Six months ago I bought a garden chair on eBay. When I went to the address to pick it up, the bloke drew thoughtfully on his fag and said did I want a child’s folding snooker table, balls, cues and a little brush for a tenner. At the time, my six-year-old grandson was watching a snooker championship on the television and keeping me up to date with the progress of Ronnie ‘the Rocket’ O’Sullivan, for whose lightning skill and slightly raffish persona he had developed an appreciation. ‘Absolutely,’ I said to the bloke, and we chucked the table in the back of the car as well.
The table measured four feet by two feet. The balls were half-size. When I leant over the table to cue, everything was in miniature. The geometry was the same, however. And the lightness of the balls and the shortness of the cue and the wobbliness of the table quickly became familiar.
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