Championship Diary

Phillip Alder accosted Benito Garozzo outside the Congress Centre and immediately thrust a piece of paper under his nose. '30 years ago playing with Giorgio Belladonna you bid 4NT on this hand. Did it show a heart control?' Dano de Falco quickly interjected 'Don't ask him, he can't even remember the hands from yesterday!'

The human brain is a wonderful organ; it starts working the minute you wake up and doesn't stop until you get to the bridge table. At the risk of boring some of our readers, we are reminded by Barry Rigal that the BBC Radio show 'I'm sorry I haven't a clue' usually contains an item at the end where the panel are invited to give their list of latearrivals to a particular ball. To give you an idea of what is meant, take the example of a late arrival to The Mad Scientist's Ball: Mr & Mrs Tube and their daughter, Tess Tube. Barry invites you to come up with your late arrivals to the VuGraph commentator's ball - and we start you off with these examples: Mr & Mrs Analysis and their daughter, Miss Analysis. Mr & Mrs Keycard and their Italian cousin, Roman Keycard. Mr & Mrs s'Fork and their son Morton s'Fork.