Warning! Do not read this post if you’re prone to getting addicted to puzzles.

Reading today’s comment in The Observer, I thought Euan Ferguson was just having us on about a game that’s been recently syndicated by some British papers. Not being much of a Times reader (I only go there when directed to by The Wrap), I have been spared the daily addictive need to fill those empty squares. Until today.

To check the veracity of his article, I went to Times Online, and lo and behold, there really is a game called Su Doku, and it really is addictive. Not having a printer at home, I’ve had to sketch the grids and fill in the numbers myself. I’ve managed to entertain myself between the odd decent moment of the FA Cup Semi-Final with puzzle after puzzle! It’s a very satisfying feeling when you fill the final square, akin to working out a really convoluted crossword clue.

And there the similarity ends. To complete a particularly fiendish cryptic crossword, one needs to have a fairly large vocabulary, an education including the “Classics”, and in-depth knowledge of the culture of the setter (in this case, the British). It can be very frustrating for someone who wasn’t educated in the pre-dumbing down era of ‘O’ and ‘A’ levels. We didn’t have Latin or Classics at my school. It just wasn’t an option. One went to class, did the sums, memorised the facts, and was taught very little about anything other than getting good grades. This puts me at a bit of a disadvantage when trying to solve cryptics set by an older generation of setters, and is also why Su Doku is satisfying.

To solve a moderately easy Su Doku puzzle, all that is required is logic and patience. The puzzle was brought to the attention of the English-speaking world by Wayne Gould, who came across it in a Japanese puzzle book. They in turn had borrowed it from American puzzle books, and named it Su (number) Doku (placement). The Times has a nice wee article about the background of Su Doku as we now know it. Gotta go now. More puzzles than time…

Some other useful links:

• More about Wayne Gould and the Times Su Doku
• Tips from Times readers
• The Sudoku website
• Su Doku on wikipedia

NB: I canne be held liable for causing your addiction to Su Doku. I’m considering writing a rather stern letter of complaint to the Observer for introducing it to me in the first place!

From this weekend till sometime in November, there’ll be weekend road works on the Forth Road Bridge. Again. With the prerequisite break for the tourist season between June and September. While I’d normally be kinda annoyed, this time I’m relieved. Last year’s discovery of broken cables was really worrying.

Quiptic Crossword No. 282 set by Troll. Clues that stood out as either funny or appropriate:

• Irritating little beast gains Conservative support (4)
  Cleg (Tee hee…)
• We hear Rushdie and Fitzgerald, perhaps, are cause for ill feeling (11)
  Salmonella
• Fixes up operation for privates? (4)
  Snip

And last week’s: Quiptic Crossword No. 281 set by Beale. I found this one quite difficult.

• Fashionable royal connection (7-4)
  Windsor knot
• Middling sort of performer (5-6)
  Belly dancer
• Rejected help when unusually beset by illness (8)
  Diabetes (Anagram of aid and beset)
• How to clean the carpet and go away (4-2)
  Beat it

From Guardian Unlimited’s Newsblog: Nike toes the line.

So, Nike are publishing its list of suppliers in the developing and Third World nations. While that’s a good thing for their PR, it’s still miles off from demanding that their suppliers treat their workers better. There are people who write on this more eloquently than I could: the Clean Clothes Campaign, Nike Sweatshops™, Oxfam, Australia. It’s a good first step to disclose suppliers, as well as audit your own factories. This combination makes it more difficult for the company to distance itself from abuse of the basic human rights of their suppliers’ employees. ECRA (the Ethical Consumer Research Association) campaigns for companies to pay a minimum wage, provide safe working conditions, have reasonable work hours, allow workers to join unions, and drop suppliers who use forced or child labour. All very good aims that have been shown to be achievable, for small companies at least.

Since becoming a wage-earner, I’ve tried to spend most of my money on ‘fair trade’ products. I’m lucky. In Edinburgh, we have the One World Shop, which stocks a range of food, crafts, gifts, clothes etc. that have been fairly traded. OK, so some of the things they sell are a bit naff or twee, but you could get all your tea, coffee, chocolate, snacks and household goods without a blemish on your conscience. As for clothes, well… There are some decent online clothes shops. My faves, from which I’ve bought items, are: Ganesha, Gossypium, Natural Collection, and People Tree. Ganesha has a great shop in London (Gabriel’s Wharf, South Bank; between the Oxo towers and the Festival Hall), and People Tree has clothes that even trendy people can wear.

There are many ethical consumers out there who are able to sleep peacefully at night, fully aware that their possessions have not been obtained through ill-treatment of a fellow human. I, however, still feel d*mned guilty about owning a pair of Nike trainers. I only bought the darn things ‘cos I used to have a pair of Pegasus trainers in school. Right! I feel so much better now that I’ve confessed… (not) According to the useful charts in The Good Shopping Guide, I could have bought them from the following ‘slightly more ethically aware’ companies: Asics, Brooks, Cheetah, Hi-Tec, Le Coq Sportif, Mizuno, Puma, and Saucony. This is not a ringing endorsements for any of these brands. They still have red marks against them, but have taken steps to improve workers’ lives in some way or other (not good enough, guys). The Ethical Consumer magazine has kindly uploaded a PDF of the corporate profiles of the big players in trainers. I promise to get a better pair when my trainers fall to bits and need replacing. Until then, I’d better not add them to the growing waste problem…

Photo of the offensive shoes to be uploaded when Flickr gets out of the massage parlour… (Oh! You *so* don’t want to think of that in Edinburgh terms!)

Edit: This shot was taken on a walk along the river at Cramond. I could not resist taking it, as I don’t usually wear my trainers unless I’m trying to run (trying being the operative word), and it was just too neat to pass up the shot.

As for the non-voters at Not Apathetic, well, what can I say? I feel the same: betrayed, cheated, confused, and not given much of a choice. But I’m still going to vote! However unqualified my opinions are, I have thought about issues, and will weigh up the pros and cons as best I can before the 5th of May. Why? Because there are bigots out there who won’t even think twice about anything more than immigration (race issue, really…) and taxes. I fear those who will listen to the marginal parties that campaign on one issue, and thus skew the election. The UK is not a democracy, I guess no country really is, but it makes it a point that everyone resident here can vote. My vote counts here. I can choose from more than one party, and can vote for a member of the opposition without fear of recrimination from a ‘Big Brother’-like government. Oh, we’ve got it good here, and I intend to keep it that way.