Sudoku solution – The Guardian 27 May 226 Medium level sudoku

Added: 2026-06-03

[00:00:03][music] [music] >> Hello fellow Sudoku ins. Welcome to Zen in the arts of the Guardian Sudoku puzzle. It's Wednesday the 27th of May 2026 and I hope you are keeping well this morning.

[00:00:20]I don't know what's going on with the weather. Yesterday I got a message saying yesterday morning I got a message saying um severe heat warnings end tomorrow. Um you know, presumably there won't be any severe heat um tomorrow. This was yesterday morning and last night I got a message saying severe heat warning tomorrow. So, they can't make up their minds.

[00:00:42]They thought maybe they thought the rain was coming but it's not coming. Uh so, I'm looking forward to another extremely hot day of 43° or 44° uh in the feels like temperature.

[00:00:56]Oh, well.

[00:00:59]And I do have to go out today.

[00:01:01]Uh if you thought you couldn't hate Tony Blair anymore, uh I'll give you the headline of uh today's Guardian.

[00:01:09]It says Tony Blair tells Starmer and rivals abandon net zero and move closer to Trump.

[00:01:16]Huh.

[00:01:19]>> [laughter] [gasps] >> Man, this guy is so gone.

[00:01:23]Um uh he uh he says um they're putting labor he says they're they're putting labor's future at risk by abandoning the center ground.

[00:01:34]Uh this is of course after criticism of uh a neoliberal approach from um um Andy Burnham.

[00:01:43]He says uh um he it's a delusion that the party should move left while losing seats to the right. It's dangerous to do it in government.

[00:01:54]Um Okay, he says uh Blair has criticized Starmer's approach to the or it says the article says Blair has also criticized Starmer's approach to the US with Iran uh even though it's that most people in England or in the UK just detest this war saying it's vital the US could trust the UK as an ally.

[00:02:16]Oh, this is that's a mistake right there because the US has changed so much it can't be relied on as an ally. Uh if you want an ally, right, you have to surely have it has to work in both directions.

[00:02:29]And with Trump and his fascist takeover in the US that that's gone. The promise of help for for the UK is gone. You've seen how he's criticized NATO and supported Putin.

[00:02:41]Uh it's ridiculous.

[00:02:43]Uh he said he's critic- he's criticized cuts to international aid which he said have weakened Britain's influence. Okay, I'll agree there.

[00:02:50]Starmer's trying to negotiate with Europe from a position of weakness.

[00:02:54]Yeah, well, I mean there's not much you can do about that is there because of the Brexit. That's a true that's the true state of things.

[00:03:02]>> [snorts] >> He said uh uh Ed Miliband's net zero drive is a mistake uh and so was phasing out of oil and gas licenses.

[00:03:12]This man this man who has who first of all destroyed any idea of any semblance of of socialism in the Labour Party even though that's what it was founded to do uh continues to move further and further to the right to the point of uh well, I don't know what goes on with these people. I I suppose it's money, right? He's got the taste for the high life. He lives a high life.

[00:03:34]He's got the taste for money and power rather like uh his buddy uh who is now uh out of favor um Mandelson.

[00:03:44]Uh you know, he's got the taste for the high life. He He charges a fortune for speaking engagements and you know, he lives in a life of luxury. He's and he wants to speak about uh you know, the effects on ordinary human beings that have to work for a living.

[00:03:58]Piss off, Blair. I'm sorry, just piss off.

[00:04:01]>> [laughter] >> Right, let's get on with a game of Sudoku, shall we?

[00:04:05]It's the Guardian's medium puzzle.

[00:04:08]Uh we had a medium yesterday and it was as expected, so let's see about today's game.

[00:04:15]In other words, should not be too difficult to solve.

[00:04:28]One is blocking like this.

[00:04:42]Six is down here.

[00:04:54]>> [snorts] >> Uh six up there.

[00:05:18]Missing digits in this block are three, eight, and nine. I can see three and eight both attacking this square here.

[00:05:25]So, that's going to have to be a nine.

[00:05:28]>> [cough and clears throat] >> Four blocks this square here, so for this row, there's our four. Eight is the last digit there.

[00:06:12]Three blocks up here, so three is in one of these two squares, so that can't be a three. That's got to be the three, and that's got to be the eight.

[00:06:32]Five Oh, let's do it like this. Five blocks across here and up there, so there's a five.

[00:06:46]>> [snorts] >> Oh, it's not six we need.

[00:06:52]What is missing? Oh, eight, nine, sorry.

[00:06:59]Four blocks up this way, down that way, and across there.

[00:07:28]Five blocks like this.

[00:07:53]>> Okay, let's work our way around numerically, shall we?

[00:08:41]>> [snorts] >> So, we do have a pair of two and eight in this row, and we have a pair of two and eight in that column. So, we can say that those squares there are two and eight.

[00:09:12]I don't know if that helps us, but let's see.

[00:09:15]Anything blocking down here to saw six already got that. two eight um Might not be too helpful, but let's see.

[00:09:23]two eight >> I don't see how that helps really, but I'll try to remember that it's a two eight pair.

[00:09:47]Might be useful later.

[00:09:51]Oh, hang on. We've got two and eight blocking down here. So, that's a pair of two and eight as well.

[00:09:56]So, that means that must be a seven.

[00:10:01]And it also means that we've got two eight in these squares like that. So, uh that might be useful here. So, we got these squares here which can't be two or eight.

[00:10:12]So, they are four, five, and seven.

[00:10:16]Right? Two eight in this square and this square. So, we've got four No, four four, seven, and nine. Sorry, I should say four, seven, and nine left.

[00:10:30]In this column, four, seven, nine, four.

[00:10:33]That's two eight, four, seven, nine.

[00:10:35]Yes, so four and seven and four are here. So, that should be a nine.

[00:10:40]And then we have a pair of >> [clears throat] >> four and seven in those squares.

[00:10:48]Uh which seems to be right. I don't see any reason why it's wrong.

[00:10:53]Oh, and we can't have a four there. So, that's the four.

[00:10:56]And that's the seven.

[00:10:59]And seven blocking up here gives us seven in that square. And the last number to place here is the three.

[00:11:09]One more digit to find here. That's an eight.

[00:11:16]We got six and nine left in those squares there.

[00:11:20]Uh >> [clears throat] >> what uh No.

[00:11:23]Yes.

[00:11:24]One blocks No, still wrong.

[00:11:27]>> [laughter] >> Sorry.

[00:11:29]Uh Uh, okay, let's go through again.

[00:11:36]Cuz I don't have any completed digits yet, still.

[00:12:18]Actually, uh, I can just I'm going to stop that because I've just realized something. I've got a limited set here, right? This is 1 5 and 9 only.

[00:12:27]But I already said that this was 2 and 8, right? So, we got 1 5 9, we got 2 and 8, so this has to be a 3 cuz that's the only digit left.

[00:12:34]Just realized.

[00:12:58]>> [snorts] >> Well, either I'm not playing this game correctly or it's a bit tough tougher than usual.

[00:14:10]Well, both of those things could be true as well.

[00:15:01]>> [snorts] >> Louie.

[00:15:12]Geez Louise.

[00:15:14]Having trouble finding the next move on a medium level Sudoku from the Guardian.

[00:15:19]What's going on here? Wake up. Wake up.

[00:15:23]It is still pretty early. Wait, she's not as early as I thought. Well, I must have slept longer than I thought to last night.

[00:15:30]That's good.

[00:15:38]In this block over here, we've got ones in those squares. What else do we know?

[00:15:43]We've got twos in those squares.

[00:15:48]We've got fives in those squares.

[00:15:54]And we've got sevens in those squares there.

[00:15:58]Ah, there's a pair of seven nine, isn't it? Yeah, okay.

[00:16:01]All right, so we've got seven blocking down here, seven blocking across here, right? So, you agree that that's a pair of sevens. And we've also got nine blocking this square, so nine for we don't have in this column yet, must appear there. So, that's a pair of seven and nine. And so, that has to be a two to finish that column. Ooh, you thank goodness for that. It's getting a bit worried there. Two in that square, eight in that square. Two in that square, eight in that square.

[00:16:27]>> [clears throat] >> Now, the twos block across here, across there, down there. There's a two.

[00:16:46]Uh oh, that's the last digit, two.

[00:16:48]All right, we'll go back to wandering around again.

[00:17:07]Fives blocking down here.

[00:17:10]Now, we know this is a pair of seven and nine, so that has to be a one.

[00:17:13]One this way, one that way. There's our digit one.

[00:17:33]And that's the last digit one.

[00:17:39]Missing numbers across here are three, five, and seven. Three and five are in the same column.

[00:17:44]So, that's a seven. Seven blocking across here, across here, and down here.

[00:17:48]Aha, we get our seven here, we get our three there.

[00:17:53]Also got three blocking like this.

[00:17:57]So, three across, across, and down there. There's the three, and the last digit here is five.

[00:18:03]Five blocking down, and five across.

[00:18:05]Seems like we got it finally. Took a long time to get there, though.

[00:18:08]>> [snorts] >> Um five across this way.

[00:18:13]Nine to go here.

[00:18:17]Uh what's missing in this row?

[00:18:23]Four.

[00:18:34]Right, one to Digits one through five are finished. So, we'll just click on the numbers of what we've got left now.

[00:18:40]So, six. Can we get a six?

[00:18:43]Uh not sure.

[00:18:45]Can we get a seven?

[00:18:48]Yes. Seven blocking down here. There's a seven, and seven across there. There's a seven.

[00:18:53]Uh this has to be a nine.

[00:18:56]And we're looking for a nine there. Nine blocking up, nine there, nine across.

[00:18:59]There's our nine, nine up here. There's our nine. This is a six.

[00:19:03]Six blocking down, there's a six.

[00:19:05]Uh missing digit here is eight, and over there an eight also. So, took much longer than normal.

[00:19:11]Uh but that could just be because I'm only half awake. Um Um And I'm seeing red mist because of Tony Blair.

[00:19:19]>> [laughter] >> Something like that.

[00:19:21]Anyway, take care. Hopefully there'll be some more Sudoku later. Bye-bye.