Billiard Incident and Humour
- A prominent Government official, staying at a hotel,
asked the spot boy his name. "What do they call you,"
he said. "Billiard cue, sir," replied the youth. "That
is a funny name. Why do they call you that?" remarked
the official. "Because I work better when I'm tipped,"
replied the enterprising; youngster.
- "I remember hearing old John Roberts, when everyone was wearing the highest possible collars, telling a
man that he was playing 15 in 100 under his game,
simply through the collar he was wearing. This
showed the old champion's great knowledge of the
smallest minutiae of the game."J. P. Buchanan in
"Hints on Billiards."
- A billiard hall proprietor was granted a summons at
Willesden, on March 28, against a player who was
alleged to have persisted in climbing on the table to
make his strokes, and, when remonstrated with,
smashed a window. Meanwhile a correspondent writes
asking us whether a marker in a room where there are
two tables, for only one of which he is calling the
game, is justified in penalizing for a foul a player on
the other table who made his stroke with both feet off
the ground. It would almost seem as though some
players are more anxious to evade the rules than to
observe them.
- Writing in The Sports Post, Leeds, George Nelson,
ex-Yorkshire professional billiards champion, mentions
the fine play in the Leeds Amateur Championship of
Mr. H. Blackburn, of Blackburn, and adds:"Mr.
Blackburn, of Blackburn, reminds me that my address
was once 'Nelson, of Nelson.' I spent six months there,
and afterwards, on a return visit, my address was even
mere curious. It was G. Nelson, Nelson Hotel, Nelson
Street, Nelson. While I was there my wife sent me a
postcard as follows:'Mr. J. Nelson called to see Mr.
G. Nelson, but Mrs. G. Nelson told Mr. J. Nelson that
Mr. G. Nelson could only be seen at the Nelson Hotel,
Nelson Street, Nelson.'"
- A London correspondent tells us how he failed to
win "the snooker club handicap final that his opponent
has just lost. Pink and black were left. He required
both, and his opponent one. His opponent, playing
across baulk, cut the pink in the corner baulk pocket,
and for the moment had won the handicap. But the cue
ball, bearing check side, came back from the opposite
cushion and fell in the pocket on top of the pink. Our
correspondent, still short of the required points, went for a
middle pocket gentle pot of the black, which came off
the shoulder towards the centre spot, leaving the
white under the cushion below the same pocket. His
opponent tried another cut, this time for the opposite
middle pocket, and missed, but the white, having almost
as strong an affection for the black as it had had for the
pink, pursued its way to and from the top cushion and
landed in the same pocket as that aimed for with the
black. The prize, of course, was duly awarded to our
correspondent, although he had not "won" it.
- I may as well tell you, writes a subscriber, of an
interesting affair that happened to me last week. I
consider myself a little above the average as a player,
as I make an occasional 50 and 60 break. But in a
four-handed 250 up recently I excelled myself, making
my first century (115), and immediately afterwards 97.
But what follows is the interesting part. I was in hand
with the red on the spot, and I was making a desperate
effort to screw off the red to make the 97 into 100. I
got the shot, but the red bounced off the table and was
lost, and could not be found anywhere. The next
players required the pool balls, which stood on a seat in a
bottle-necked basket, and, emptying the balls out in the
usual way, they found amongst them the missing red ball.
- The late John Roberts could show the original warrant of his appointment as" Our Court Billiard Player "
issued by the Maharajah of Jeypore. This post carried
a retainer of £500 a year, with special fees when called
upon to give exhibitions, and only lapsed now because
its holder did not trouble to seek re-appointment on the
death of his employer. Among his other treasured
possessions were the Pyramids Championship Cup, a
large gold trophy manufactured in Geelong, and presented to him during a visit to Victoria; an elephant
of silver filigree work, presented to him by the Nawab
of Dacca; and a gold chalk-box, encrusted with
diamonds, from the Maharajah of Patiala.
- American billiard players never speak of side on a
ball in any other way than as "right English" or
"left English," as the case may be. How the term "English" for "side" originated I have never been
able to discover. I have discussed the question with
more than one American player, and also with one writer
on the American game, without being able to elicit the
required information. It may be that many years ago,
when the effect of side on a ball first became well known,
Englishmen who visited the States were in the habit of
putting on "side" apart from billiards, as in the old
days many Americans did when on a visit to Great
Britain. If this is so, English players might have
retaliated by coining the terms "right American" and
"left American," but, fortunately, they did not do so.
Riso Levi in The East Anglian Daily Times.
- Last month The Billiard Player devoted a corner to
three letters, intended to be regarded as ironical, in
regard to "the disgraceful potting of the white," and
the esteemed subscriber who wrote them (over such
signatures as "Wynne Tighe Orwrangle") had
remarked in sending them in that sometimes a little
ridicule sufficed to kill long-standing prejudice where
the most cogent argument failed. But there seem to be
certain risks that are attendant upon the lighter method
also, for The Billiard Player has since received letters
expressing surprise that, after strongly defending the
potting of the white in three issues, it should insert
strong letters against the practice in the fourth. Perhaps it would have been better to add as a footnote (as
Josh Billing's used to do) the words: "This is irony."