No Need To Apologise

Earlier this year, Yorkshire police accidently raided the wrong house in pursuit of a drug dealer. By way of apology, they sent flowers to the victimised occupants. Unfortunately, they put the wrong name on the accompanying card. The house-owners remain a little upset over this clumsy treatment (and their splintered front door). If only they were puzzlers, they might have felt a little more sanguine about their experience.

A study in the respected journal Biological Psychiatry reveals a correlation between specific brain activity and the ability to forgive and forget. Apparently, participants exhibiting lower levels of activity in the lateral pre-frontal cortex were more likely to report a negative mood in the hours following a confrontation. Bear with me. It turns out that the lateral pre-frontal cortex is the part of the brain responsible for problem solving. One way to increase activity in this region would be to solve puzzles.

Therefore, to assuage the hurt feelings of the poor home-owners, the Yorkshire police should have offered a subscription to Sudoku magazine, rather than a token bunch of flowers. After all, it transpires sudoku means never having to say you're sorry.