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The evenings are getting cooler, the sun has started going down earlier in the day. My thoughts have started to turn to the start of the snooker season and the unbridled joy which several weeks worth of quietly clicking balls and whispering commentators will bring me. Who knows, perhaps Jimmy will make it to one of the big competitions this year? And then win the World Championship. But my excitement has been shattered by a terrible rumour which is doing the rounds. People are saying that Jimmy White will be in I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here. This cannot be! Whilst this could be a calculated risk that Jimmy's 'true personality' will come out in the show and our great nation will find him wonderfully endearing, what will probably happen is that it will turn out that he is actually a bit of a dong.
Jimmy will also have to humilate himself by eating worms and at some point will be on camera in his speedos having a shower. Perhaps the producers could get him to do something he really, really doesn't want to do, like shake hands with Hendreary, or listen to 3 hours of Parrott's witty quips, or have Virgo whisper in his ear about how he likes a long swingy action and has a nice touch in the balls. The horror.
What a total nightmare for White Watchers.
I will of course be providing daily updates.
I have noticed some excellent additional slang creeping in this year. There are some special terms commonly used amongst my immediate cue sport circle when a ball does that wriggly thing where it hits both edges of the pocket and then goes in.
My favourites are:- It wriggled
- It wiggled
- It wiped its feet
- It went in off the post
- It thought about it
You get the idea. This year these have been joined by the excellent 'It knocked three times' coined by John Virgo during the Shaun Murphy vs John Higgins match. Great work Virgo, I am one step closer to forgiving your life-long affiliation with that tit Jim Davidson.
UPDATE: One additional wriggler comment from the Grand Master - "It entered through the side door". Great work.
I can't even bring myself to watch it but I'm sure there are no fruity bananas or doubles in it. I couldn't help but raise a smile at this image of Stephen Hendreary on the front page of the BBC Sport website though. It really seemed to capture something...
UPDATE:Alright, alright, I have watched it now. Here it is in case you fancy it.Notice the anticipation at around 25 points, where Virgo clearly wants to mention it might be a 147, but knows the rules of the OPTA 147 Index. He almost starts panting whilst discussing whether Hendry will go for the pink or black and probably dribbles on the microphone. Great stuff. Virgo finally breaks down on 7 reds, 7 blacks and lays an initial hint. Clive mentions it outright, but in his haste he says it when the crowd are clapping, and you can't really hear him.Hendry plays it old-school, and breaks the pack only after he's potted all the available reds.At 129 points, you can see Ethel and Edith in the crowd confirming to one another that a 147 may indeed be in progress.It has two flair shots in it - both plants. One of them even has a little wriggle on the way down and the other is a three ball multi-angle affair. I am impressed! The pink at the end is pretty good too.
I'm not quite sure how this happened, but my whole family went to see this one. I was late in to the first match, which was a shame because it went to the wire. Selby versus Doherty. Good game. Selby has got the best nickname, and makes funny faces and the occasional joke around the table. Good jokes though, not like Parrott and his witty quips which are more like something that Jimmy Tarbuck would come up with. The Jester from Leicester can regularly be seen having a good chuckle with referee Jan Verhaas, although obviously he wouldn't want to be making Michaela laugh because he might be worried that all of the bigger boys in the commentary box would laugh at him and say that he fancies her.
I made it into the last frame to see The Jester defeat Kenneth. Great atmosphere. The security at Wembley Arena made a late play to stop me entering the room, but as we had somehow got tickets that were as far as possible in the right hand corner of the arena I probably could have got away with wearing a traffic cone on my head. Tense stuff which Selby won 6-5. As well as being a significantly better witty quipster than anyone else, watching Selby live is fun because he stalks around in such a weird way, a bit like those old videos you see of Alex Higgins.
We had the most entertainment out of those ear pieces. Obviously at about a tenner each they are the biggest rip-off in the entire world, but it is worth it to hear some of the total shite that the commentators come out with. The PUNishment being handed out by Virgo was next level, and was generating some serious guffawing in the Stephen Lee match that we watched second. Virgo and Dennis were talking about Stephen Lee's 'long swingy action' and how he had a 'lovely touch amongst the balls'. When Virgo started saying how he 'preferred a long swingy one to a short sharp one' it all got too much. Surely they didn't broadcast that?
Other points of note include a protracted discussion about the merits of peppermint tea, which Dennis Taylor has (apparently) started experimenting with (his usual dose of heroin before a match was playing havoc with his concentration). As many snooker commentary discussions do, this seemingly harmless avenue of chat ended in a supreme piece of racial stereotyping which would make any liberal Guardian-reading snooker lover blush. During the tea conversation, Virgo or Dennis noted that Marco Fu was also drinking tea. 'What type do you think it is?' asked Dennis. 'Probably Jasmine tea' said Virgo. Of course! Fu being from Hong Kong, what else would he be drinking? I would have laughed if it was actually Yorkshire tea or Twinings breakfast.
Stephen Lee wins easily, his long swingy action too much for the Jasmine tea-drinking Fu, who to be fair looks pretty bored throughout the whole thing. Watching this match was pretty dire I must say, but definitely worth it to see the whole family out chuckling in unison at the nonsense coming through the earpiece and yawning together at another protracted safety exchange.
It is often spoken as fact by the oracles of snooker (Virgo and Dennis) that snooker is the perfect television sport. I'm never quite sure why this is, but my main understanding of it is that the table fits very well indeed on the screen. When you compare it with other sports, you can see what I mean:
I suppose one could put forward the argument that a tennis court fits on the screen if viewed from far enough away, but one player looks mighty small compared with the other, and they do hit the ball very fast making it difficult to see in the sun.
Formula One is the official worst performer on this basis.
There is a new guy who is very good at snooker and is also from China called Liang Wenbo. He is like a Chinese Ronnie O Sullivan and plays some very interesting shots indeed, some of which are quite reckless and make Virgo twitch in his seat as are not the 'optimum' shot to play. He also got up to some amusing 'controversial' behaviour (i.e. not very controversial at all) last time I watched him play where he failed to mention to the ref that he had put the white back in a slightly more advantageous position.This is not what we have come to expect after 3 years of Ding and his expressionless bore-snooker. He is worse than even Hendreary in my opinion when it comes to the bore factor. I have a theory that Ding is actually a robot sent by the Chinese government that has been sent to spy on our pitiful 'World' Championship, and although he is an acceptable standard, was merely an automated drone making way for the real talent to get stuck in. 
Hopefully Liang Wenbo will be back for this year's World Championship so that he can do something similarly controversial, like perhaps chalking his cue in an anti-clockwise direction or drinking Ribena instead of water. Proper bo
Come On Jimmy! has developed a special high tech performance measure in snooker commentary. Using the latest OPTA Index techniques, we've measured the exact time that a 147 is allowed to be mentioned. Willie Thorne is the worst candidate for wetting his pants about 147s, and he has been known to mention it sometimes even before the frame has started, spoiling it for everyone. With this simple rule, Willie's unfortunate habit can be ended once and for all.
Our Come On Jimmy OPTA snooker index records every ridiculous word mentioned in sync with the balls being potted. It is clear from the wealth of data that we've gathered that the fifth red and black is the point at which it may be pointed out that a 147 may be in progress.
Here is a prime example during Ronnie O Sullivan's lightning fast 147 from Virgo (Willie was led panting from the room shortly after the break and had to be replaced). Dennis clearly feels that he can only mention it once the tenth (!) black has gone in, also openly admitting that he has never commentated on a 147 before. A very low performer on the OPTA 147 index indeed!
P.S. I like the way the video is called 'Incredible snooker player' too. A largely undeniable statement given the evidence before us.
Concentrating on the position over the pot - total classic, who could ever do it though, it's one of the snooker ten commandments. Virgo loves to mention this one.
Dear oh dear, snooker commentators. Virgo is my least favourite. He wasn't even a very good player! He often gets annoyed with the players when they try something interesting, and rants on about how they should have chosen a different shot. Sod that! Rock out the banana shots. He also has the most annoying catchphrases, such as 'where's the white going?'.
No-one can top Whispering Ted. His whispered 'no' when Steve Davis misses the black in his epic versus Dennis Taylor is one of the best pieces of commentary ever. He makes it sound so awesome.
I am a fan of Dennis Taylor because of his blatant double entendres. One thing you don't realise is that they cut a lot of it out on the highlights. When you go live you can get a little radio ear thing and listen to the commentary, good for staying awake if you get McManus - McCulloch (of which more later). When we went to the Masters, Dennis said 'Well John, what a magnificent semi.' Cue widespread sniggering amongst the crowd. Then he started going on about how Steven Lee had a lovely touch amongst the balls, and how his action was a bit long and swingy. Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, he started talking about how he preferred a long and swingy one over a shorter one. Dirty Dennis.
I can't be doing with Parrott. I think this is a by-product of when he was a player in his later years making all those witty quips when walking around the table. Witty quips are acceptable on the sofa next to Hazel, but he jumped the gun.
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