I couldn’t help snorting when I came across an article in the Guardian last week (about the ongoing legal battle to get bridge recognised as a sport) in which the game was described as ‘genteel and physically unchallenging’. What? Bridge is physically exhausting — all that sustained concentration leaves you floored. As for genteel — ha! On the whole, we’re such a boorish and unkempt lot that the English Bridge Union feels obliged to place a slip of paper on every table before a tournament, exhorting players to ‘greet others in a friendly manner’ and — I’m not joking — ‘take care of your personal grooming’.
Even the way we treat our own partners would astound the non-initiated. At one point during the Easter Congress, Janet de Botton shouted loudly for the tournament director. Uh-oh, I thought, what have her opponents done? But no, Janet was complaining about her partner, Thor Erik Hoftaniska.
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