so appalling that we needed to go and ask a botanist or a biologist whenever we needed to know about a plant.

So - almost finishing the crossword all by yourself is an impressive achievement!!

Eal.

[jiggery-pokery.livejournal.com]

Two words in a Tuesday cryptic is a reasonably good day for me. Think I got about six in a Telegraph Monday once...

Can't help with the hearing, but wouldn't mind knowing the answer when you find it out. Sorry!

[fluffymark]

The hearing thing sounds a little odd. Directional hearing has no effect on the volume, as far as I know. The best explanation I can come up with is that of constructive/destructive interference pattern being set up. If the sound was reflecting off a surface (or if there was more than one source of sound - just two loudspeakers would be sufficient) this sets up an interference pattern. At the 'nodes' of the pattern, the sound cancels out, so you hardly hear anything - and at the 'antinodes' you get the constructive intereference resulting in a very loud noise (at 4 times the usual volume of one source of sound). It can often be the case that the pattern spaceing can be of the order of a foot or so, so moving your head slightly can change your ears from a node to an antinode, resulting in the effect you heard. Try walking around a room with a stereo sound system (playing in mono) sometime, and notice the change in sound as you walk around the room.

My cryptic crossword of choice is the Metro crossword.

[verlaine.livejournal.com]

I wish I could make money out of being able to do crosswords somehow. I find most of them so transparently easy that it always amazes me when I see people who are in every other way much cleverer than me unable to see the answers.

Having said that, I couldn't get one of the Guardian Cryptic answers today: I'm sure it's very easy though and I'm just being dim. "One's in the field to put Eton's opponents on hold. (10)" _E_T_A_R_W.

Something involving Harrow, presumably, but that's as far as I could get.