It All Boils Down To The Hard Part

Do you remember spotting the seven differences? Do you remember how hard it was to find that last one? The solution is within… and below.

Photo by Charlotte

One of my first memories is that of my grandad reading the newspaper. Like many other kids, I used to spend a fair amount of time with my grandparents, and since their daily routines were substantially different from those of my parents, my very young curiosity was often piqued.

My grandad would read the newspaper avidly every day, and while the news weren’t of much interest to me (could I even read at this point?) one thing that I loved was the puzzles section at the end. Forget about crosswords and other letter-based puzzles, I was fascinated by one game only: spot the seven differences.

Mind you, I must have been born ambitious, because I was determined to beat him at it… how often I managed to and how often he simply let me win, though, are mysteries that belong in childhood and that in childhood must remain.

The main lesson I took from spotting the seven differences was that the last one was always the hardest to spot. I would complain that I just couldn’t find that elusive seventh disparity between the two minimalistic drawings, and my grandad would say, wisely, ‘ah, that’s…