Solving Hanjie

Solving a hanjie puzzle is very much like a being a detective at the scene of the crime. The clues are all there and all you have to do is put them together to get the picture. If these puzzles had been available when Agatha Christie was writing about Poirot, he might have spent his time filling in little grey cells instead of using them to lord it over Captain Hastings. Whilst on the subject of these private detectives, it is the opinion of some of us that these characters are actually responsible for the rising crime rate. Have you noticed that wherever they go, be it a London hotel, a seaside backwater or slumbering country village, there is a sudden outbreak of mass murder?

Were we to find ourselves booked into the same hotel as, say, Miss Marple, we'd cancel immediately and be off like a shot – before the inevitable shot came our way. At the last count, the population around Midsomer Parva was minus four. As for going on a Nile cruise or the Orient Express – forget it. Or at least only buy a single ticket and leave that little extra to pass on to the family.

If private detectives were done away with, the world might be a much safer place for passing pedestrians. And senior members of the aristocracy might be able to slumber in the library without receiving an oriental dagger between the ribs.

Or these latter-day Sherlocks should stick, as we do, to solving puzzles. Our addiction might mean that dinner is late or the bathwater runs cold, but it doesn't decimate the population.