Skip to main content

A Sudden Mania for Mallets


Though last night brought the first proper rain in the last six weeks, the Trinity term has begun and that means croquet. The college rule that forbids sports on the quad lawns – except for croquet, in Trinity – was the reason I moved here.

So, suitably wooed with the promise of Pimm’s on the green, but without any functioning knowledge of the sport (and, let’s get this straight, it is a sport), I joined a college team. Our first practice was on Thursday afternoon in the University Parks, with our first match against Somerville on Friday afternoon, leaving the team, all relatively inexperienced, with little promise of success.

O Croquet: the idiosyncrasies of your handbook, the polite but anguished repression of your players (and instructors) upon the fertile grounds of flirtation, the pun-ability of nearly all your terminology. One is required to know when to roquet, when to croquet, and how to do a rush, a stop-shot, and a stab. This is no easy clipping of the ball through the hoop (which is only marginally, the size of a pound coin on its side, larger than the balls) with flamingos, but a ‘tactical struggle’ for mastery of the course. When the instructor told us to make sure to ‘stalk’ over to the ball so as to properly align, I heard ‘stork’ and subsequently spent the rest of the session swinging my mallet between my legs in the manner of a wading water fowl.

So it was with great trepidation and no knowledge of the rules or how the game operated that we arrived at Somerville yesterday to play two hour-long games two-by-two. And the intensity; the insidiousness debate over whether lifting the hoop was cheating or not; the contributed opinions of nearly every passer-by; A’s grave face pale with anxiety when it appeared we might lose. Our last-minute breaking success ensured that we remain in the Cuppers tournament, that Somerville has been annihilated, and demanded an instant and ostentatious celebration.

Croquet may look like a blasé hobby of horse-faced aristocrats, but it’s a cold-blooded exercise in precision. I may have a new obsession. A game tonight on the quad to perfect the roquet, croquet, continuation! It’s like pool, but better. (There’s infinitely more room for sabotage.)

Comments

Willa said…
I love croquet!! Great to find another croquet-passionate :-)
pea said…
how fabulous. I am so impressed with your new talents for pool- seems like this follows suit. Next time I visit will have to be in the spring and you can teach me all you know. I expect great things from you, loved the first report.
Suzy Lane said…
It appears that the game of croquet that we play at the cabin is very different from the one you play! Do you mean you don't try and be 'poison?' I have much to learn!

Popular posts from this blog

I’ve a short story in the latest edition of The Stinging Fly , which is a brilliant Irish literary journal. If you’d like a copy (or if you like Claire-Louise Bennett or Kevin Barry or Danielle McLaughlin or Colin Barrett, who’ve all been published by SF ) you can get it here Or, you know, go to Dublin.
There’s a sudden late surge of warmth in the rough winds today and it’s the perfect day to read one of John Clare’s best sonnets: November Sybil of months & worshipper of winds I love thee rude & boisterous as thou art & scraps of joy my wandering ever finds Mid thy uproarious madness – when the start Of sudden tempests stir the forrest leaves Into hoarse fury till the shower set free Still the hugh swells & ebb the mighty heaves That swing the forrest like a troubled sea I love the wizard noise & rave in turn Half vacant thoughts & self imagined rhymes Then hide me from the shower a short sojourn Neath ivied oak & mutter to the winds Wishing their melody belonged to me That I might breath a living song to thee

Monologuing

My previous experience of Rachel Cusk is restricted to her travel book on Italy, The Last Supper , which was withdrawn in Britain because of objections from individuals who found themselves featured, unflatteringly, within its pages. It's very difficult not to write a book about Italy without being smug. Then I read reviews (especially hatchet jobs) about her controversial divorce memoir, Aftermath . I confess I’m suspicious when a writer writes memoir after memoir, as if his own life is the only field of interest. I read memoirs – I am moved by the familiar voice – but I’m wary of their cultural predominance. Self-knowledge is a good springboard for knowledge of others. Orbiting one’s own life without ever calling into question the limitation of it seems myopic. (This, however, is not to say that personal writing can be divorced from art, or that it should be.) But Outline is an expose of how fascinating and selfish and dreary and inescapable monologues on the self can be. The