British woman told to remove Sudoku puzzle from husband’s gravestone

A U.K. cemetery has deemed a Sudoku puzzle inscribed on a headstone unfit to rest in peace. (Screengrab from mirror.co.uk)

A U.K. cemetery has deemed a Sudoku puzzle inscribed on a headstone unfit to rest in peace.

British widow Angela Robinson told the Mirror her late husband Allan was a mathematician and a lover of Sudoku puzzles, and so when he died last year at 66, she had a puzzle and an equation placed above his name on his headstone. However, officials in Chester, Cheshire have told Robinson to remove the items, saying they "lower the standards" at the cemetery, according to the Mirror.

Angela and her son Paul said they were shocked by the letter they received from the parish telling them to have the stone mason alter the headstone.

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"In what way is this remotely offensive, of concern or even matters in any way?" Paul told the Mirror.

The Mirror did not report if the family was planning to comply with the order.

A grave in St. George, Ont. sparked controversy earlier this year after a Korean family inscribed on both the front and the back of a family member's headstone — one side in English, the other in Korean — contravening a county bylaw, CTV reported.

The bylaw forbade printing anything but a person's last name on the back of a tombstone, on the grounds that those words would face another person's grave, the Toronto Star reported. The words could cross territorial boundaries in the cemetery, like placing a sign on the lawn of your resting neighbour.

The Star reported council voted to suspend the bylaw until further notice following an influx of complaints.