Twist and Shout

I have always been a late developer.

I was quite small for my age until a growth spurt in my early teens saw me reach an average height. In school I struggled well into my senior years before coming away with a reasonable set of qualifications. Not being a natural sportsman I had to train that little bit more to have any success at any level. As for my record with girls, well, I might just gloss over that for now.

There was a definite pattern in my development but I do believe that there are some merits in being a plodder.

My late father once said to me, "Everything comes to he who waits" and his wisdom and own life experiences, borne out of a quiet patience and confidence in his own abilities continue to this day, to have a big influence on my decision making process.

I have never gone completely overboard on a fashion or fad, preferring to sit back, observe and then make a judgement. To some this may be seen as sitting on the fence or dodging the issue but I strongly believe that this is the best way to approach just about everything.

In the break-neck pace of modern life it is always a good thing to spend a few moments in contemplation, although I do accept that this is a bit of a luxury in certain circumstances- running from a rampant bull, or just about to be hit by a bus being two possible exceptions to the rule.

I have actually pushed my life mantra to quite a ridiculous extreme in that just this week I have managed to complete a full side of a single colour on a Rubik's Cube.

This is after, I hesitate to admit, about 35 years of attempting to achieve this feat. I should qualify that sorry admission. In the last 35 years I have held and twisted a Rubik's Cube about a dozen times, therefore once every 3 or so years but on each occasion I have given up through frustration, boredom or by just being distracted by something more worthwhile such as getting married, witnessing the birth of each of my three children and running a business.

My renewed determination to attain that elusive uniform colour cube face was prompted by a demonstration at a New Years Eve Party by a well inebriated individual who completed the whole puzzle in about 5 minutes. If he could do it in that state then a sober me would have no problem......surely.

We have owned, outright,  a Rubik's Cube since it was purchased as a gift for one of our offspring, for the last 20 years. Prior to that there was always one to hand which is not surprising given that since taking the world by storm in the 1980's some 350 million units have been sold globally.

It is still the world's best selling puzzle but it's inventor, a Hungarian Architect and Lecturer, Erno Rubik had not originally intended it to be anything more than a classroom aide to teach his students about shape, form and co-ordination.

In 1974 Rubik put together a wooden and rubber banded cube in his search for a teaching tool that was mobile and simple but with special qualities of being able to be manipulated in an infinite number of positions. Tested on his students Rubik found that it was well received although it took a month of intensive use for Rubik himself to actually solve the puzzle for the first time. He found it to be quite therapeutic and absorbing , with almost meditative qualities and a high level of concentration and focus.

My ineptitude with a Rubik's Cube is not wholly indicative of a depleted brain function and this is supported by the statistic that only 1% of the population can solve the puzzle.

Many of my peer group spent hours and hours on the quest to complete the cube with a few being able to do it in 20 moves or less and it became a bit of a party-piece for them but in a very sad and geeky way.

The popularity of the puzzle amongst his students led Rubik to consider a commercial future for it. Based in the Communist  state of Hungary with its centralised planned economy any entrepreneurial activity was immediately a struggle and even committing to an initial production run of only 5000 units was very much a gamble.

Professionals in Rubik's own discipline of Architecture as well as in Design and Mathematics took up much of the first release and in the absence of any budget for advertising and marketing it was through word of mouth and recommendation that after only three years of its availability in Hungary it was calculated that 1 in 10 of the national population had one.

This was a bit of a distortion because the wildfire spread of the popularity of the Rubik's Cube farther afield and into the Capitalist Western Economies gave the puzzle a high value as the equivalent of hard currency and it was traded wholesale on the Black Market quite relentlessly.

A Distributor in the United States was the next logical step.

The Rubik's Cube was a Stateside phenomena selling 100 million units within 3 years and on the back of such sales the Licencing Company in the US was sold on at massive profit.

Erno Rubik did receive royalties for his invention but others made their fortune from his endeavours. He appears to have been powerless to enforce his intellectual property rights but has remained philosophical about it.

Many copies and knock-offs followed as well as cube related ventures again making vast amounts of money for third parties.

It is testament to the ingenuity of the Rubik's Cube that successive generations have continued to be challenged by it even in competition with increasingly sophisticated computer and internet based games.

As for me, I did have a bit of a dance around the living room upon completing a full single side. Everything does certainly comes to me who waits- my late father was so right.