I'd never been a fan of snooker until one day in 2002 when the urge came over me to add gambling to my other carefully collected vices and the only sport that was on was snooker.^* Since then the game has been my weapon of choice should I feel the need to get wholly too agitated and astoundingly tense about something that I can't control and has no bearing on my life whatsoever.

When watching snooker, as with any sport, the most important decision to be made is who to cheer for. You can side with nationality if you're tediously inclined or the player who, after several hours of careful consideration, has the nicest behind. You may of course take the traditional path and choose to favour the best player and although I know many who support Stephen Hendry in this fashion they aren't the kind of people I'd be able to spend more than five minutes alone with without being forced to leap shrieking from the room, possibly utilising some of their lower intestines as an abseil rope in the process. The opposing strategy, the automatic support of the underdog, is possible though lazy and will inevitably lead to jaw clenching disappointment too briefly interspersed by moments of joy in which you^** find yourself standing on your sofa shouting HA! Stuff that up your pimhole, Higgins! and so should only be used when one cannot decide between two opponents of otherwise equal calibre. My own favourite method of determining who is worthy of my esteemed blessing is much more personal and I have a harsh and not at all arbitrary set of criteria to dismiss those who are not fit for purpose:

Do they wear tartan bow ties? Or have a red dragon on their waistcoat? When they show their wives sitting adoringly in the player's room, does she have a beige miniskirt, orange eyebrows and her legs too far apart? Have they ever been heard to remark that all they have achieved fades smugly into insignificance next to being a father? When they are interviewed for those mini player profile segments, do they say their favourite band is Steely Dan?

The obvious result of this stringent sifting is that it is often only Ronnie O'Sullivan with his ludicrous haircuts, temper tantrums, general mentalness, a history of unsuitable floozies on his arm and a father in prison for murder that is left at the end. Unfortunately the very same qualities are those that make him often unlikely to last the distance and so when one is otherwise thoroughly disinclined to move from the sofa one is very often forced to watch a match between two people about which one cannot raise so much as an eyebrow, never mind an invigorating temper.

It is at times like these that my mind invariable wanders towards ways of livening up the game itself.

I'd settle for a tragic accident involving John Virgo and the extended spider, though.

^* I won six hundred and fifty pounds on Peter Ebdon and carefully invested it back into the care and maintenance of the other vices.
^**You, obviously. Not me at all.
^*** Actually, I don't recommend this if you're a rubbish snooker player. I've done it and I tell you, I never want to wake up with a banana liqueur flavoured hangover ever again.