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In 2004 and 2005, Sodoku experienced a surge of popularity
in the United Kingdom. British newspapers have a long history
of publishing crosswords and other puzzles but before 2004
Sodoku was not a common feature on puzzle pages.
Wayne Gould,
a New Zealander and former Hong Kong High Court judge, discovered
sodoku in Japan and promoted the idea to The Times, launching
it on 12 November 2004. Three days later the Daily Mail began
to publish the puzzle under the name 'Codenumber'.
By April and May 2005 the puzzle had become popular in these
publications and it was rapidly introduced to several other
national British newspapers including The Daily Telegraph,
The Independent, The Guardian, The Sun, and The Daily Mirror.
As the name sodoku became well-known in Britain the Daily
Mail adopted it in place of its earlier name 'Codenumber';
some commentators have suggested that the paper initially
avoided using a Japanese name so as not to put off its traditionally
right-wing readers. Newspapers competed to promote their sodoku
puzzles, with The Times and the Daily Mail each claiming to
have been the first to feature sodoku, and The Guardian claiming
that its hand-made puzzles offered a superior experience to
the computer-generated grids found in other papers.
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