Oh, and that whole Korean crisis thing? It wasn't a missile fired by North Korea that started it - it was actually a cueball thrown by Ayman after he went in-off on the break during a friendly ladder game last week. I shudder to think what might have happened if he realised that the penalty was just one visit rather than two in World Rules. Civilisation as we know it is on a knife-edge when this man plays pool.

Saturday Night: Dinner

Ah, dinner. Such a straightforward concept. It's evening, you're hungry, you find some food, you eat it - job done. It's a bit more complicated in Liverpool. 6pm Saturday we set out to Nandos in the -6 degree weather (so horrendously cold that some male scousers actually wore long-sleeved shirts and a couple of women were even spotted wearing tights under their mini skirts!). Imagine our surprise when we were told there was a 40-minute wait to be served. This seemed inordinately excessive so we decided to head off to find somewhere else. A pattern emerged, consisting mostly of massive queues and massive delays. Wetherspoons? Jam-packed with people, no seats anywhere. Buger King? Queues spilling out into the street. Bella Pasta? 45 minute wait to be served. The local chinese? An hour wait to be served. Finally we spotted a Pizza Hut which appeared to have a few tables free. "Sorry lads, the oven's broken." The hour-long trek through sub-zero Liverpool was an utter disaster. It's clear there's a stark disparity between supply and demand of food in this city. LSE entrepreneurs take note. We slunked back to the hotel, hands, ears and noses cracking and about to fall off and made our way to the 2nd floor restaurant. Walking triumphantly into the restaurant, we asked for a table only to be met with a response of "we gorra private function tonightz likche". Fortunately however we could still order food from behind the bar. Whoop. It only took 20 minutes for the waiter to collect the order which was nice, although it really did seem he did not have a clue what we were talking about for most of the time we were ordering. Anyway, another 20 minutes later our food finally arrived, and we were met with this monstrosity:

To clarify: Dan ordered a steak burger. Which came with a salad. And... some crisps. Ready salted crisps. With a steak burger. Dear Liverpudlians. I don't know who the FUCK told you that FUCKING CRISPS were a suitable accompaniment to FUCKING STEAK, but suffice to say you have been MISINFORMED. Sorry, I appreciate the notion of cultural relativism and the subjectivity of taste, but this is an ABOMINATION.

Conclusion

All in all this year's championship was a huge success for the LSE. The 1st team reached the last 16 (which they were guaranteed to do due to the bizarre competition structure), equalling our all-time record, and both the 2nd and 3rd teams won a match! Moreover this year we maintained gender superiority as James beat 2 girls in the individuals, Will beat one in the individuals, and John beat one in a team match. A vast improvement over last year's nightmare with Dan and the Portsmouth 3rd team's adorable little girl - something which we'd all like to forget to be honest. And the highlight of the whole weekend was Will hiding in the toilet to avoid the ticket inspector on the train back as he had forgotten to bring his railcard with him, and it worked. It's precisely this kind of epic victory which will inspire us to further success at the 8-ball championships in Yarmouth in February and firmly set in stone LSE's name as a powerhouse of cuesports excellence in the UK.