IKEA and Sudoku, passim

Disappointingly, the promised refund from IKEA has failed to materialise today when it would be so much better if they'd just indicated a realistic timeline. Instead FL got me off the line quick when I identified myself as the late refund-claimant who'd had a nervous breakdown. "Say no more, say nor more", she said on Thursday before assuring me my refund would be in my account by Sunday. Today, a day after her timeline, she needs to look into it more. I'm taking advice on how to respond.

And I thought I was onto a winner today, when I completed the Indy's Quick Sudoku in just 11 mins in a mathematically satisfying, spiral pattern, working inward to the central 3x3 square. Really more a Greek key pattern than a spiral, orthoganialised by the grid. But it's only Monday- they're easy at this end of the week.


Flushed with success, my cocksure attempt on the Advanced sudoku on the inside pages was trounced within 30 mins. An impasse was reached after the usual cognitive techniques of switching between deductive and inductive thinking, counting missing numbers, assessing the individual and relative properties of lines and squares. That's when a laziness crept in, and I started thinking about the possible permutations as quantum locii and not as definite, real numbers. Always a mistake in sudoku, because although several potential solutions may be possible (and more or less likely), only one is perfect. Natch. Her Catness is not impressed.