Right side of the blue

I love that Terry calls the young Ali Carter, Allister Carter as if he was a grown up now. That has very little to do with today. I hate Ray Stubbs. That is more relevant.

Higgins vs Allen

Frame 1 – Allen won this frame. He got in first and got some points, then he let Higgins have some points, then Higgins played a loose safety and Mark Allen cleared up the balls and won. And the table is shocking.

Frame 2 – Allen does a poor break off shot, but John goes wrong quite quickly and lets Allen back in. Then Mark Allen misses a black off its spot. Twice. And the table just does what it likes, with no regard for gravity, or cause and effect at all. John wins this frame. 1-1.

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SNOOKER IS THE BEST SPORT EVER THOUGHT OF.

It was nearly an entirely bad day, but then not quite. As far as I can find out Clive Everton isn’t meant to commentate on any more matches now, he was just hired up to the quarters. I’m not sure, because it just feels impossible to me that the bbc wouldn’t mention it. And make the most amazing montage of all his best ever moments and make everyone say how much they love him. I suppose that is difficult when you have wrongly fired someone. But it sort of makes me hate everyone. If we’d lost Hendry, Higgins and Clive all on one day my faith in the world would have been severely tested.

John and Steve had to go and make an official prove that the pockets weren’t any bigger than usual because there have been so many centuries this year. It is a bit unfair, if new cloths every day are really doing it, it doesn’t really count. I suppose we’ll see if it’s the same way next year and for the next few years. The crucible is keeping snooker until 2014 now. Which is nice.

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Maguire vs Robertson

Oh good god, snooker. Do better.

If I was Maguire I would politely ask them not to call me on fire if I was blatantly not.

The first frame took an hour, all the reds went into a corner and they didn’t re-rack or even think about it and the commentators were so bored and they were Dennis and Neal and they just had nothing to say. At the end Dennis was all ‘OH GOD I NEED COFFEE, BYE!’ Maguire scored a lot of ones, potting reds without having a chance for a colour. But then eventually he got some real points. Then Robertson played for snookers despite it having taken an hour already and oh god. He didn’t get them and eventually Maguire won that one for 5-4.

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If I was in charge of the draw for the world championship this would never happen. Partly because I wouldn’t let Murphy and Selby be in the world championship but also because it is ridiculous to make the two people I love most play the two people I hate most ON THE SAME DAY, IN THE SAME SESSION. Badly done, snooker. Not just for the scheduling, obviously. Badly done on so many levels.

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I wouldn’t even enjoy snooker if it wasn’t this painfully awful. So it’s actually fine.

I don’t know why Hendry wears black. Admittedly I don’t like it anyway, but he cannot play in black, he does not look like a snooker player and therefore does not LOOK LIKE A SNOOKER PLAYER. This is my expert thought on snooker tonight.

Also John Parrott was commentating again, and I think he has possibly only commentated on Stephen Hendry this year. Which I don’t entirely disapprove of, but I don’t understand either.

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I am so exhausted. Slightly because we’ve had people in the house, doing something to the radiators, but also slightly because of snooker and how it was incredible. And impossible. And exhausting.

The bbc are re-showing Hendry’s 147. I keep expecting them to discover it’s not real and disallow it, I keep expecting him to miss things still. It’s awful, I hate the bit where he takes a plant and John Virgo goes “No! OOoh, yes!” because he thought it was out and it wasn’t. I thought that too. But everything was just quite brilliant instead. Sorry. Clive says at the end that he’s a marvellous champion in a marvellous moment, one of many in his marvellous career.

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Day 11 sounds terribly close to Day 17 in my opinion. They should slow down a bit.

Allen vs Day

I didn’t pay a lot of attention to this table. They were 2-2 at the mid-session. My favourite bit was Terry exclaiming with surprise that the safety statistics weren’t too bad! “If he gets into position here he’ll come out in a rash!”

Day won the fifth frame, and then went and chatted with Allen a bit while the ref put the balls back. Willie claims that Terry never spoke to him when they were playing and was always miserable. Terry denies this a bit. “Steve Davis was the worst, never even said yes or no. But you can’t shut him up today.”

Allen levelled again, then went ahead in the next, 4-3. I don’t know who won the final frame. Nobody knows. Nobody was watching it.

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I found this a bit hard to care about. And therefore didn’t watch it very hard.

Maguire vs King

Maguire came back at 10-6 in front, and won three frames. It was not entirely inspiring. The first frame seemed to take for ages, but Maguire won it while the commentators were saying how he was unlikely to win scrappy frames. I think he won that 75 minute frame from before as well. But I know what they mean. But maybe it’s okay. He won the second one more properly, and then . . . I didn’t pay attention.

Dott vs Selby