no. of sudoku puzzles in Independent 4; no. sudoku finished 3; ave. time 7mins.; failed on extreme (poor).

Having worked away from home for a few days, I bought the paper for the train back to Devon and ignored the armed police on Lime Street station. Although there was one of those moments where I wish I always had my camera ready as the two armed police walked along the concourse and a small boy - of the sticky 7 year old type you always see during the summer holidays - gawped at them open-mouthed.

Bridget Jones (sub req.) is back in the Independent. So I did my sudoku first. I failed the 'extreme' in the time period allowed due to an elderly gentleman sat next to be paring fruit. V. distracting.

Rather against my will, I read the first in the new column. And still find myself disliking Ms Jones. This was probably not helped by a puff piece on BBC Breakfast News. I hate that program anyway, but it was the choice between that or nothing since a surprising number of hotel chains don't think their guests could possibly want Radio 4 and therefore don't supply it. Today may well have had a piece on the return of the gosh-I'm-so-amusingly-sozzled Ms Jones, but you can bet they would have got someone like Germaine Greer out of bed instead of some pre-recorded vox pop with some anadine women and Helen Lederer.

I dislike Bridget Jones because it sells the comfortable lie: it says that it's OK to have no ambition beyond a boyfriend, and to be obsessed about your image. I'm all for the "it's OK to get sozzled and fall out of taxis" bit, but the rest of it encourages self-deprecation and a "oooh, silly old me" attitude which I find both tedious and annoying. Bridget Jones is vacuous. She shouldn't be touted as a template of "modern woman" and it bothers me that so many women say (cf condensending voc pop from crappy morning tv news) "oh, she's great because she's just like me!". So you're happy to be a shallow doormat? You're happy to define your life by your sucess or failure with men?

There are some very funny lines in Bridget Jones' Diary (I love her comment that with a name like Darcy, Mark really shouldn't be hanging around moodily at parties) but I find the underlying theme irritating. And that's not just because I didn't finish my sudoku in time.