I am used to seeing young women on hen nights (them, not me) tottering down the pavement with pink bunny ears on (them, not me). It’s the done thing, these days, apparently. You weren’t anyone in 2006 if you didn’t totter down pavements with bunny ears on and then dance round your handbag in a nightclub.

I was slightly surprised, though, to see, having changed from the Victoria to the Northern Line, two young Essex girls on my tube train sporting huge rabbit ears – at midday. Isn’t that starting a bit early?

Then I realised it made perfect sense. I was at Warren Street.

Today was the day of my sudoku heat – it turned out it was the very last regional final in this year’s Independent Sudoku Grand Master Championship.

Having killed time after work in the National Library and had a dinner of traditional brain food – at Burger King – I headed off to find the hotel where the heat was being held. I walked up Leith Street and on to Leith Walk and could feel the heat and the air pollution from the major A-road making my already sore throat dry and my eyes start to react. I soldiered on but failed to find the hotel. Only once I had walked down a steep flight of steps, back up a steepish road and completely doubled back on myself did I realise I’d walked straight past it. I then proceeded to get slightly lost in the maze of corridors within the hotel. Not a good start.

Nevertheless, I got there with plenty of time to spare and registered. We had ten minutes to late so I worked on theguardian‘s quick crossword and kakuro puzzle to pass the time. A few people passed out from the previous session. Before long, we were ushered into the exam room.

The format was the same as last year, although there were fewer people in my session. It was exam conditions, 45 minutes to complete four standard 9×9 sudoku grids, the fastest 60 nationwide going through to the final in London in July.

Almost immediately I was tempted to put a number in the wrong place but stopped myself. Quickly adjusted eyes to the size of the grids (it matters) and rattled through the first two puzzles. The third was the tricksiest, although only because I wrote the wrong number in one square and, although I realised straight away, it then distracted me whenever I looked at that column. More haste, less speed – but when you’re against the clock it’s risky to go slower. The fourth puzzle pleasingly straightforward and I was done. I briefly considered checking through all the grids but decided it would take too much time: if they were right, I’d have lost valuable seconds; if wrong, they’d take so long to fix I’d probably be out of the running anyway.

I was the first to finish of the ten or so people in the room, taking somewhere between 20 and 25 minutes. Picked up my goody bag, which included a t-shirt to complement last year’s and a nice pen and pencil, and headed towards the station. I had that sudden post-match rush as I walked, realising my heart was pounding from the mental exertion, and recalled having exactly the same feeling after last time. I didn’t qualify for the final then, but I’m sure I did better this year – although that just means I’ll be more disappointed if I miss out again. The fewer entrants this year could mean fewer hardcore sudokuists – or it could mean fewer casual players.

All in all, quite an exciting day – and the week’s not over yet.

The Times reports an incident that occurred when Sarah Teather went canvassing in the Bromley & Chislehurst by-election:

ST: Hello! I’m calling on behalf of the Liberal Democrats. Who will you be voting for?
Man: Who do you think?
ST: I don’t know.
Man: You’re not very observant are you?
ST: (Scanning windows for posters) Aren’t I? Who?
Man: Can’t you guess?
ST: (A touch desperately) Should I take the lead from a blue shirt?
John Spellar, Labour MP for Warley: Oh for God’s sake. (SLAM)

In the words of the children’s book series, Where’s Warley?

The lead story in today’s theguardian reports that the Government is planning to introduce relatively low limits defining what is considered “possession” of illegal drugs and what is “intent to supply”.

I’m not a lawyer so was a little confused when the article said

When the ACMD’s technical committee considered the issue in April, it was pointed out that even Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan police commissioner, had misunderstood the proposals: “Many people still think that the provisions are about setting levels that are reasonable for personal us,e and that if they are caught with amounts below the thresholds they will not be arrested for possession with intent to supply. The reality is contrary to this.”

but didn’t clarify the matter. I’m not sure whether the courts will be required to find someone guilty of dealing if the drugs they are caught with are more than the limit or whether it is simply a guideline to prosecutors, although it sounds like the latter.

Either way, it’s a recipe for wasting police time, CPS time and judicial time prosecuting for dealing people who have drugs for personal use – time that could be spent pursuing, you know, actual drug dealers. It sounds like a backdoor route to banging up more people for possession, by treating them as dealers even if they’re not. In an ideal world, sentencing guidelines shouldn’t depend on the prison population, but joined-up government means this has to be taken into account to: sending more people to prison for drug posession isn’t going to help the overcrowding crisis.

I don’t know about this sort of thing, of course, but a limit of “enough cannabis for 10-20 joints” sounds rather small; is anyone with a couple of packets of fags automatically selling on the black market? This doesn’t tally with the view of the Advisory Committee on the Misuse of Drugs who know a thing or two about this issue.

The proposed thresholds are so low that the advisory committee, which discussed the issue on May 25, is believed to have warned the Home Office that they would cause policing problems. The committee suggested the cannabis threshold should be set at 28g, or 1oz. The experts also told ministers that the five tablet limit for ecstasy was low – given that they can be bought for 50p each in some areas, and some users take up to 10 in one session.

In other drugs news, the police have smashed a cocaine ring in Kent – and, unlike the Forest Gate raid, it seems they actually found something. Good for them. What caught my eye was that the bust was called Operation Alpington and is a spin-off from Operation Anuric. I’ve often idly wondered where such operations get their names. Alpington appears to be a village in Norfolk; anuric means unable to urinate. Is that a side effect of cocaine then?