During one of the few relaxing moments of the rather stressful week-end I gave Sudoku a shot to see what all the fuss was about. Sudoku is a number game which originated in the US only to become huge in Japan before it caught on in places like the UK. The Brits have officially gone Sudoku crazy (and yes, I am a bit late with this). All further proof that you can't really predict these types of viral crazes. Maybe the global pick-up was fueled by the new name (Sudoku is better than Number Place), maybe the fact that it was sold as a Japanese puzzle did the trick. An interesting tidbit is that the pick-up in Japan was mostly attributed to the fact that it didn't have to compete with crossword puzzles as they aren't practical in Japanese. I am told that puzzle games, and number games in particular are extremelly popular in Japan. Try a great online version of it here. Sudoku in many respects is the perfect puzzle game; It's easy to understand but hard to master, the difficulty of a table can be as easy or devilishly difficult as you want, they can be generated automatically (unlike crosswords), it travels well (no words) and works as well in print as online. I remember driving towards London from Exeter (don't remember where now) and seeing a giant sudoku grid on a hillside, does anyone know what that was?