Sudoku sucks (Or should that be suck?)

What is it with the current trend for newspapers and magazines to publish sudoku all over the place? They are practically bloody everywhere! And personally, I think they suck.

There are three newspapers I read relatively frequently, and all three of them have started publishing sudoku in every single edition at some point in the last few months. Why? What is the point? Wouldn't the print space be better filled with something more interesting, more informative and, well, just better? Like more obituaries? Or more letters to the editor? Or, umm, heaven forbid, more international news? Why won't sudoku leave me alone?

In case you've been living on Mars throughout the course of 2005 and don't know what sudoku is, check out Sudokulist, which claims to set the standard for all sudoku games. Or better still, here's what Wikipedia has to say about this type of puzzle:

Sudoku (Japanese: 数独, sūdoku), sometimes spelled Su Doku, is a logic-based placement puzzle, also known as Number Place in the United States. The aim of the canonical puzzle is to enter a numeral from 1 through 9 in each cell of a 9×9 grid made up of 3×3 subgrids (called "regions"), starting with various numerals given in some cells (the "givens"). Each row, column and region must contain only one instance of each numeral. Completing the puzzle requires patience and logical ability. Its grid layout is reminiscent of other newspaper puzzles like crosswords and chess problems. Although first published in 1979, Sudoku initially became popular in Japan in 1986 and attained international popularity in 2005.

Yeah, "attained international popularity" is right. The author could just as well have written "became completely ubiquitous in 2005", or "finally became utterly unavoidable in 2005."

But the worst thing of all is that I have discovered, after reading round a few websites, that it is a New Zealander, in collusion with The Times, who has inflicted sudoku on us all. Wikipedia, again, has the painful details:

In 1997, retired Hong Kong judge Wayne Gould, 59, a New Zealander, was enticed by seeing a partly completed puzzle in a Japanese bookshop. He went on to develop a computer program to produce puzzles quickly; this took over six years. Knowing that British newspapers have a long history of publishing crosswords and other puzzles, he promoted Sudoku to The Times in Britain, which launched it on 12 November 2004. The puzzles by Pappocom, Gould's software house, have been printed daily in the Times ever since.

Three days later The Daily Mail began to publish the puzzle under the name "Codenumber". The Daily Telegraph introduced its first Sudoku by its puzzle compiler Michael Mepham on 19 January 2005 and other Telegraph Group newspapers took it up very quickly. Nationwide News Pty Ltd began publishing the puzzle in The Daily Telegraph of Sydney on 20 May 2005; five puzzles with solutions were printed that day. The immense surge in popularity of Sudoku in British newspapers and internationally has led to it being dubbed in the world media in 2005 variously as "the Rubik's cube of the 21st century" or the "fastest growing puzzle in the world".

That's just great, isn't it? Mr. Wayne Gould, New Zealander, I have four words for you: Thanks for nothing, mate.

So, presumably, since everyone under the sun is publishing them, there must be lots of people who actually do these sudoku things. But who? And, more to the point, why?

Or is it just me who is left completely cold by a partly filled out 9x9 grid featuring the numbers from 1 to 9, over and over again, and left wondering if the newspaper editors might not have been able to find a more worthwhile way to fill the column inches sacrificed in the name of trendy puzzles?

Perhaps I'm missing something? Perhaps I am just one vital piece of information or insight short of discovering the true wonder and beauty of sudoku and joining the rest of the apparently enraptured millions getting their sudoku thrills in every publication which still uses newsprint? If so, please help me out here. The comments thread is there, waiting. Convince me. Explain it. And allow me to feel a little bit less out of step with the rest of the world.

Please. Pretty please?

sudoku