Loose Lips Sink Shits

Like Richard Herring, I was a bit too excited about the re-launch of The Guardian on Monday. What they've done is chop it down in size. Not to the sluttish size of a tabloid, but to something rather respectable and refined. They call it a 'Berliner'.

Anyway, my only complaint about the paper is that I can never read all of it in my extended lunchtimes, especially on a day when a lot has happened. Still, the crosswords and sudoku keep me entertained during the afternoon.
The sodukus are rated for difficulty every day, and it is proper Guardian ratings. When The Star says a sudoku is hard, it isn't. It is easy. The Guardian though doesn't want to flatter your intelligence, it wants to put you in your place. Still, I knocked off the hard level today in about ten minutes. I think I may be the greatest person who ever lived, up there with Jesus, Gandhi and John Noakes. And I bet they wouldn't be able to do The Guardian hard sudoku as quickly as me. Well, maybe except for Noakes. Damn you Noakes!

I'm thinking that I could become World Sodoku Champion. Maybe not this year, but I reckon that sometime next year I could be destroying some freakish, mildly autistic schoolchild in the final. Lance, the youngster from a small town in Connecticut, will be the darling of the press going into the final. I mean, he's only fourteen but has captured the hearts of the public with his metal filled mouth, awkward fringe and shy teenage giggling. Time Magazine will call him 'a sensation'.
Yet, as I complete a 5-0 drubbing in the final, popping the final 9 into the final square, I will leap up from my chair and the crowd will cheer. They will cheer a true champion. Lance will dissolve into tears.
I caught him on the hop in Round 1 when the underestimated challenger from a stinky fishing town in NW England caught him unawares. He'd barely started, when I claimed the round. I knew that I had the trophy then. He'd been too confident. Sloppy.
He rushed Round 2, with all the inexperience of youth. I'd thrown him off his game and he was panicking to rectify things; even though he handed in his sheet first, it had a mistake. He had two threes in the same row!
It was all over then, and by game five he was sobbing silently, the tears dropping onto the sheet and smudging the numbers slightly. He'd occasionally look up, and I'd make sure I caught his eye.
Look at me kid, I'm not really trying. This is my trophy kid. Mine! Life is cruel Lance, and now it all may seem like a waste of your time. You could have been out playing with other children, but instead your pushy parents Randy and Petunia forced you to do grid after grid. You complained that you couldn't sleep, as all you could see was row upon row of numbers. They gave you sleeping pills.
Is it worth it? Was it worth missing out on your childhood for?
No it wasn't Lance, for you are a loser. The look of innocence may hide that now Lance, but that will eventually fade. When age takes away that childlike look at the word, all that will be left is the word LOSER carved into your mind until the day you die.
Was it worth it Lance?
No.
You loser.