On Wednesday night I spent four hours up against Videsh in the final best-of-nine singles qualifier for Yarmouth. I think he is great but when he is in one of his match ‘trances’ you don’t need to call a clock on him, you need a calendar. With no Racks Pack match that week, I had warmed up for this winner-takes-all event by letting Coach Shiel beat me like a ginger step-child on the Monday night. Anyway, after eventually beating Videsh 5-4 I eventually got out of Racks and down to the train station to meet my train home with seconds to spare.
It’s a pain in the arse to have to cycle home from Slough to Langley, and on this occasion this was literally the case as I arrived at Slough station to find my saddle had been nicked. The journey home was long and painful having to stand up and ride, and I was in constant fear that I was the merest drunken memory-lapse away from a metal pole up the ace.
It was an eventful week for the rest of the pack. ‘Magic’ had spent 72 consecutive hours on the sofa watching the Ryder Cup, shattering his own personal record for laziness. Slugger has discovered there is an exciting world of food outside of McDonalds and it’s golden arches after his cookery course, and the ‘Bears’ love-life has taken another turn after discovering that – contrary to many of his favourite R-rated DVD’s – three-into-one doesn’t go.
The ‘coach’ is about to get his own engraved pint glass down at Smokey Joe’s now that his Platinum membership card has come through (you get one for 50 visits in a year). Vic is on the verge of becoming a fully fledged tax dodger as ‘freshers’ week approaches, and JY has slipped faultlessly back into his 9.45pm disappearing act. On the subject of things vanishing, no-one has seen Ben Kiely in three months.
In other ‘pool’ related news, the Dean Hardesty/Trevor ‘Buenos’ Dias management team is flourishing in the county C team, after a stunning comeback against Surrey last week. We can only imagine the scale of the shouting and yelling in that match. Even the ladies are performing well. However the “A” ream are not fairing so well - Brad’s frank assessment of them was “they are all sh*t apart from me and Loftsy. We were 8-0 down when I got my first frame…it hardly got the adrenaline flowing”.
The pool world championships hits SKY this week, commencing on 23rd September with the men’s team event. A finely groomed Robert Uzzell could be seen managing the England team to victory. Looking increasingly like a youthful Bobby George the commentators changed his name to “England Manager Robert Oooozell”. Still some things never change - I bet he had his trainers on with the suit.
The Lady Haig (Slough – Lee Greenwood, John Townsend, Danny Raj, Ben etc) travel to The Twigg in Bracknell this Thursday to play off for a place in Yarmouth at the national 7 man finals. They are up against a side captained by Dave “nom de plume” Bryant * so make sure you check those cards carefully up there.
(* ‘nom de plume’ a fictitious name used by someone in place of their actual name; having a false name)
The Irish Club (me, Brad, Pat Phelan, Steve Payne, Terry, JY, and Coach) take on the other Bracknell side on Friday. This is great planning and captaincy from “Triple T” (Terry The Turncoat) because we have an excuse for going out Friday night afterwards. The sharp-eyed among you will have spotted the lack of ‘Andos’ Brant in the team list – and why? Because the pink oboe player is off to a snooker presentation instead and isn’t going to play. I can’t believe he is letting us down like that and hadn’t told me.
Claire ‘the dormouse’ Dormer from Racks finally put one over arch rival Anne Middleton to qualify for the ladies finals. I think it’s the first time she has managed to beat Anne, her victory no doubt all-the-sweeter for being 3-0 down at one point.
Over in Slough, the summer league coming to a gripping conclusion. With the knockout stages just around the corner, expect to see Kevin and I whoring ourselves out by joining a team at late notice to try and steal a medal out of it. They don’t call us ‘Mutleys’ for nothing (‘gimme gimme medal’).
So with all that going on we’ve not found the time in the last few weeks to spew out a few words for the blog. Thank goodness for the mailbag which was packed to the gills yet again, so it’s time for us to address the burning issues in the pool world. First up, a response to the excellent article we published a few weeks ago on how to use the rest:
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Dear Racks Pack,
Yous too are gunna get a rite smack in the feerce when eye get hold of ya. Yous made me sound like a feckin jordy when im from tha Boro’ ya conts!
JY (talented b@stad with a rest!)
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K&K – sincerest apologies John. In the spirit of right to reply, it’s true to say you are a talented bastard with a rest. In fact we wish you’d take a rest more often.
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Dear Racks Pack,
Is it true that hunky chunk of beef-cake Brad dropped two of his three women by email and text last week? If so can you pass my details onto him, as clearly one woman is not enough for him. I would offer myself to any of you but unfortunately I only date players who are top of the averages.
Hugs and Kisses
Tara Raboomsiyay
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K&K - Due to a banning order issued by Mr Robinson’s lawyers we’re unable to comment on his current relationship status. However if top of the averages is what you want, you may want to check those average tables.
RANKING | Player | Played | Won | Win % |
1 | Brad | 6 | 6 | 100.0 |
1 | Keith | 7 | 7 | 100.0 |
1 | Ben | 2 | 2 | 100.0 |
4 | Kevin | 11 | 10 | 90.9 |
5 | Vic | 11 | 9 | 81.8 |
6 | Lee | 9 | 6 | 66.7 |
7 | John Y | 8 | 5 | 62.5 |
8 | Neil | 9 | 5 | 55.6 |
8 | John S | 9 | 5 | 55.6 |
So that’s the averages at the halfway stage, based purely on frames won. Brad is all your Tara…or is he? It’s a well known fact that you can’t be top of the averages based purely on playing and winning six frames. Also, you have to take into account the opposition – playing in fourth place every week you’re more likely to get pub drunk who’s been roped into playing because you’re opponents are a man down.
There are a number of competing calculations we could use to reveal the true ranking table, and they each have their merits. Here at Racks Pack towers, we choose to us the Southam/Walls exponential weighted method of calculation. It’s a bit complicated, and we would explain it to you, but it’s very long winded and frankly you’d need more computing power than Stephen Hawking’s wheelchair to work it out. For your viewing pleasure, here are the results of the calculation:
RANKING | Player | Win % | Attendance % | Total |
1 | Kevin | 90.9 | 100.0 | 191 |
2 | Vic | 81.8 | 100.0 | 182 |
3 | Lee | 66.7 | 100.0 | 167 |
3 | Keith | 100.0 | 66.7 | 167 |
5 | John S | 55.6 | 100.0 | 156 |
5 | Neil | 55.6 | 100.0 | 156 |
7 | Brad | 100.0 | 50.0 | 150 |
8 | John Y | 62.5 | 83.3 | 146 |
9 | Ben | 100.0 | 16.7 | 117 |
Feel free to drop Mr Slugger a line any time to his personal email address flirtybigwidthtackle@hotmail.com.
In fact Tara’s email gives us an excellent opportunity to bring in the ‘Casanova of the green baize’ and let him make a contribution to the blog. As his attendance at matches is now better than mine we thought it was only fair to give him a forum to pass on some of his legendary knowledge of all things female. We sifted through the mail bag to seek those needing advice, and asked the big-man to lend us his ear. For all our lady admirers, we present a new section to Rackspack.blogspot.com – Dear Bradley…
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Dear Bradley…
I have a dilemma. I have been seeing a woman for sometime now and it’s been great, but a few weeks ago I was at a works do and met another younger girl. After a few drinks I found myself strangely attracted to her and one thing led to another blah blah blah – you know how it is. Now I have two women in my life and I’m finding it increasingly difficult to keep both of them happy. I’m trying to share my time between the two but its very tricky, what should I do?
Crispin Dry, Cookham
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The Bear writes:
I sympathise with your plight Crispin, and my answer is a simple one - get another one. Two’s company, three’s an adventure.
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Dear Bradley…
I was supposed to be playing in a football tournament with my mates which was held at a leading seaside resort. But I had promised to meet up with this women I met on holiday on the same weekend. I am considering driving 150 miles to the tournament, playing, then making an excuse that I have to get back for work and driving 300 miles to the other side of the country to catch up with her for a bit of jiggy jiggy D.T. action. Am I mad? Have you ever done something like this? What if my team mates find out?
Hedley Throbinson – Beaconsfield
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The Bear writes:
Can I plead the fifth? Next question please…
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Dear Bradley…
With all the modern wonders of technology, do you think breaking up using text messaging or emails rather than calling the person direct is proper etiquette.
Russell Hobbs – popping up somewhere.
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The Bear writes:
Excellent question, etiquette is my speciality. I see nothing wrong with dumping your squeeze via text. With most service providers offering 400 free texts every month it’s possible to almost constantly rotate your social life at minimal cost. A word of warning though, don’t take your phone out with you when you are out drinking with the gang or you might end up texting the wrong message to the wrong person. Leave the mobile at home before heading out for 3 litres of vodka and red bull.
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Dear Bradley…
You should have seen this munter I ended up with last week, she was huge. I went back to her place right, she strips off and reveals herself in a g-string that was so tight that when she bent over I thought she was gonna slice herself in two. When I was on the job it was like waving a straw at the channel tunnel.
When the deed was done she went to the bathroom and when I glanced up from the sheets the back end of her looked like two sea-lions trying to mate. She was so large, the only thing she fit was her own description.
Any chance you could wing-man for me sometime and help stop me making such bad choices?
Jeddie Parker – Chesham
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The Bear writes:
Jeddie, we’ve all been there – literally. She turned up at Yarmouth last time and went through the men of the site like a dose of the clap. No problem though, wherever there are women in need of love and affection that’s where you will find the caring, sharing Bear.
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K&K - Thanks very much there to the Bear for those words of wisdom. I’m sure we all can take something from that session.
Keep your browsers on rackspack.blogspot.com for the report on this weeks match versus Farmers Rats, including news of the most unexpected double-doughnut of the season so far…
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