CROQUET

Croquet is a great game. Officially it is a simple matter of knocking large wooden balls through narrow metal hoops in a specified order. Unofficially - and very much like chess - it is a game of great subtlety and tactics, where the object is to totally destroy your opponent while trying to be as polite as possible.

I played a lot over the weekend, since my godson's father (an old university friend of mine) has a very nice court on a lawn outside his house. Said friend is normally a mild, unprepossessing sort of chap. But put a croquet mallet in his hand and he quickly becomes a tyrant. Poison drips from his tongue as he politely roquets you off into the henhouse, he chuckles evilly as you miss a simple shot through the hoop, you can feel the hostility oozing out of his summer jacket from the other side of the court. The smile that lit up his face as he played his winning shot into the post was pure Peter Mandelson.

Or maybe not? Perhaps he was just a well-behaved man playing a friendly game with his visitor, the smile was one of simple pleasure, and the above attributes are in fact what I felt during the match. Mmm. Maybe it's time I went back to badminton ....

Walter Blotscher