UK connections word game baffles yanks

A British version of the popular word game Connections is baffling Americans.

'It sure is tough, heavy, onerous, hard,' complained Jake Pegg, a puzzle addict from Landfill View, Illinois. 'To find the connections you need an extensive knowledge of UK soccer teams, cockney rhyming slang, British snack foods, and early sixties sitcoms. And there's a lot of stuff about beer, class, the Empire, WW2 and the royals. On a bad day I can't get any of the connections at all.

'I can always do the American version in one or two minutes, but the UK version is a doozy, astonishing, incredible, awesome.'

British puzzle compiler Colin Corbyn says he invented the game because he found the American version annoying, pesky, trying, vexing. 'You need to know about weird American sports, bizarre US TV shows, strange Yankee politics and odd Stateside customs.

'I invented the UK version to let the Yanks know that they aren't the boss, chief, head, master of everything.

'I'm reclaiming English for the English, and I'm doing it with proper spellings.'

Photo by Ross Sneddon on Unsplash

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Newspaper admits repeat puzzle deception

A local newspaper has admitted publishing the same sudoku puzzle every day for over four years.

Puzzle fans took a long time to spot the deception, but one reader eventually noticed and complained.

The local paper admitted repeating the puzzle and said this was because it could only afford the royalty payment for one sudoku.  It then reused the same puzzle, by rotating or reflecting the number grid and changing the digits - swapping them or cycling through them.  Other changes included providing more or fewer digits in the starting grid.

One regular reader said, 'fair play, I didn't spot what they did.  I do the sudoku every day and I enjoyed the puzzles just the same.  Some people think sudoku is boring, but I find it relaxing and restful.  It's time out.'

Another fan was incensed.  'This makes a mockery of the intellectual challenge.  It's sly and dishonest and unethical.  It breaks the unwritten contract between the paper and its readers.  I feel like an idiot for spending all that time solving the same puzzle again and again, and I didn't even notice.  I'll never buy the paper again.  I've complained to the editor, the press regulator, the mayor, my MP and Gyles Brandreth.  I'm demanding millions of pounds in compensation for my wasted time and the psychological damage.  I'll never, ever trust a newspaper again.'

image from pixabay

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