Half genius

I couldn't be happier with the way the Genius recordings have gone so far. It really doesn't feel like work but instead each one has been an enjoyable night out in a theatre. Everyone involved - the people who pitch their ideas, the guests and the audience - seem to enter into spirit of things straight away and hopefully the fun we're all having with it will come across in the recordings. Three more to go.

Sudoku.

Vorderman's Sudoku Live was surprisingly jolly all told. I've no idea what it looked like on the box but it seemed to flow properly on the day. My fears about what the format involved ("You've got control of the grid Dave" "Is it a 9 Carol?") turned out to be unfounded.

Oddly I was supposed to be the captain of a team representing the city of Belfast which seemed like a rather abstract decision but when I saw that Italian chef Aldo Zilli was representing Cardiff and Bradford born (and with the vowels to prove it) Linda Barker was representing Birmingham it became clear that there wasn't meant to be any logical geographical context to it anyway.

There were 9 teams all with 9 people and everyone was supposed to be trying to complete the puzzle individually. Viewers at home were also playing along and there were prizes available for one viewer, the fastest individual in the studio, the fastest team and the fastest team captain.

The fact that I've been doing several sudokus on the way to 6Music this last week proved to be good training and I ended up being the fastest of the team captains and with the fastest team too. All the team captains had agreed in advance that their prize would be donated to one of Richard Whiteley's charities so while it doesn't really matter which of us won, it does feel good knowing that the money went to the British Heart Foundation.

Most importantly it was a jolly night out with C.Vorderman, K.Adams, H.Lederer, R.Rivron, L.Barker, A.Zilli, J.Brambles, D.Stephenson and R. "Say his name baby he's da man" Blackwood.