Pot The Red And Screw Back…

I’m not much of a sports person. Not unless you count competitive pranking anyway. There is a plethora of good reasons for this.

Darts got me in vehicular hot water. Tennis caused an Omen like effect on a greenhouse and even the genteel art of Bowls was dealt a death knell when it crossed paths with me (literally!)

These are all ‘maybe tomorrow’ stories because we’re going with one that totally screwed with the old entente cordiale.. If you’re planning on climbing Everest and need a Sherpa don’t mention my name if they were in the Gurkhas. Those buggers have looong memories!

Snooker was once a nice gentlemanly sport where women did not tread. I’m not sure when that changed but I AM sure it probably wasn’t a good thing. Especially not for shortarses who can’t behave. Snooker is still a sore subject for me!

Anyway, I was working for the Ministry of Defense in London and was in the NAAFI after work with friends. There was a huge room off the bar area with two full size snooker tables and a couple of pool tables. Now snooker tables are big. I’m not. Snooker tables are about 11.5 feet by 6 feet.

I’m 5”1’. Me playing snooker was never going to end well really.

This was back at the end of the eighties so cavorting around in killer heels was the norm. Yes I was taller but I wasn’t more stable.

A little history lesson here. For the majority of the year, Changing the Guard at Buckingham Palace is undertaken by the Guards Division. Gurkhas get to guard Buckingham Palace for 2 weeks of the year. There are only three regiments with this honour other than the Guards Division. Gurkhas, The Royal Marines and The Cheshire’s. Anyway the Gurkhas were studying at Wellington Barracks whilst completing their ceremonial duties. This is right across from Buckingham Palace and it’s also where the Regimental Headquarters for the Guards Division are And that’s where I was based.

So we were playing snooker and drinking and having fun. There were two of us girls, my friends boyfriend and his friend and we we’re playing in pairs. The other table was surrounded by Gurkhas who were playing Very Seriously. I think they were most unimpressed with the level of noise and raucous hilarity from our table. We were all cheating, trying to distract each other and we they counted hitting the balls off each other as a result. I counted reaching the darn table as a result.

Little victories y’know..

It happened that the balls lined up for me almost perfectly for a ‘can’t miss’ shot off the center pocket. I really thought I could do this and apparently so did my friend who was on the opposite team. I had to be stopped! I started leaning precariously across the table wielding the half tree trunk commonly referred to as a snooker cue. She was beside me.. We weren’t silly. We made the fellas stand at right angles to whatever side of the table we were playing on because we didn’t want them behind us! Sadly this is where I learned never trust your friends if they’re on opposite teams because just as I was leaning and about to wallop the balls with the cue, she hissed ‘Bend Over Bitch’ at me.

I burst out laughing, face palmed the table and managed to scrape the cue across the baize and whack the balls at the same time.

Thankfully I didn’t wreck the baize.

I hadn’t even lifted myself up when we heard ‘Aieeeeee’ and a great deal of commotion. The balls had gone flying clean off the table and one had hit one of the Gurkhas on the back of the head and he was incensed. He thought I’d done it on purpose which showed they hadn’t been watching the rest of the game because honestly, I couldn’t hit a barn door with a Sherman Tank.

Eventually it all settled down and I haven’t played snooker since. Or pool for that matter. I have however played mini golf but so far have remained relatively disaster free!