Witnessed Box
Three months of evidence, 105 witnesses and over a million dollars of taxpayer kitty went into a Sydney drug trial – only to be aborted due to a puzzle.
Not a crossword in this case, but a rampant sudoku fetish among the twelve honest men and women. Every morning, a sort of test-within-a-test, a jury member would Xerox the number grid to measure how quickly his peers could conquer the puzzle. All the while the fates of the accused swung in the balance.
The co-accused, in fact, noticed a juror taking ‘vertical notes’ during his own testimony. Inquiries revealed the contagious puzzle habit, and the judge had no choice but to bail. Down the judicial track a new, puzzle-free panel needs installing.
But as a chronic crossword solver, chewing anagrams during my uni years, wrangling homophones through countless TV episodes, punning in traffic, seeking double definitions amid exotic locations, I have to defend the sudoku faction. Puzzles help align the senses – mainly grid-wise perhaps – but not at the expense of the solver’s periphery. I swear you absorb more in general for being so alert to the specific.
Yes, Your Honour. I’d rather nurse a puzzle in a three-month trial, the challenge of clues ensuring an openness to wide-ranging stimuli, instead of sitting there all civic and glass-eyed, doodling in a Spirax. But that’s my defence. Don’t know if it would stand up in the District Court.