Years of watching robotic, stern-faced players potting balls from impossible angles have dulled the senses of many sponsors and spectators – so what do the BBC come up with?

A garrulous gentleman spouting nonsense such as "Let's get the boys on the baize!" at the start of every session, and nicknames for players such as "The Wizard of Wishaw", "Ronnie the Rocket" and Shaun "The Magician" Murphy.

If anyone had dreamed it up as a potential story line, he would have been laughed out of town – but this is really happening, and Mr Pendle finds it gut wrenching.


THE other week, a previously unheard of poet by the name of Carol Ann Duffy was named as the new Poet Laureate.

She followed in the footsteps of the equally obscure Andrew Motion in the post, someone else Mr Pendle had never heard of, either before or since.

At least Mr Pendle had heard of his predecessor, Ted Hughes, before – but that is not the point.

Ms Duffy is the first woman to have been appointed to the post. As a lesbian, she is obviously also the first such to hold the office.

Her task – or one of them – will be to produce poems for state occasions and other important festivals.

Regardless of whether one views her appointment as being one to appease the politically correct faction – and if it is not, Mr Pendle wonders why it has taken so long for a woman, regardless of her sexual orientation, to become the laureate – does anyone really read poetry any more?

Does anyone write poetry – and by that, Mr Pendle means the sort that scans and rhymes, not the flowery nonsnese or a meaningless spray of words in lines of varying lengths that modern-day poets tend to churn out – any more?

And, nearly 400 years since Ben Jonson was made the first Poet Laureate, does it really matter whether we have one any more?

WORK will start soon on the conversion of the old Colne Grammar School in Barrowford Road into luxury apartments.

And as an old boy of the school, Mr Pendle wonders whether developers Barnfield Construction were considering giving alumni like him a last chance to have a look around the old place before the work begins.

Seeing the old classrooms and laboratories would stir the memories of five years spent of learning the arts, sciences and foreign languages – and Mr Pendle would jump at the chance given the opportunity.