Snookering Me Tonight

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I had quite a few people informing me that notorious heretical snooker player Stephen Hendry (who for years has insisted on playing this one-player sport against other people on a comically huge board) had decided to revert back to the original spirit of the sport and play himself

On the one hand it's good to see someone return to the true faith, but on the other hand, I've been doing this for 13 years and he's clearly seen the commercial success that I have enjoyed (live frames where I sold ones of tickets, a paid appearance at the Festival of Transgressive Art  and a frame that I recorded for the BBC during lockdown) and thought he'd like a bit of that.

I am also disappointed that he is playing on the parodic large board that is clearly flat as a pancake. Where's the challenge in that.

He also doesn't seem to be using this platform to create transgressive art or questioning the duality of humanity or wondering whether in life our greatest opponent is ourself. He's not even satirising the nature of sport by showing that people will take sides even when both opponents are the same people or questioning why we only watch sport played by people who are pretty good at it, when it's more entertaining to watch people who are crap. He's just seeing if safety play or aggressive play is best. Which is part of it - Me1 and Me2 started with that premise too.

Also he doesn't seem to have 40 different characters, all with perfect accents and attitudes. He's both the Scottish Me. Useless.

Also he's started with video, where audio is clearly the way to enjoy this (though I admit I did bend on that issue myself)

He's also snuck in to do this whilst my arena is out of action due to the house move.  Very cynical.

If you haven't yet come across my snooker feed (though I am more worried about people that have come across it) then you can start the journey here. It's only 180 frames recorded over 13 years (though for some reason we didn't put all the lockdown snooker up as audio podcasts and I am not sure we kept any of the records - but I did at least three big tournaments between up to 40 different Mes).

Like the stone clearing (man's futile battle against nature and pointlessness of any human endeavour) the snooker has a lot to say about life (man's futile battle against himself and pointlessness of any human endeavour). Both projects are supposed to be tedious, but reaction from the most ardent fans (and you have to like one or the other, you CAN NOT listen to both) suggests I have failed on that.

I am genuinely surprised that neither of these projects have become cult classics (and mean there is a cult for both, but such a tiny cult that I don't think it can be called a cult). I can only presume all the people who profess to be comedy fans know nothing about comedy or I'd be hailed as a God. Am I out of touch on this? No it's the children that are wrong.

I am not the first person to think of playing a sport against themselves. That's the whole point of the podcast - I spent many lonely hours playing snooker and Subbuteo against myself as a child (and darts and tennis and cricket- throwing a ball at a bouncy net and catching it) and I don't think Hendry has copied me (and I'd love to see him fucking trying - do stone clearing next), and I think we'll be doing very different things with the idea.

As with all my stuff, I put in the hours and someone else rocks up and gets the credit. I may not be recognised as a comedy genius just yet, but a genius is never recognised in his own lifetime. The same is true of useless chancers. And there's way more of them, so statistically I am more likely the latter than the former

My substack is a week old. Hope you've enjoyed this relentless stream of consciousness if you're new to it. I am aware that an email a day (or more) is a bit much for some and a few people that I imported from my mailing list have agreed with that. No problem with that. You didn't sign up for this.

One hundred people are now paid subscribers, which is better than a kick in the teeth for something that I've been giving out for free for 22 years, but I am still hoping I might get enough subs to dedicate a decent portion of my week to writing other stuff, like short or long stories or scripts. You can be like a medieval patron but instead of getting a chapel ceiling painted, you get some literature/knob jokes. But also unlike a medieval patron you only need to pay £5 or less a month. You get what you pay for.

If you can't afford to do that or are donating elsewhere then obviously don't worry about it. I forgot to mention Twitch the other day. PLEASE do not pay actual money for my Twitch channel. If you're with Amazon Prime and can be bothered to do the once a month free sub then thanks very much, but even that is quite a hassle.