Big Dianne and the Plus Size Badminton

 

Salam alaykum

All hail Big Dianne and her bravuro second place in the Plus Size badminton tournament in Shawbridge this weekend. In a thrilling final against tournament favourite, Heavy Heather (current Cathcart state champion), our lass D gave every ounce of her perspiration in a display of old-school glow badminton style and determination and wheezing.

Congratulations to the third and fourth placed competitors Big Janice and Fiona the Flump.

Said Big D: "I was blootered when I got onto the court and starving by the time we'd finished. Much respect to Heather who took me and Janice and Fiona to an artisan chip shop after the competition. Then we ordered a taxi to take us all back up the road but there wasn't enough room in the vehicle so Fiona ended up walking."

Suffragettes and International Carrom Day

 

Sally Jones 2nd from right

As WW1 was raging across Europe, a band of women took to the streets of Great Britain to demand emancipation and a place at carrom boards. Sally Jones is credited as the leader of this movement. Born of humble milliners, Jones grew up in Bristol in the George V era and was the first female seaborne dentist to have been acknowledged by the Admiralty.

At age 26, Jones made port at Gujarat, India where she became fascinated by the traditional game of carrom. Her husband, Sir Neville of Stank, was a lawyer and a noted billiards player, oft mentioned at the counting houses and lanyards of London. The sport of carrom was new and novel in Great Britain, favoured by the gentry but, however, a male-dominated hobby and.played in awkward style which belied the finesse of Indians,

On her return to Britain in 1912, war had broken out, women still did not have the vote and nobody with a vagina was allowed to play carrom.This, despite that Queen Victoria herself had owned a board and a bespoke striker made of ivory from the tusk of her favourite Indian elephant. (Trunky).

It was not until the Equal Franchise Act of 1928 that women over 21 were able to vote and women finally achieved the same voting rights as men. This act increased the number of women eligible to vote to 15 million. Still, it took forty more years before females were granted equal access to carrom boards. 

Jane Fonda (still a divisive firgure) is noted as a critic of The Vietnam War and, too, as a proponent of gender-loose sets. Her hit single of 1970, "Call me Moira", became a rallying call to carrom women across the world.  

Friday 3rd November marks International Carrom Day, when players, enthusiasts and Beards come together for a festival of board-based fun at the Pierce Insitute in Govan. This year, guest speakers include Sir Keir Starmer, Andrei Bukachenko, Megan Thee Stallion, John McManus and Fatima Uygun. Music from The Young Fathers and Creeping Palsy. Spoken word from Jim Monaghan and Her With The Purple Hair.

And as tribute to Sally Jones, our sister and pioneer, on what would have been her 120th birthday, International Carrom Day this year features the Govanhill Chorus and the Battlefield Barber Shop in a rendition of Freedom Come All Ye.

 

 

Mezz hiatus

 

Salam alaykum

The entire SCL crew has lately been diagnosed with mezz hiatus, meaning a temporary halt to the Thursday games at Linen. In an echo of the Carromavirus of 2020, mezz hiatus has forced players to seek alternative distractions. When Scottish interest in the Europa League evaporates - which may be not too far away -  normal SCL Thursday games will resume. 

In this pause, the blog has reached out to some of the crew to ask how they are dealing with absent carrom Thursdays.

Paul McCole: It is a total shame, man. Aye, naw, definintely. I've just been chilling and learning the bassoon. It calms my snake.

John McManus: Ho Chi Min stated that patience and will are weapons. I'm working on a paper about the differences between a 13amp and a 5amp fuse. Thus far, it looks like it is 8amps.

Bruce Morton: I've been building a composite image where Paul McCole's face is on Adele's body. The inspiration for this came from something Paul muttered.

James Young: I've invented a parlour game where folk have to guess the next manager of the Rangers and, for bonus points, guess how long that person will have the job. The winner gets a polythene sash.

Stu Thomson: Been finessing a magic trick where Thursdays vanish and reappear as Mondays. I'm almost there but I keep getting the Thursdays showing up as half-four on a Sunday.

Stephen McCole: Just been meditating and then when I get out from under my self-inflicted coma, putting a mix together, j'know what I mean? Main thing is - keep the funk alive.

Fraser J: Homers, mainly massaging female ballet dancers.

Jim Muir: Working on a screenplay about a vampire who eats stand-up comics and vomits them into a canal in Manchester.

Paul Shep: Artwork, southside prostitutes and a bit of cottaging. Also, mushrooms.

Harry: Millinery

The Southside Carrom League is untrammeled. 

We may pause, but we never stop.

Scholars

Here, we examine the noted scholars of ancient times who influenced the sport we now know as carrom.

Aryabhata

Big Ary was an Indian mathematician circa 900AD who is credited with inventing geometry - without which rebounds would not be possible. His influence can be seen to this day even on the unholy tables of pool and snooker. Born of humble shoemakers, Ary spent his formative years formatting himself before taking the shape of a mountain goat and scaling the cliffs of mystery.

 

 

St Joseph of Nantes

Recorded in The Book of Saints as being the founder of what we now know of as rules, Joseph's doctrines included "he who breaks is on the whites", "2 v 2 games must rotate in a clockwise form" and "courtesy is next to Godliness." Guidelines which remain to this day.

Matthew

The son of humble people who made shoes, Matthew rose to become a student at Notre Dame in 1732 and by the age of 20 had published pamphlets about birchwood, beech, boric acid and esoteric powders from the east. It is reported that he made pilgrimage to India where he met Baba Ghandu and the Bombay Tribe and sat at a carrom board for the first time. On his return to France, he wrote the first documented chronicle of this mysterious game. "Le conseil d'administration de majesté" (the board of majesty) became the most widely read pamphlet of the Napoleonic era.

Lord Fortrose of Scotland

Still a divise figure, Fortrose examined the optimal sizes of boards and pronounced in 1851 that a 74cm x 74cm playing surface be adjudged as proper.  Denounced by bishops and by folk in Pakistan who (to this day) favour a gigantic board, Fortrose retreated to his lodge in Elgin where he spent his latter days working on dimensions. His influence on board size remains unchallenged by westerners, yet still, mocked by Pakistani players. Knowing his days left were few, Fortrose set out to India to follow the footsteps of Matthew and was killed by a monkey.

Cyberpunk Paul McCole

 

Is Paul McCole augmented?

Questions hover in the carrom community about the provenance of the skills of RBO* Paul McCole. 

Some mutter that he is from the Matrix. (His IMDB says he is from Castlemilk). Carrom theologians suggest that he lights votive candles in the hours before a board. Paul-watchers and devotees of cyberpunk moot that he is augmented. That is, he has had bionic implants to his eyes, his right index finger and his demeanour to provide advantages at the board. 

Paul is tight-lipped about these suggestions. However, the rumours continued when he refused a League Management Committee demand that his striker take a polygraph test and in that same week  - as if to flaunt his skills - went downstairs from the Linen mezzanine, ordered a pint and rather than climb back up the stairs simply floated vertically back up to the mezz. 

Adding to this, McCole's missus Lou was lately videod sliding into an abandoned phone box, dialling a number and was within seconds seen on CCTV appearing outside the Asda in Toryglen.

All I'm asking for is a level playing field. 

 

*RBO Registered Board Owner.