We finished another jigsaw puzzle today: ‘The Greyhound Hotel’ by Malcolm Root. Lots of Malcolm Root’s pictures have been turned into puzzles, and one of his main subjects is trains and buses. However, it was neither the bus nor the car that caused us problems when doing this puzzle: the real trouble we had was with the sky.
In the unlikely event that Malcolm Root is reading this, I’d just like to say one thing: please please please can you make the horizons a bit higher in your pictures? In fact, the less sky, the better. Things like roof tiles, you see, have a particular orientation: it’s easy to tell if they’re the wrong way round. But clouds can go either way round and any way up. You just don’t know where you are with them.
At least the writing on the hotel wall and on the bus was a bit easier, and it was nice to watch the picture take shape as we neared completion. The old ruin in the background is Corfe Castle. The Royal Blue Coach Service is (was?) a real bus company (no spitting at the back, please). And the old dear in the big hat who you can see sitting half way along the bus, is, we think, a fare dodger. You can tell from her facial expression: she’d rather stare out of the window than catch the conductor’s eye. We could enlarge that part of the puzzle and do a mock-up ‘WANTED’ poster, but what’s the point? The statute of limitations on fare dodging is only about five minutes anyway. It would all be too much bother.
