Back to the basement today to record the 30th frame of Me 1 Vs Me 2 snooker (Orange Mark is out of the country so it might take a little while to go up). It's been a good while since the last one and maybe four people have tentatively asked if it was over, but I have to carry on until no one is asking where the next frame is - and beyond. It was back to basics today - a man playing himself at snooker in his basement and commentating on it - and I successfully inhabited the characters so that I was able to have arguments amongst them and question their last statement and so on. At its best this podcast is the greatest piece of art ever created by a human being. Unfortunately there's a big chunk in the middle where it's just a man playing snooker against himself, poorly described in audio only. But there was lots of exciting action this week (I wish there was just some way that you could see it).
The most exciting thing happened before the recording as I wheeled the snooker board into place and the wheel caught on a bit of grit (I said grit) from the cats' litter tray and scratched the new wooden flooring. This was a shame, but to be honest the floorboards we chose are pretty useless for the job of being a floor as any tiny thing scratches them, including shoes. But this was quite a deep and noticeable scar. Ah well, we were never going to keep the place nice and I'd rather scratch my house than my car.
The snooker podcast will be up soon enough in the regular places. I have asked Orange Mark to provide me of details of downloads. I can't wait to see how few people are still subscribing. And there's no guarantee that all of them are listening. But for those of you brave enough to have made it this far I think this is a fun frame. There's life in this old dog let. And finally the cats took an interest in what was going on in their shit palace (the place where they shit, rather than a palace made out of shit) and there was a brief pitch invasion. Does that mean the result of the frame is invalidated? Is there anything in the rules of snooker about what happens if a pet gets on to the table? There should be? It must happen. If it can happen in the Shepherd's Bush Brontosaurus then it can happen in the Reading Hexagon.
We went out for dinner at our local cheap and usually uncheerful Thai restaurant. The owner is generally quite dour and short with people and I enjoy his rudeness. I don't know if we've now been enough times to qualify as regulars or if the recession is biting so hard that the man has been forced to become civil or if he's realised that I write a column for the Metro, but we got a warm welcome and friendly banter and advice on what to order. He was charming. I am not sure I like it. I will never return.
I am joking about that, but it was slightly unsettling and I quite liked going to a place without the pretension that the customers were anything but an inconvenience. If the recession is causing this kind of turnaround (and I did note that the waiting staff in the Paris restaurants we went to last year were unusually amicable) then I cannot wait for prosperity.
But if the man was being nice because he now likes us (after ten years of me occasionally patronising his business) then I suppose that's rather nice. We've worn the old fella down. Or more likely my wife has. I don't think he'd be bothered so much if it was still just me coming in!
Supernerd Rob Sedgebeer informs me that in Play School the choice of window was informed by the theme of the show - round window for balls, wheels etc, square for buildings and the arched one was quite rare as not much fitted with the theme. I hope he worked that out as a toddler and was able to always correctly predict the window to the amazement of his parents.
