I’ve picked up the airport tour where I left off: Copenhagen International Airport. My flight got in at 4:50pm. My connecting flight to Bangkok departs at 10:50pm. This leaves me with six excruciating hours to wile away at the airport.

That wasn’t the plan, mind. I actually know a couple of great Danes (chortle, chortle), and when I was here last I checked I could get out of the airport to visit them. I could. I messaged them both on Facebook. They’re out of town.

So here I am again in the transfer centre lounge, killing time. Anyone who’s caught a lot of connecting flights knows the drill. Each activity is drawn out to its most painful limit. For example: when I landed, I felt like getting a coffee and maybe doing a crossword. Casually strolled to the closest coffee bar, idly window shopping on the way. Inspected coffee prices and variety in stall one. Continued to coffee bar two. Compared prices. Returned to the first to double check. Decide on one. On the ‘outside’, it would be a frustrating and fruitless endeavour, but stuck in the terminal, each moments’ deliberation occupies time that you’d otherwise spend staring into space.

Even consuming said coffee can be stretched out to a full hour if you have your procrastination cap on. I ended up getting a cheesecake as well, spending the last of my Euros in the process. A novice’s error would be to eat the cheesecake while drinking the coffee. No. You eat the cheesecake, slowly, deliberately, until done. Then and only then may you start sipping the coffee.

You are, however, permitted to sip coffee and do crosswords. Flicking through my Lovatt’s Puzzler, I bought some more time by paying an inordinate – and undeserved – amount of time to the editor’s letter. This month, it’s dedicated to thanking the readers who took the time to answer their recent survey. Turns out the number one other activity for those who enjoy crosswords, according to their survey, is walking. Followed by watching movies. If you need a party starter, you need look no further than a Lovatt’s puzzler.

She even chucked in a few jokes about the feedback. Diane of Warwick wrote into say that whenever the month’s Lovatt’s comes out, she never gets any housework done. “Sorry about that, Diane!” the editor giggles, the exclamation point punctuating how very crazy and whacky that anecdote would obviously parlay in a household full of walking, movie-watching crossword enthusiasts. Fancy forgetting your housework! Etc.

Barb of Newcastle writes that she loves Lovatt’s because it makes her feel smart because she learns new words “all the time”. I don’t know if Barb has ventured far from the puzzles section of the newsagents, because when the most challenging of clues in the crossword book is “He, …, it” (the answer being “she”, for the people up the back), it doesn’t sound as though she gets out of her literary house a lot, so to speak.

Couple of puzzles knocked back, decided it was time to get out of my literary house, so I wandered to the airport’s book seller and browsed the English titles – easily buying me a half an hour’s reprise. I’ve picked up James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces. Y’know, the Oprah fraud. Figure it can’t be too bad if Oprah recommended it initially, and I’m already re-reading the two Augusten Burroughs novels I brought away with me.

Getting on to the internet and blogging is an activity I’ve put off for as long as possible, because I know it’s a good decent solid hour that I won’t even notice. I’m even typing this up in Word before I connect to juice every last minute out of it.

May be repeating myself here, but OMG Copenhagen airport is a fucking decent perv. After the disappointment of Greece, coming here is the equivalent of the coffee beans you sniff in perfume shops – it’s totally cleared away that Mediterranean whiff so I’m free to soak up the Scandinavian scent.

There’s just something about the Scandinavians though, isn’t there? Even the ones that have let themselves go a bit are altogether not that bad. Is it good skin, diet? In-breeding? There’s at least a couple of hours airport investigationing there, so I’ll fill you in when I find out.