welly and skelly

I had a fantastic time last night - shot 9-ball pool for a couple of hours, then went on to perform some of my new poetry at Night Blue Fruit at the Tin Angel in Coventry, my nearest city.

I’ve been really getting into 9-ball since going to watch a Pro Tournament on Sunday and realising how easy the game is. If the rack goes your way, that is. For instance, it seems to me that most balls will pot if you don’t welly them - as we used to say when I was playing snooker. Keep It Simple, Stupid is something to remember when playing 9-ball. And cushions are far more important than in straight pool or snooker. You have to use them on most shots, except the simplest of stuns. There’s a load of unnecessary slam-dunking goes on in 8-ball. For 9-ball, it’s cool running, easy touch, slide and glide, all pocket strength rather than welly. Not that you can’t blatter one in the far end occasionally. But even bucket pockets have been known to rattle a hard ball and spit it back out. So be aware.

Night Blue Fruit was superb, as always. The usual suspects up at the mic, a few wet-behind-the-ears readers - it’s a tough crowd for newbies!- and only one drunken heckler ejected this time, for remarking unfavourably on a poet’s genitalia. I read my new performance piece 'Night Blue Fruit at the Tin Angel', written in jaunty Skeltonics - after John Skelton, Henry VIII’s tutor and self-styled poet laureate - and got a good roar from the floor, in spite of the fact that it’s nearly 150 lines long. I didn’t have to queue for the loo once and my car was still where I’d left it by the end of the evening, with all four tyres intact. Impressive stuff.