The products of snooker’s many tobacco sponsors were enthusiatically incinerated by all

The products of snooker’s many tobacco sponsors were enthusiatically incinerated by all.
All the greats were there, except Steve Davis and Alex Higgins and Jimmy White. It was, as that smooth Mr David Vine put it, ‘The number one social event in the snooker calendar.’ Petits Fours, too. Snooker people have a particular style, and they were all dressed up for what everyone called ‘the Oscars of the Snooker World’. For the men, shiny double-breasted suits with big shoulders were in order, or snappy jackets in cerise or mustard. For the ladies, a tan was de rigueur; dainty gold-clipped shoulder-bags dangled at mini-skirted hips. OUT to lunch on Wednesday Bit of a do.

The Cafe Royal, as a matter of fact: you know, all those mirrors, big chandeliers, nice Peppercorn Steak, Panache of Veg, Pastry Tulip Filled With Seasonal Fruits, Coffee and Liqueurs, the business. Maybe nobody had bothered to write in yet except those boring buggers who will reply to anything, even a Readers Digest subscription offer.I’m sorry to be so mistrustful, but you hear such bad things about MPs, don’t you? The least I can do is to publicise his consultation paper, and not to write anything nasty, just to prove that not all journalists believe it is a cynical piece of vote-grabbing.. I can reveal that the closing date for written replies on the consultation paper, originally scheduled for 4 November, has been extended to at least the middle of the month. Exciting stuff, huh?Then, that wicked fairy started putting evil thoughts into my head again.Perhaps this extension to the deadline was not really an altruistic move designed to allow more people to hone their suggestions. But those 4 million fishing votes must look awfully attractive when you are preparing your election strategy.I feel very bad about such cynicism, especially as Pendry slipped me a scoop.

Although he was helpful and concerned, I could not stop this petty thought skipping through my brain: does he really want to get tough with polluters, sort out the close season, peg the soaring cost of licences, improve facilities for disabled anglers, do something about the plundering of inshore fish stocks, shoot all the cormorants and get loads more money for angling (especially from the National Lottery), as his consultation paper claims – or is it all just words on paper? Unworthy thought, I know. He did not recognise my Salmon and Trout Association tie, even though he was due to meet the association’s representatives that very evening.It worried me, that. He does not look like a man who would tell that sort of story against himself. He is a big, bearded man, who probably got the sports ticket because he looks like a darts player, or perhaps a hammer thrower Not a fisherman, though. I did not spend much time with the MP for Stalybridge and Hyde, but I learnt a great deal in the short period in his company – and some of it was decidedly disquieting.Pendry did not tell me the story I related earlier in this column. The correspondent who so heartily walloped Labour’s good intentions doubles as the press officer of the National Federation of Anglers. And so the report that he slated was actually made up from the issues that he himself had compiled.Good, eh?I met Tom Pendry for the first time last week.