"The John Lennon Memorial Shot"

As you may or may not have worked out I am quite interested in world affairs; a term which has connotations of a magazine that details adultery around the globe (such magazines exists I believe in the form of 'More', 'Heat' and, if you're interested in Royalty, 'Hello') but in fact just means I like to have a read of the news every once in a while. I wouldn't want to be caught out when the British put down their pints and copies of the Daily Mail and take to the streets in Revolution. It's unlikely to happen, I realise, but better to be prepared.

The biggest topic in the world news at the moment is the unrest in Egypt. It's a seriously interesting time, and also a somewhat worrying one, since the outcome of the riots will direct the course of the Middle East and could have significant impacts globally. But rather than turn this blog into a political discourse (I'll save that for the pub, where discussion and demagoguery are significantly aided by drinking) I'd like to propose a new means of dealing with such conflict. Instead of violent protestation, threat of armed action and the putting in place of curfews in an endless struggle to dominate the situation, I propose a game of tiddlywinks.

This is something that me and my good friend Aaron have thought for a while, but in order to write about it I thought I should do some research on the topic, and I was somewhat shocked (and amused) by what I found. It turns out that tiddlywinks is a game developed and played far more widely and seriously than I had ever imagined. There is both an English and North American Tiddlywinks Association (the Scottish, ever the people of blunt reason and pragmatism, disbanded theirs in the 90's; they had evidently realised the pointlessness of the activity) and there is a standardised kit including a regulation pot and 'winks' imported from Italy. There are a huge number of rules and humourously named moves (the 'Squop', the 'Gromp' and the infamous 'John Lennon Memorial Shot' being among my favourites) and World Championships that can be watched on Youtube, although unsurprisingly the majority of players seem to be grey, beared and have an unsettling affection for the turtleneck jumper.

The image I have painted of this noble game is somewhat cynical, yet nevertheless, a game of tiddlywinks would be a far more peaceful means of deciding the outcome of the Egyptian conflict, and cost far fewer lives. I believe the only person to die from Tiddlywinks was a man named Gerald Hatherswaite, who managed to 'blitz' a 'penhaligon' with expert use of his 'squidger' and subsequently died of an excitement induced heart attack.

So, I propose that President Mubarak takes his newly appointed Vice-President Omar Suleiman as his second and challenges a key leader of the movement and a member of the Muslim Brotherhood to a duel of the disks. As they take to the felt, perhaps instead of dropping teargas onto civilians, Mubarak will drop a neatly aimed wink onto his opponent, achieving the ultimate 'squop'. Perhaps instead of burning vehicles, the civilian would then come back with a 'boondock', potting his wink to achieve the shot known as the 'Lunch'. And when the game was over, the winner decided and the new government settled, people would look back and realise that violence (except on the playing felt) was never the answer.

It's never going to happen, but it's funny to imagine anyway.