27.10.06

THE LION KING

Snooker days can often be long. The nights tend to be longer.

Last night felt especially long as Alan McManus duelled with Mark Selby and Stephen Lee took on Mark King.

McManus won 5-1 but the match still didn’t finish until gone 10.30pm.

The pressroom is an entertaining place to be but often suffers a lull as people tire of the same old stories and jokes. Luckily, John Higgins leant me his Sopranos DVDs, which passed a couple of hours until the snooker was finally over.

The taxi driver who took Phil Yates and myself back to our hotel casually revealed that his previous profession was as lion tamer in a circus.

“I was bitten a couple of times,” he said, as if it were nothing much to worry about.

It made me realise sitting in a snooker pressroom may not always be thrill a minute but at least it isn’t dangerous.

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