Since Covid, my daily commute has become a once-a-week commute, and that once-a-week commute has become consumed by Sudoku.  Sudoku in the Metro on the way into work; Sudoku in the Evening Standard on the way home from work.

The Metro publishes three Sudoku puzzles each day, graded Easy, Moderate and either Challenging or Hard.  Perhaps rather arrogantly, I ignore the Easy and Moderate options, and only apply myself to the Challenging or Hard puzzle.  In truth, my Sudoku-solving abilities must lie somewhere between Moderate and Challenging, because although I can always complete the Moderate puzzle, I am not always––not often––able to complete the Challenging or Hard one.  Certainly, not in the twenty-minute journey time of my commute.

Superficially, Sudoku appears to be an exercise in mathematics, and this must put a lot of people off.  But appearances are deceptive.  Sudoku’s link to maths is little more than the fact that the symbols it uses are typically numbers; the fact is that any symbols would suffice.  Replaces the ‘ones’ with pictures of Darth Vader, and the ‘twos’ with images of Boba Fett, and exactly the same challenge can be constructed.

Sudoku is actually all about logic, and I like logic.  I find it deeply satisfying.  In an unpredictable world, it is a reliable constant.  Even in an unpredictable journey, it is a reliable constant.  The train may halt between Stonebridge Park and Willesden Junction for no apparent reason, but logic remains unaffected; a passenger may get on talking loudly into a mobile phone, but logic remains unaffected; the train guard may make some bizarre announcement about little Amy in carriage three celebrating her birthday, but logic remains unaffected; the train may transmute into a spacecraft and time-shift into the future… okay, that might defy logic, but that hasn’t happened.  Yet.

And even if it did, I probably wouldn’t notice, because I would be too busy concentrating on solving my Sudoku.  Sudoku is a devourer of Time.  Sudoku is Chronos in newsprint.  My twenty-minute commute contracts to seconds in the company of my all-consuming grid of nine-by-nine squares.

But now Sudoku is spilling into my home, too.  Unable to complete my Sudoku puzzle during my commute, I take it home with me; I do it while I am cooking; in any idle moment.  I justify this obsession by asserting that it is a good way to keep the mind active, but logic tells me that there are other ways to achieve this same end.  I could pursue a new hobby; learn a foreign language; take more exercise; make a new friend; eat brain-boosting food…

Or just work out which one of four possible placements of the number ‘eight’ doesn’t result in a logical impasse.

© Simon Turner-Tree

Simon Turner-Tree prides himself on his logic.