Wednesday, 16 January 2013

On the first day...

Well everyone else seems to be getting in on the blogging stuff train so I may as well add my two-penneth to the ever burgeoning collection.

I suppose I should really start at the beginning.  Being a child of the early 70's I became one of those caught up in the whole Rubik's cube revolution in the latter part of the 70's.   Not that it did anything to excite me at the time, as my only way of solving said cube was to destroy said cube and rebuild from scratch.  Like most at the time, my skill allowed me to only complete a single side, the inherent magic required to solve said puzzle utterly eluded me and for some years I was consigned to the collection of people I shall henceforth refer to as "Puzzle-Muggles".

It wasn't until years later, while I was on holiday in Cornwall, that my curiosity was piqued again for the puzzle cuboid when I picked up a cheap version in a little shop in Looe.  This time around I found myself repeating the same moves over and over and taking much more interest in how the pieces moved in relation to one another.  Then with what I can only describe as some sort of epic celestial fluke, I solved it.  I was no longer a "Puzzle-Muggle",  Ok a decade late, but I'd actually managed to solve my "Holy Grail" of puzzles, or should that be "Achilles Heal" of puzzles.

My puzzle journey since then has been somewhat hit and miss, with much stumbling through the jungle of puzzling.  I've collected quite a few different items over the years much of which I hope to dig back out and go over in some detail on here once I manage to trawl through my scattered collection of junk/puzzles.

More recently I've found a quite handy support group for like afflicted individuals mostly shunned by the Puzzle-Muggle majority out there.  I stumbled on this group quite by chance, being one employed in the IT sector and a lover of all things gadgety.  The Channel Five programme "The Gadget Show" showed this odd looking puzzle called a "Revomaze" which looked very interesting.  So after a brief visit to Google I found myself the owner of a Silver Revomaze.  (Nothing like starting at the bottom - stupid boy)

Since then I've increased both my collection of Revomazes and other puzzles, in no small part due the other puzzle obsessed loons, themselves frequenting the dark and dingy halls of the Revomaze forum.

At this point I should, I think, impart a warning...

If your wallet is of a fragile disposition then run away, run away now.  This puzzle lark doesn't come cheap.
Your wallet is likely to get the sort of kicking not seen since the French turned up at Agincourt, yelling "you English couldn't hit a barn door at 20 paces".