Sly Numbers – The old Carer has been playing one-finger patience online. When the young Carer spotted this he asked if she was gambling (patience had a different meaning for post-Revolution Cubans.) No, she said, solitaire is a distraction from the painful hands. She reckons there are ‘shy’ numbers (2, 5, 6 and 8) and ‘sly’ numbers (4, 7, 10, Cheap Jack and the Queen, who sticks her face in everywhere). She also speculates that whoever designed the game weighs the odds in favour of ‘sly’ numbers. I asked her what she meant, and she said ‘shy’ numbers get pushed out of their rights by the ‘sly’ numbers’, which club together and get away with promising one move and doing another. So who are these ‘sly’ numbers? I asked. Ah, you have to watch those Bully Boys, my lad; turn your back and in a wink of an eye they’ll rip your fur coat off your back, steal your scratch pad, and tax your bison snug as an extra bedroom. Now I think of it, she says, we’d best be prepared for them taxing extra toilets, as your litter box will then have to go.