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Surprisingly unaffected by last night’s LSD/lager I managed to get to the gym and to get to the supermarket and back with four very heavy bags of shopping. But was a little weary by the time I came to record this week’s Me1 Vs Me2 Snooker podcast. There was some fall out from Me2’s recent outrageous statements and the Self Playing Snooker Federation became involved and made what I imagine will be quite an unpopular decision (for the three people who still listen to this). Big and confusing changes were afoot.
You’ll have to listen to discover what they were, but make sure you’ve listened to the 52 previous frames first or it will make no sense at all.
As well as battling fatigue and ennui at the idea of playing fragments of myself at snooker, I also had to contend with our washing machine, which makes a loud and unpleasant beeping noise when it has finished its cycle. And then, as if that wasn’t needy enough, continues to intermittently make the same sound every few minutes for a good five minutes. I can’t go and open the door to the washing machine (which is how you make it stop) during a frame for fear that will disrupt the signal on my radio mic. So it heckled me throughout a difficult and already fractious frame causing me to have to respond to it with anger. And the first rule of responding to washing machine hecklers is to not lose your temper.
The snooker podcast continues to be the best thing that I do. One day the world will catch up with me, as usual. But I will have moved on by then, so no doubt the person who brings this sport to TV will Be Jack Whitehall or Paddy McGuinness or Stewart Lee - any of those mainstream one-trick ponies who never write their own material.
But some things in this world are certain. Spurs will always win 2-1. And Me1 Vs Me2 Snooker shall be my legacy.
Tonight we headed to our local pub for a carol singing/quiz night with some of the couples from our NCT group. It’s interesting to be thrown together with a group of people merely due to near simultaneous incorrect disposal of sexcrement, but we seem to have been lucky so far and the other 7 months pregnant people from our basic postcode are friendly and fun. We formed a team (the other people at the event were not all pregnant, but seemed to be a mixture of elves, musicians and religious types - maybe all three) and although we’d arrived a bit late and were playing catch up, somehow managed to win. Though there were three secret people on our team who no one could see who might have been feeding us the answers down their umbilical cords. We were asked to identify some song lyrics about a craft above the stable where Jesus was born and I fancied that I knew some Christmas song about UFOs, as unlikely as that seemed. Out of nowhere I came up with “A Spaceman Came Travelling” and my wife said she thought that was by Chris de Burgh. This answer pulled out of my arse, my wife’s arse and possibly my unborn child’s arse, turned out to be enough to get us into the first place tie-break which was “What number single for Cliff Richard was Mistletoe and Wine?” We went for 48, but it was his 99th. We were still the closest though and won a selection box. Which more than makes up for my Mastermind and Pointless disappointments (though we don’t know yet if my second Pointless appearance was a disappointment too, but I reckon most of you are guessing that it was).
What a strange and alien feeling it was to win something. I will covet the tiny packet of chocolate buttons I got in return for my knowledge. Oh, I’ve eaten them.
Just as well the BBC won't give me a trophy. I'd only scoff it.
