It's August

You know it's slow-news-time August when croquet appears in a half page spread in the Times. The deck [technical term - look it up] says "The game has taken a mallet to its aristocratic image to make a global impact". What a load of guff; I played croquet for many years and the total number of aristocrats I encountered was precisely zero. Why do they have to be so ignorant and patronising? It's an elite sport, of course - only super clever people can even understand it let alone play it. When have you ever met a clever aristocrat?

To be fair, the article talks about the growth of the game in Hong Kong, Mexico and Estonia - it's always had an Anglocentric base (including the Americans although typically they play their own rules) so maybe it's us croquet players who are the patronising ones, surprised that third world countries can embrace it. I have played croquet in almost as many countries as I have visited racecourses but my score in Hong Kong is currently Racecourse 1 croquet 0.

The August haul of important news includes the Cornish Seaweed Company ("spaghetti seaweed" is a gluten-free pasta alternative), a Labour MP has created a chatbot so that he doesn't need to bother with a face to face surgery, Wallace and Gromit are back with MasterChef and Italy is planning to build the world's longest suspension bridge to connect Sicily to the mainland. The distance is 2 miles. The shortest distance between the Scilly Isles and the Cornish mainland is 25 miles. We should go for it! Boris would do it, but I hear he's holidaying in Sicily.

Just don't expect daily blog posts in August. Although you could always write your own contribution.