"I've Never, Ever Seen Children So Happy"

Peter Ebdon, being interviewed (click on the link title 'I play better under pressure - Ebdon', couldn't directly link the interview) after advancing to the quarterfinals of the Crucible, talking about how delightful living in Dubai has been for him and his family.

Fascinating interview.

The Crucible is ongoing, ending on May 1st.

Unfortunately, there aren't any good Snooker tables in Santa Monica, you'd think with the large Brit population hereabouts that there'd be a Snooker table or two, but nope.

Also, in 2002 BBC let anyone in the world watch their coverage of the World Snooker Championship (aka 'The Crucible') live on the web (which is how I got hooked on watching the sport despite never having lived in England, or even recall ever seeing a snooker table before).

As it so happened, the billiards place I frequented while living in Riverside at the time had a 5.5'-11' snooker table in a separate private room, so my friend and I took up the sport. Given the massive table (compare to the 4'-8' size of a standard sized pool table) and the much tighter pockets, playing snooker is a great way to improve billiards accuracy.

Unfortunately, the Beeb in their infinite wisdom, have limited the live feeds, and even game highlights, to UK residents only (those bastards).

So now I have two choices, hope someone posts a torrent of some of the matches (which is unlikely), or fool their computers into thinking my computer is in the UK (which is possible, but difficult (and illegal?)).

Maybe next year I'll plan a vacation in Sheffield to coincide with the tournament.