Living with addiction

Hi, my name's Joseph and I'm addicted to Sudoku.

I sort of came to this realisation when last night on the tube as I glanced over the discarded papers strewn around the carriage I saw a Su Doku puzzle. I then proceeded to pick up said newspaper and complete the puzzle, but I finished before I reached Ealing Broadway so I removed the book of Su Doku puzzles I now carry with me and started on yet another one. So within only a week or so of completing my first Su Doku, I now roam the carriages of the Underground looking for more puzzles. Of course the beginner puzzles don't do it for me any more, I have to find much more difficult ones to get any sort of buzz out of it. Soon I'll probably be sitting on the street, begging for money with a cardboard sign that says "Su Doku puzzles made me lose my job" ... and a 9x9 grid on the back so I can keep doing more puzzles.

There's been a lot that's happened in the 2 month posting sabbatical I had, probably too many to write just now (mainly because I can't remember them all). So I think over the next few days, if nothing interesting has happened I'll just try to remember something that I wanted to post ages ago. As it happens, not much has happened today so let me cast my mind back ... *dreamy music and fade to cloud effects*

Soon after I arrived back from Australia Paul was ready to buy a car. Being in a flat which has no official parking spot, I thought this would cause a little problem but for now there's an empty courtyard house behind us with an unused parking space which hasn't raised any eyebrows as yet. Strangely enough Paul wanted me to come and have a look at a car with him one weekend, I guess it was my vast mechanical knowledge and strong negotiation skills. It was a private sale and all the way over in Wokingham. There was a train station in a nearby village, but then we'd have to get from there to the actual house and back again. To save ourselves the trouble Paul decided to rent a car for the day. Trying to find a car rental office that was open on the weekend, well I wouldn't say it was difficult but it did mean we had a little journey to get there. This journey for us was made a fair bit longer when we realised that if someone lists their office in a borough, it's normally a good idea if it's actually in that borough. We got a tube to Park Royal, only to find that the lot was about 5km away. So catching a few buses left us with only a short walk, which is almost the only reason I'm telling this story. On the walk we passed a car that some gentleman was trying to sell. After making a quip about the method of selling, we noticed another car for sale parked right next it. Then another. And another. In fact there was about 20 cars all parked together with the same kind of for sale sign. It looked like a make shift used car lot, so much so that it even had a dodgy looking salesman there. The whole thing was a bit disturbing, we started to wonder if all these cars were supposed to be for sale, or if some hapless people had parked their cars there only to find a for sale sign on them when they came back. Needless to say, Paul will be avoiding parking there.