So who exactly is this Luke Woodward geezer that's apparently writing this stuff, you may be asking. Well, I was a PhD student in Mathematics at Oxford University, and after that I stayed on for a year as a postdoc. My interests include orienteering, logical puzzles and computer programming. I used to be an active orienteer. The deadly combination of a sports injury I picked up (shin splints) and my departure from academia into the tedium of a 9-to-5 job have meant that I'm not getting out there half as often as I used to. I'm a member of both JOK and TVOC.

A particular interest of mine is computer programs to solve logical puzzles. Indeed, I had a part-time job with Puzzler Media Ltd which involves using a collection of programs I've written to check some of the puzzles in their Tough Puzzles magazine. My remit didn't specifically say I had to check the puzzles by computer, but I certainly found the computer useful. Frequently, it could solve the puzzles many times faster than I am at solving them. All good things come to an end however, and the magazine has now been closed down. I still occasionally compile puzzles for the Tough Puzzles Yahoo group.

Although currently living in Oxford, I'm originally from North Devon, in southwest England. The coastal village of Combe Martin, just off the western tip of Exmoor National Park is home for me. Combe Martin does have its oddities: it's overshadowed by Little and Great Hangman, it apparently has the longest high street in the whole of the UK, and it has the Pack O'Cards, a pub shaped like a house of cards. It has lost me, though.