With the help of Carol Vorderman, Su Doku has become more popular than conventional crossword puzzles. Su Doku is a kind of mathematical crossword (now you can’t get much geekier than that).

Su Doku is a very solitary past-time, at least with crosswords you can ask for help. “It has 6 letters, begins with G and is a fun waste of funds” whilst you can’t really ask your mates, “It’s a number between 0-9 but not 4 or 8 and if its 7 the next one can’t be 2″.

The Su Doku Board Game may be the answer to the single player nature of this popular puzzle.

The aim of the Su Doku board game is for players to take it in turn to solve part of the puzzle but here’s the twist, you only have 30 seconds (somebodies creative juices must of been flowing that day) and your score is calculated based on how high the number is.

As you may be able to tell I’m a bit cynical of this game, but for completeness I’ll quote what you get in the cardboard box that costs £12-95

• 1 x Wipe clean playing board
• 5 x Dry wipe markers (in different colours)
• 200 x Su Doku puzzles (as found in every English Newspaper)
• 1 x Eraser cloth (because toilet roll just wouldn’t do)
• 1 x 30 second timer (yes it’s another plastic egg timer)
• Anorak not included

As much as we rib it, this may actually be a good Christmas present for that special trainspotter in your life, and it’s available now (from the usually much more fun) Firebox