Puzzle a Day

Dear Sir / Madam,

I received your 'Puzzle a Day' pad for Christmas and found it a little disappointing to say the least.

Though some of the days included good puzzles, the majority of the days were either hideously complicated (do you expect the puzzles to take ALL day? - I will grudgingly put this down to the fact that I am not a member of Mensa) or worse, simply wrong!

The complicated questions gave no method to working out the answer, more often than not just a number was provided, leaving me no happier that you had got the correct answer but suspecting that you had made it up. Maybe I'm just thick, but there can be no excuse for some of your bigger errors on the quiz.

Allow me to be anal about this with a random selection of puzzles I have not yet got round to throwing away:

Day 247's numbers do not fit onto the crossword grid, because one of the options is 2446, not 12446 as it should be. Pretty slack I think you'll agree.

Day 264's changing of DUST to GOLD in 5 moves would be fine, if only there were 5 moves to be made, rather than the four slots you have allocated. Slack once more.

Day 302 has a man and his son who are aged 27 years apart but with age digits reversed. Apparently they are 63 and 36 respectively, but could they also not be 52 and 25? or 41 and 14? or 74 and 47? 85 and 58? I could go on...

That really is thick.

Thus, within 2 months, there are at least 3 of these errors (from memory many more) which, coupled with the puzzles at the other end of the spectrum, make for a wholly unsatisfying year.

I do think the idea for 'Puzzle a Day' is a good one, but I do wish it had been carried out by professionals.

Yours, in sympathy,

Richard Sprenger