The 500 Club...

It's been a good year in my local pool league and in my interleague pool team, too, but 2010 has been a largely frustrating year at county pool. To put it simply, I can't buy a frame and I'm about to return my poorest A Team stats in 25 years.

Even worse I've put the hours in on the practice table but the results just aren't coming. It's true I've missed a few absolute sitters to win a few extra frames this year but it's also equally true that I've been shooting dead in too many frames, meaning that whenever I come to the table I'm in major trouble to begin with.

On the plus side, however, I did play my 500th frame for my county pool team at the weekend and I won it as well. Although I did miss a straight black in the middle to win it on my first opportunity.

It means I now join quite an exclusive little club in the history of my county pool team. It's not a major achievement in the grand scheme of thing but it's a nice one. I've not only being good enough to play that many frames at that level but I've been committed enough to stick around and play that many frames.

When the season is not going well on the table at least I have that crumb of comfort to cheer me up. And, of course, the season's not over yet so there's still time to turn it around. And there's always next year. Probably...

Other Woman News...

Me and the Other Woman attended an intensive weekend of martial arts seminars and by the end of the weekend we were both utterly exhausted so we retired to the pub.

We'd had a minor spat earlier in the day after she'd bought a copy of The Mail On Sunday because it had a free Kylie CD. She argued the quality of the CD excused her decision to purchase and therefore fund the right-wing, racist and homophobic rag while I argued no amount of free stuff could ever warrant buying that vile publication.

So we renew hostilities over this in the pub and one of our friends around the table asked how we'd ever become friends in the first place if this is how we carried on. The Other Woman pondered for a second before offering:
'It's because I attract idiots.'
I countered with:
'It's because I attract sluts.'

We eventually made our peace over a pint but the Kylie Incident, as it is now known, will remain an icy plateau to which we will never return less we both slip off mid-argument and plunge to an unpleasant death.

I returned home and was explaining our debate to the Missus and ended my argument with:
'I mean, you wouldn't buy Mein Kamp if it came with a free handbag, would you?'

The Missus paused to consider the proposition.
'Depends on the handbag.'

The women in my life are in cahoots to send me insane.

The Last Wrestlers: A Far-flung Journey In Search Of A Manly Art...

Marcus Trower was a martial artist who became obsessed by wrestling – but not the costumed hi-jinks of Big Daddy and chums in the UK or The Undertaker and his ilk in the US. Trower loved real wrestling and researched then trained wrestling techniques with several partners in his native England until a mystery illness struck, an illness which meant he had to take a lengthy break from any strenuous activity for several years.

His book chronicles his own love affair with wrestling, his illness and recuperation, and his journey around the globe to visit the last outposts of the sport where wrestling exists as it has for hundreds and, in some cases, thousands of years.

Trower joins wrestling schools in India and Brazil, as well as journeying to Nigeria to witness the wrestling styles of two remote tribes and visiting Mongolia where wrestling remains a national obsession. He also briefly discusses the tradition of wrestling in England and Ancient Greece and forms his own theories about the origins of this ancient sport.

The only criticism of the book is that he never examines the flourishing college wrestling system in America in any real depth but, that minor point aside, the book is a fascinating and entertaining read very much in the style of Angry White Pyjamas by Robert Twigger. It is peopled with fascinating characters and written in an accessible and easy-going style and Trower remains a very likeable narrator.

Well worth a look.

The Car...

Me and the Missus are in Greece and her Jet-setting Photographer Brother has joined us for a few days so he decides to hire a car.

I cannot drive and the Missus hasn't driven for years but having seen what passes for road safety in Greece we're confident we could have a go and get away with it.

In short Greek drivers are nutcase-on-crack dangerous behind a wheel. Fortunately the Jet-setting Photographer Brother is a seasoned driver on several continents so we decide we are in safe hands.

So we head off to pick the car up but when we arrive at the car hire place one very grumpy woman takes a look at his driving licence and tells him it is no good. The licence is Australian and she will not accept it as proof of his driving credentials. He has driven on all continents and never crashed. From what we've seen if he was blind he would still be the safest driver on this island. But she is not having it and we walk away without a car.

To add insult to injury we then get a cab home home driven by a lunatic whose idea of customer service is to drive with Guns 'n' Roses blaring out as he narrowly avoids oncoming traffic.

As we get out of the cab the Missus turns to her brother and smiles before adding:
'He's allowed to drive here.'
Her brother smirks.

We arrive at the hotel bar and order drinks. As we sit down a father arrives clutching his two-year-old daughter who in her hands has a set of car keys keys she is fiddling with.

I lean over to the Jet-setting Photographer Brother and join in.
'She's allowed to drive here, too...'

The gag runs for the rest of the evening.

Word Of The Day...

I am on holiday in Greece with the Missus and I am playing Scrabble and come across the word 'boi', which apparently is slang for a lesbian who dresses like a man.

All this and thousands of years of culture, too.

Learning is a wonderful thing.

Pants II!

I am in the bedroom with the Missus after having a shower and I am sporting the much-derided and recently purchased Y-fronts.
'I don't think they look too bad. They look a bit retro sporty,' I say in their defence.
'They look awful,' replies the Missus.
'Well they are very comfortable.'
'They are horrendous. I may well burn them if you leave them anywhere near me.'
'Well I am going to wear these pants with pride,' I state aiming to end a discussion that is clearly not going in my favour.

The Missus smirks.
'You should wear them at Pride... with nothing else.'

Pants I!

Me and the Missus are going on holiday for two weeks so I cycle into town to make the last of my holiday purchases, namely a few t-shirts and some new boxer shorts.

So I fold up my bike and nip into Uni-Qlo and grab two t-shirts, a very funky polo shirt and what I assume are four pairs of boxer shorts. Job done.

So I arrive home and the Missus, the Boy and the Boy's Girlfriend are sat in the kitchen. So the Missus inquires about my shopping trip.
'How did it go?'
'I'll show you...'

So I reach into my rucksack and pull out the two t-shirts.
'Suppose they're OK,' says the Missus.

Then I go for the banker and pull out the polo shirt. The Boy takes a look and sniggers while the Missus smiles the smile she reserves for children with learning difficulties.
'You don't like it, do you?' I ask.
'It's a little...'
'Gay.' adds the Boy.

So I try the polo shirt on and they are right, prompting the Missus to add:
'It looks like you are a straight man trying to channel his inner gay.'

But worse then follows...
'Well at least the boxer shorts are nice!' I add flinging them on the table.

It is only when I open the second packet that I realise I have have picked up some Y-fronts by mistake. And they are horrible Y-fronts. The sort of Y-fronts a pensioner with a wee-stained truss would turn his nose up at.

The Boy is now giggling uncontrollably until the Boy's Girlfriend tells him to stop. I am beaten. I admit defeat.
'See what happens when you don't come clothes shopping with me!'

The Missus gives me a hug.
'Don't worry,' she says. 'It will never happen again.'

Old People...

I generally like old people. But I now have an exception to this rule and that is the old woman who has a habit of shuffling past From Beer To Paternity Towers when I am putting the rubbish bin out.

The first night I saw her she smiled at me. So I smiled back and she asked me a question that I didn't quite catch so I smiled and said something bland back.

But I saw her a week later and she asked what sounded like the same question again, which was:
'Are you moving house?'

I've now seen her twice since and she has asked exactly the same question and, to be frank, I think she's taking the piss by implying that I look like I live in a rubbish bin.

And to think I gave to Help The Aged at the weekend. The sarcastic old cow.

Making The Grade...

Several of my peers graded for their black belts a few weeks ago. I had hoped to grade alongside them but even though I'd been putting the hours in I wasn't up to speed. This was frustrating.

Then I injured my knee so I couldn't continue training to start making the necessary improvements I needed to make to ensure I'd be ready for the next grading in November. And that was really frustrating.

I still attended the grading, though, to support my wannabe black belt colleagues. The Other Woman also graded and was fab. Because we see other socially and have a flirty banter which borders on the occasionally filthy I sometimes forget how she's a strong martial artist in her own right. It was good to watch her and be reminded of this.

There was also quite an emotional moment at the end of the grading when the Other Woman Who Loves Other Women was presented with her black belt. The OWWLOW cried. I was pretty close myself.

It's heartening to see the people you love do good stuff and be rewarded for it. It also offers you resolve to ensure those days come for you, no matter how far off they may seem at the moment...

Alex Higgins: RIP...

It was in the early 1980s that I first picked up a snooker cue and I instantly fell in love with cue sports of all descriptions. And it's a passion that's stayed with me...

It was English eightball pool that I eventually decided to focus on but I also played snooker and was an avid fan of the game in the period throughout the 1980s when Steve Davis was in his pomp, and then in the 1990s when Stephen Hendry firmly established himself as the best player to ever play the game. Even now if a tournament is on TV it takes all my will power not to sit down and watch it and forget about anything else. Like my wife. Or eating.

The man largely responsible for this ongoing love affair was a player from Belfast who won his first world title in 1972 then won his second amid emotional scenes where he was joined on stage at The Crucilble in Sheffield by his wife and child in 1982. The man was Alex 'Hurricane' Higgins and to this day I have to see a player with such natural ability or vision in cue sports of any discipline.

Living as a Higgins fan was sometimes a tough existence. Just as he was capable of shots and breaks of breath-taking brilliance, he was also capable of missing the easiest of shots or self-destructing through a combination of booze and a fiery temper. Higgins lived life on a knife edge and that's also how he played his snooker.

And existing as a Higgins fan was also never a good experience if you were a betting man. He did win tournaments but he was also capable of throwing away winning leads by taking on shots of such audacity that even veteran commentators were baffled.

To be a Higgins fan was to put yourself firmly in the camp of the outsider fighting against the snooker establishment - an establishment, ironically, Higgins' popularity had helped turn into a huge money-making industry.

The nemesis of Higgins, of course, was Steve 'Interesting' Davis and he was everything that Higgins wasn't. If Higgins easily bored of the practice table, Davis lived for it; if Higgins could be found drunk in a nightclub at 2am the day before a big match, you could be sure Davis was tucked up in bed with his cocoa by 10pm. And Davis was virtually unbeatable.

But the fact that Higgins was the outsider and the bad boy and the underdog just made his victories all the sweeter. His 1982 World Championship Final victory against Ray Reardon was one of the sporting highlights of my youth, especially considering it followed his epic semi-final against Jimmy 'Whirlwind' White, a match still considered to be one of the all-time greats among snooker doyens.

My favourite Higgins match, however, was the 1983 UK Championship Final when he faced Davis. I remember watching the afternoon session in patches through several TV shop windows when I was out shopping with the family. And it wasn't pleasant viewing: Davis battered Higgins with a humiliating 7-0 first-session booting.

But then came the evening sessions and the street fighter in Higgins woke up and over the next three sessions he fought back to win the final and the title 16-15. It was a stunning performance and perhaps his finest moment. It was also one of his last great moments on the table as future form proved intermittent and disciplinary problems lead to an eventual suspension.

Higgins then began to feature only on the front pages for drunken behaviour, various personal and relationship problems, one assault and for health-related issues such as the throat cancer that he developed in his later years. It made painful viewing.

But recently Higgins had started playing again and was doing the odd exhbition and his cancer seemed beaten and his health improving. But it was only a brief respite and he died today aged 61.

Davis once described Higgins as 'the only true genius that the game of snooker has ever produced' and, while that may not be strictly true, his ability to see shots and the vision of his break-building, plus a very under-rated safety game, was a stunning thing to behold when in full flight.

An old mate of mine became quite good friends with Higgins for a while in the late 1990s and I had the chance to meet him. But I turned it down. Higgins was one of my heroes but I was also aware that he was a troubled man who could sometimes be very unpleasant and I didn't want to meet that man. I wanted the hero and for me that's always what Higgins was and will remain.

Rest in peace, Alex.

Guilfest

Me and the Missus, plus our Yorkshire Chums From St Albans and their We-Get-Him-If-They-Die-Kid, ventured over to Guilfest at the weekend. This was a largish music festival at Stoke Park in Guildford and headlining on the day we went were Ndubz and the Human League.

The Missus is an old punk and gig-goer of many years experience and when we were first going out we compared notes on the gigs we'd been to. She reeled off the Clash, the Jam and a veritable who's who of all the important punk, new wave and ska bands of the late Seventies and early Eighties... while my rather paltry offerings included the Housemartins, the Mission and the Waterboys. If our share-and-compare was a boxing match it would have been ruled a no-contest.

Rather brilliantly, though, one of her first gigs was the Human League in their Being Boiled and pre-girl backing singers days so it was quite a sweet moment when they came back on stage for one of the encores and performed... Being Boiled. She was happy.

Other highlights included Hazel O'Connor doing a version of the Snow Patrol song, Chasing Cars, and Kid Creole and the Coconuts.

My only concern here was that the Kid is now 60 and still allowed to be the Kid but the Coconuts are obviously not the originals and were replacement Coconuts. I imagined the Kid has to sit down with the Coconuts every so often and tell them they're going to be replaced.
Kid: 'Girls... I've got some bad news for you. I need to send you to the Coconut retirement home and get some younger models.'
Coconut 1: 'We're still good for another, Kid. Honestly...'
Coconut 2: 'We're young at heart. We're still Coconuts!'
Coconut 3: 'Come on. You're 60 and you still call yourself the Kid!'

Another highlight of the day was taking our friends' We-Get-Him-If-They-Die-Kid to his first grunge gig in the Indie tent. The band was a group called Japanese Voyeurs and they're quite rocky and they have real potential. They're very tight musicians who also manage to get that raw and growly grunge sound and they have a single out on iTunes. Four songs into their set I turn to ask the We-Get-Him-If-They-Die-Kid what he thinks.
'They're very loud, aren't they?'

Comedy moment of the day, however, was walking past the Kidszone area to hear some wag had put a Gary Glitter song on. Now that's pretty funny.

But Guilfest was great. A really friendly and fun day out.

Quiz Question...

Q. Which English castle suffered badly from smoke damage in the Eighties?
A. Roy.

Home Rule...

The new From Beer To Paternity Towers is quite wonderful. The Missus is happy, I am happy, even the Boy is quite impressed when he visits from university... although I suspect he still hasn't forgiven us for moving away from London and all his mates.

The cats, however, are having territory issues.

Our new neighbours (who are very nice) have two older, bigger cats who apparently used to be regular visitors in our new home as they were on friendly with the previous owners' cats. But now they are persona pussy non grata and they are having trouble getting the message.

What they are getting, however, is right on our bloody nerves by pouncing on our cats every time they venture into the garden, so much so that they now only venture out when me or the Missus go into the garden with them.

This is slowly starting to annoy me as I am increasingly acting cat bouncer in our garden so I am considering marking territory in the only way cats understand. I initially thought about spraying the places the neighbours' cats sit with lemon as cats hate citrus. But the Missus thought that wouldn't be strong enough. So I asked her if I should mark territory the way cats mark territory.

'So you want to wee on the wall where the neighbours' cats sit?'
'It's an idea...'

The Missus shakes her head then stops and smiles.
'Actually that's a really good idea. You should do it when the school that our garden backs onto is open and all the school children are on the playing field too. That will help the process...'

Sometimes she’s just not supportive.

Chris Sievey: RIP...

Comedian Chris Sievey (aka Frank Sidebottom) died last week.

With his outsized, cartoon, papier mache head and his whimsical flights of fancy, Chris's creation Frank Sidebottom was a real one-off. Frank was a showman and singer who never hit the big time but believed he sort of had; think of a slightly angrier and more ridiculous and frustrated John Shuttleworth and you're sort of there.

It was a truly fantastic comic creation.

Author Jon Ronson, who in the early days used to play keyboards in Frank's backing band, was on the radio at the weekend lamenting the passing of his former mate and told a great story.

Apparently Chris (with full Sidebottom head on) and Ronson were touring and driving down Edgware Road in London on the way to a gig when Chris demanded that he pull the van over and briefly park up. Ronson duly obliged and Chris in Frank persona and head rolled down the window and buttonholed one bemused passerby.
'Excuse me, mate. Is this London?'
'Yes,' replied the slightly confused fella.
'Well can you tell me where you want this wood?' asked Chris in Sidebottom mode.

I don't think I've heard anything more ridiculous or funnier. Ever.

Dream Lover...

I am having a dream. The Missus is having an affair with a photographer and I have tracked them both to his very swish place and confronted her. He is in the bedroom and she will not let me confront him so I give her the option to leave him and come home with me.

But the total cow decides to stay another night and tells me she'll be home in the morning. I leave upset...

I tell the Missus about the dream when I wake up. Does she offer succour for my night-time distress? No. Instead she offers the following words of comfort.
'It's highly unlikely to happen. I'm far too lazy to have an affair with anyone...'

Thanks.

Team Talk...

Come on England! Come on you over-paid, over-hyped, over-exposed, affair-adoring, self-obsessed, roasting-loving, disgraceful set of human beings.

For once remember you are football players with a job to do and a nation behind you...

DISCLAIMER 1: This was written three hours before kick-off. The management reserves the right to edit any posts and change its opinion in the event England get an utter booting.

DISCLAIMER 2: At least were not the French.

Charity...

The Missus is back from a press trip. I am filling her in on my activities during her absence and I mention I took one of the bags of clothes the Boy had sorted out for charity to the drop-off point.
'Which bag would that be?'
'The smaller of the two bags...'
'The bag with the Boy's old boxer shorts?'
'Yes...'
'The bag I told you not to take because they don't want old boxer shorts with the crotch worn through?'
'You never said that...'
'I did. You just chose to ignore me...'
'But they do want stuff like that.'
'Why would they want old boxer shorts with worn-through crotches?'
'To recycle as rags...'
'Rags?'
'...to stuff children's toys with.'
'So in your world children's toys are stuffed with the old boxer shorts of teenage boys? Boxer shorts with the crotches worn through?'
'It's eco-friendly.'
'It's not particularly hygienic, is it?'
'It helps children build up resistance to disease...'
'You're an idiot...'

It's good to have her home.

Media Careers Advice: Part III...

Job title: fashion mag girlies

Job description: Who cares? It's a soul-less and pointless profession in an even more vacuous world populated by the intellectually challenged, the vain and the inept. Sadly in the wonderful world that is the media at some point you will run into a gaggle of these dead-behind-the-eyes, stick-thin, air-headed bints... and if you possess any trace of concern for humanity it will be all you can do to stop yourself unloading with a Malcolm Tucker-esque tirade. Or shotgun. Particularly if you end up stuck in a lift with these tweeting and chattering air thieves as they bitch about some totaly inane nonsense to do with shoes.

I hate them all with a passion that gives me energy and, although some people would call my solution to their existence genocide, I prefer the term gene-pool-cleansing.

I think we’d survive without them...

Salary: Pay them in buttons and tell them it's a new style of money. They're all too stupid to discover you are lying...

The Zen Of Pool: Conclusions...

An article I wrote for my martial arts school's magazine...

‘From one thing know ten thousand things…’
Miyamoto Musashi

Some facts… I’m good at eightball pool. At 16 I was invited to play for my senior county team and some 25 years, two trials for the England team and one national title later I’m still playing at county level. So I’m still good.

The problem with being good at something, though, is that it’s a constant battle to maintain standards. When you can do something to a high level it’s frustrating when you struggle to maintain that level. So being good at something does carry problems.

Fortunately at hapkido I never experienced these issues. Having no martial arts experience and limited ability any minor success in class was a triumph rather than a failure. And as much as it annoyed me to pretty much get everything wrong for the first two years I didn’t beat myself up about it. After all Hapkido was something I did for fun.

Some seven years later and with a black belt grading looming, however, and that’s not an excuse I can use any more. I’m no longer quite so useless and the desire to maintain a standard is now as necessary in my martial arts studies as it is when I grab my cue and head off to a match.

So inspired by the above Musashi quote I decided to apply the lessons I’d learnt from my cue sports discipline and apply them to the martial arts one and see where I went…

Stance
The bedrock of any cue sport is the stance. The theory is that if you have a balanced stance you are much less likely to move on a shot, which is a common cause of missing a shot. In short the more solid your base the better chance you have of lining up correctly behind the shot to deliver a smooth stroke to hit the white ball.

In hapkido the stance is also a vital factor. A solid base and distribution of your weight allows you to unbalance and throw an opponent, to launch kick and punch combinations, and to torque your hips to generate additional power without losing balance or leaving yourself vulnerable. In both disciplines a stable connection to the floor is vital and a good stance is quite literally the foundation of everything.

Delivery
In pool how you ‘deliver’ the cue is a key factor. Beginners struggle to maintain a smooth stroke when holding a cue. Their legs, bodies and arms move so when they aim at the white ball they often tend to stab at it from a variety of angles because they haven’t mastered the ‘delivery’ of the cue. To ‘deliver’ a cue through a shot requires a fluid motion that starts with a backswing then accelerates the tip towards the white ball until it strikes it before it returns to a starting position. It is a simple and elegant motion that is neither dramatic nor exciting but consistent and smooth.

To my mind delivering a kick or a punch requires a similar understanding of the mechanics involved. Punches and kicks are fluid motions that have a definite start point at their initial chambering and a definite contact point as they strike their target before reverting back to a guard position.

Both disciplines have ‘delivery’ systems that rely on repeating simple, fluid mechanical actions. But such simplicity in both disciplines in only based on hours of practice.

Focus
Maintaining focus when playing in tournaments can be a demanding experience. Most individual matches last about an hour and if you get to the later stages of the event you’ll have won four or five matches and will have spent up to nine hours in the venue. To help retain focus during matches I have mental routines I go through before getting down to play the shot to ensure I’ve analysed the situation and worked out my best option.

I adapted some of these habits into hapkido so now if I’m sparring I try to maintain a certain body shape. It helps by programming my body and mind into understanding that I’m sparring… in much the same way that touching my watch when it’s my turn to take a key shot at pool reminds me to take the time to check my options.

Interestingly the issue of focus is one area where the study of hapkido has influenced my pool game. I realised a while ago that it’s no accident that my best hapkido lessons usually follow a ki class. And that’s because my body is relaxed and my mind is clear so I can easily tune into what I’m doing. So if I’m struggling with a technique instead of getting annoyed I mentally step back from myself and analyse what’s wrong.

And this is something I’ve brought into my pool game a lot in the last year because if you make a mistake at pool it’s often tempting to try to rescue the situation by playing a high-risk but low-percentage shot. And in my youth I was able to get away with that approach but these days I no longer have that same on-the-table aggression so I’ve borrowed a lesson from my hapkido and I step out of the situation, analyse and find a smarter option.

Conclusion
The main truth I’ve rediscovered, though, is if I want to keep playing pool at a high level then I have to put the hours in on the practice table. And that means running drills to keep my basics consistent. And the same lessons apply at hapkido.

To quote Musashi: ‘The key is training. One must continue to train.’

Media Careers Advice: Part II...

Job description: art department

Duties: In the 1970s it was easy to spot potential kiddy-fiddlers or other sexual deviants. They were usually men with glasses who wore long coats and spoke in soft voices. They were also kind to their mothers. If they hadn't killed them.

But in this age of cyber-space wizardry and cultural homogeneity it's much more difficult to know what you're dealing with. And it's the same with art department people. Like paedophiles they come in all shapes and sizes and they're generally pretty tough to spot and it's even more difficult to understand the amount of utter bilge they come out with.

So here's a test to help you spot them and also see if it's the career path for you.

1) Do you understand the concept of a deadline?
a) Yes.
b) Does it have to be a deadline? And does it have to be in that colour? If we had a few more days we could make it a really aesthetically pleasing deadline. We go to press today? How about I get it to you next week? With new pictures? And a new design?

2) You have a problem to solve that has a straightforward solution. Do you?
a) Solve it in a systematic and intelligent way that ensures your deadline is met?
b) Throw a huge hissy fit like a pre-menstrual teenager, go cry in the toilets for an hour, refuse to do any work until everyone accepts you are 'creative' and have a right to be temperamental, then consult some feng shui manual before begrudgingly completing the task with a face like a slapped arse.

If you've answered 'a' then you are probably quite sane and should never consider a career in the media. Go learn a proper trade. If you answered 'b' start learning the latest design package now. You're destined to be an art desk diva. Well done.

Salary: You deserve every penny. Not.