"Don't kick your own teeth out with excitement or anything, but I've been playing Scrabble. Virtual Scrabble. or "Scrabulous" as it's known. It's a plug-in for Facebook: you challenge a friend, then play turn-by-turn casually, languidly, via email, which means games often last a week or more -like test match cricket, but faintly more interseting.

"And it's brightened my life considerably - except that there is a glaring flaw, which is that because a) you're not playing in the same room and b) you have as much as necessary to take your turn, it's subsequently far too easy - and tempting - to cheat.

"Soft cheating involves looking stuff up in the dictionary before placing your tiles on the board. Hard to get away with in real life, but not on Scrabulous, where it is actively encouraged:an interactive dictionary lurks beside the board.

"I became a habitual soft cheater: trying out all my letters in various combinations, tile by tile, deperately hoping I could "wish" a word into existence preferably on ethat would let me use up both the 'X' and the 'J'and still hit that treble-word-score square. How about JOGHEXY? Does that mean anything? Something medical? Please?

"Soft cheating might not be full blown hard cheating, but still it leaves you rather cheap. Who knew GIVED was a valid word? Not me, until I looked it up.As I slid the final 'D' into position, Ifely hollow inside. Numb.

"Inevitably, I soon began hard cheating. It started slowly, with an online anagram generator. Then I discovered http://www.scrabblesolver.co.uk , a site where you simply input the entire layout of the board, and leave it to work out the best possible options.But then my opponants started catching up. Then it hit me: They were using Scrabble Solver, too. we'd rendered ourselves obsolete.

"I couldn't enjoy the dull thrill of a pathetic, ill-gotten, vicarious win anymore, because with cheats prospering on every side, the outcome was entirely arbitrary. Eventually I rebelled, stopped cheating and started losing honestly.Not because of some kind of ethical awakening, but because I'd discovered the ultimate truth about cheating: it's boring. Grindingly boring.

"Anyway, I'm still hopeless at Scrabble. But now at least I'm honest. Or shuold that be SCRUPULOUS (4H across, 72 points)"

Charlie Brooker

Nothing beats WEEWAR!!

yes............................

not the point though was it?

heheheh Was just pulling your leg