I subscribe to the on-line edition of the New York Times and am an abject slave to the crossword puzzle, which I do on my creaking iPad. It's a daily ritual that Himself knows better than to interrupt. I permit myself to use Wikipedia to check only certain clues, especially American sports teams and the abbreviations used to identify them on scoreboards, and the names of rap and hip-hop performers and the titles of their hit "songs".

I consider myself a mere second-tier cruciverbalist, however, as I am crap at the cryptics that appear in the Globe & Mail. Himself does those, and we continue to receive the actual printed version of the paper specifically to accommodate that habit. Oh, and to wrap up the daily gleanings from the cats' litter box, as we lack a birdcage to line the bottom of.

Neither of my parents ever did crosswords, so I have no idea why I started. It must have been when I was very young, because my mother used to clip the crossword from the Ottawa Citizen and send me a week's worth every Sunday when I was in the service. When I was purging the filing cabinet before last year's house move, I found a clutch of her letters, several with carefully dated slips of yellowing newsprint in them.

I've never been any good at anagrams or jumbles, though. The New York Times puzzle depends more on knowledge of trivia, and the more difficult ones have a gimmick that, once you identify it, makes the whole puzzle fall into your hands. Anyone who can do a Brit cryptic would find even the most difficult New York Times puzzle (Saturday!) a doddle.