Ronnie o’sullivan

Nostalgia for snooker’s glory days

Forty or so years ago, when I was at university, my friends Richard, Terence, Harry and I would often go to the Oxford Union to play snooker. There were two immaculate snooker tables in a large room at the top of the building and almost no one ever went there except for us. Unfortunately, our enthusiasm was not matched by concomitant talent. On one occasion it took us 34 minutes to pot a single ball. At a certain point in that endless non-break, Terence had an easy pot to a distant hole. Saying ‘I was going to pot the ball, but instead I’m going to do this’, he hit the

Modern capitalism has failed my son

A light was on in the caravan site office so I went over to try and buy a gas canister. Come Easter the little Cornish seaside resort will be heaving. Now a stiff north wind blew in off the sea and it felt like the dregs of winter still. The site office was shut but a woman came out and said she was expecting a delivery tomorrow but she didn’t know yet how much a canister would cost. Nor did she know of anywhere open where we could get something to eat. She thought there might be a place down by the beach. Nobody had managed to get any seasonal