04/16/24
April 21, 2006
Snooker World Championships: : "You got four channels in the UK, and they're all showing snooker... I mean, I like snooker, don't get me wrong. I think it's a little slow - it could use some livening up - but I've figured out why it takes so long. It's not because of the players, it's because this little old guy keeps taking the balls out of the pockets and putting them back on the table!" [Bill Hicks]
Love Bill Hicks, nice pop JJ!
posted by the red terror at 07:55 AM on April 21, 2006
Ah yes, snooker. One of my guilty pleasures when I just want to slump in front of the goggle box.
posted by salmacis at 08:25 AM on April 21, 2006
Ah snooker. Takes me back to my youth and the dingy, dirty pool hall filled with smoke. Past the faded green snooker tables with all those red cherries were the old men in the back cussing and playing moon. Those days and places are pretty much all gone. Without them it's no wonder our society is so screwed up now.
posted by sageman at 08:41 AM on April 21, 2006
It's right up there with test cricket as a means of gently nursing a hangover. The only downside to the World Championships is that the snooker clubs across the country become over-run. Salmacis - I passed that Riley's in Cowley on Wednesday night on my way down to the Marsh Harrier to watch the Arsenal game and there was a queue out the door! Or was is a cue... Sorry.
posted by JJ at 08:42 AM on April 21, 2006
We were from Canada and visiting relatives in Calf. in the early 60's. My couson and myself went to a local pool hall. Now you have to remember in Canada in those days we never had boston size tables only snooker. Anyway we played a couple of games on those"small" boston tables before we noticed a larger table covered up off in the corner. Checking it out we found it was a snooker table we asked the owner if we could play on it. Before long we had a crowd of americans around us asking the rules of the game and why we would keep, as JJ mentioned, putting balls back on the table. That was 40 yeras ago and I can remember that as clear as it happened today........
posted by fieldman at 09:14 AM on April 21, 2006
I just love that one of JJ's favorite comedians is a drugged-out dead Texan. I just spent the better part of an hour re-hashing old Bill Hicks quotes - a great time.
posted by WeedyMcSmokey at 09:31 AM on April 21, 2006
Snooker is a great game (probably not a sport though - at least not while this walking chip shop is considered the 10th best player in the world). It's remarkably difficult compared to pool (of any description). I've had a few fifty breaks, but never even sniffed a century - I probably used to play three or four days a week when I played a lot (that's what life as a golfer will do for you - I'm also pretty good at darts).
posted by JJ at 09:34 AM on April 21, 2006
Weedy - on Wednesay night, as I walked to the pub to watch the first leg of Arsenal's Champion's League semi-final, I was listening to Bill Hicks on my iPod. I'd have been laughing anyway, but I was laughing extra hard as it was a recording of a show he did here in Oxford. He described going to Cowley (where I was walking as I listened) to do a radio show and it being like "Finding the Alabama of England, man... you get out there to Cowley and you look around and the teeth are missing, and the eyes are just a little bit too close together... is everyone out there married to their own sister?" As I was walking, it was like Cowley was tuned into what I was listening to and I kept spotting these weird looking people. At one point I had to actually stop and compose myself I was laughing so much. He was talking about the Madonna Sex book costing £25. "Twenty-five pounds?! Is she kidding? You can actually HAVE sex for twenty-five pounds... twice, if you're in Cowley."
posted by JJ at 09:44 AM on April 21, 2006
That's the best way to get some alone time on the bus, JJ. I've done that. Being tickled just so that you lose it and have to get it out. Good times.
posted by WeedyMcSmokey at 10:15 AM on April 21, 2006
That comment about watching the snooker with a hangover is spot on!
posted by walrus at 10:53 AM on April 21, 2006
In the early 1990s, I worked at a small pool room with a snooker table. One of my jobs, along with running the register, cleaning the ashtrays, and officiating calls in money games, was teaching the locals to play snooker. Usually the third or fourth question was about my putting the balls back on the table; the first few were usually "Why would anyone build a table this big?" and "Why are the pockets so small?" When the place was quiet, I would run drills on the snooker table using pool balls to improve my accuracy. Many of the top nine ball players in the US started as snooker players and got lured across the pond by bigger prizes and endorsements.
posted by swerve at 05:19 PM on April 21, 2006
Annoyingly only availble in the UK, the third link goes to a page that will let you watch live streamed snooker from the Crucible.