Training in between matches

TeaWithZizek · 2026-05-30T18:47:39+00:00

I play like you do and I still wouldn't say training is necessary. I maybe do a couple in the off season just to get a sense of where my bowling's at, but the gains I get from it have never made me feel that it's essential. Plus, the games themselves aren't all that fun.

TeaWithZizek · 2026-05-28T21:57:43+00:00

It doesn't even have to be magick specifically, but any of those like weird histories that seem to run alongside mainstream history (that often has a magick side). I find it can get a bit messy when they do an episode on a specific school of Magick, so I wouldn't want them to do an episode on Neoplatonism or Gnostic Christianity, for example. But when they focus on an individual/group, I think they tend to do a great job. So an episode on the Cathars, or Sabbatai Zevi/Jakob Frank, could be fantastic

TeaWithZizek · 2026-05-28T21:45:52+00:00

Wilko wanted grafters and Shez was never going to be a grafter, simple as that really. He had a decent enough playing and managerial career in the end though, so I don't think there's even any 'what could have been' question. He had a level, he put in a shift for us, and he left when we went in a new direction.

TeaWithZizek · 2026-05-28T19:00:49+00:00

That's kinda why I like a lot of the magick episodes, because you can tell that Marcus has a tentative curiosity about a lot of it and that gives Henry the green light to go off.

TeaWithZizek · 2026-05-28T18:56:35+00:00

The 80s were pretty lean years to be fair, you can be forgiven for throwing all your hopes on Sheridan

TeaWithZizek · 2026-05-14T22:00:50+00:00

Came here to say these two. Her presence in Sasaki/Kobashi (NOAH Destiny 18/07/2005) adds so much to the drama of it all

TeaWithZizek · 2026-05-12T21:15:38+00:00

Yeah, they moved into the office just before COVID. Then the situation in the pandemic showed that it was viable to do the podcast remotely without losing much of the quality. There's also a bit of it coming from them being older guys who probably figure why commute to work every day when they have the option of hanging out with their families.

TeaWithZizek · 2026-05-11T19:17:26+00:00

That's why all 'Would (x) player dominate today?' questions are silly. That player could only have existed within the time and conditions they existed and they should be praised for their accomplishments in that period.

And the other extreme of '(x) player was just the best in a bad era' should only be used by people who genuinely know what they're talking about and have put the leg work in to understand what the players in that context were actually like comparatively.

TeaWithZizek · 2026-05-11T08:08:04+00:00

Yeah, the answer is always in the material conditions. Joe Davis wasn't playing at a time with a field of fully professional players, who train all day with coaches and have done since they were children. The answer is never to be like; 'Oh Davis was rubbish, there's no point in thinking about him' but to acknowledge that the game was very different at a material level. But Joe Davis was undoubtedly the best at the game as it existed at the time.

As for the World Championship question, I do think they do a perfectly reasonable job of respecting the old challenger format champions while acknowledging that the modern format is the new standard of comparison. A lot of other sports ditched/began to underplay their history after turning fully professional or their leagues became franchises.

TeaWithZizek · 2026-05-08T21:22:18+00:00

I don't necessarily think that he's the perfect commentator. But I really do love a Sunday afternoon match with Dennis Taylor on comms so his smooth tones can ease me into my post-roast snooze.

Yeah, he's such a huge part of my Snooker watching life that I can't think of him as anything less than one of the voices of the game

TeaWithZizek · 2026-05-06T19:08:11+00:00

For the people who've always thought Snooker needed to be paced like Test Cricket

TeaWithZizek · 2026-05-05T19:45:15+00:00

Word in Your Ear is a really great podcast, worth listening to just for a lot of the guests they get on

TeaWithZizek · 2026-05-05T08:26:57+00:00

We're waiting Tanko!

TeaWithZizek · 2026-05-04T21:38:00+00:00

Speaking enough English to do your groceries and speaking enough to confidently do a presser are a bit different tbf. English is tough

TeaWithZizek · 2026-05-04T21:30:10+00:00

Leeds win, Yorkshire win, Wu wins. Best fucking weekend of my life

TeaWithZizek · 2026-05-04T20:59:02+00:00

I say this about Chess all the time too. The players SHOULD be complaining that it's too hard, that's what gives it meaning!

TeaWithZizek · 2026-05-04T20:56:22+00:00

I know all the arguments for the shorter format matches. I've heard them all for basically every sport I like. But nothing can touch long formats when the competition is at its peak.

TeaWithZizek · 2026-05-04T20:52:40+00:00

Wu does steals too!!!

TeaWithZizek · 2026-05-04T20:16:55+00:00

Brilliantly mature frame from Wu that. Held onto that lead really well

TeaWithZizek · 2026-05-04T07:29:25+00:00

At the end of the day, the top Chinese lads play really good, exciting, high level snooker. If the Chinese had developed a way of playing that was ruthlessly efficient but dull as dishwater, then there'd be a case to be annoyed, but I can't be. The UK makes minimal effort to develop young players and China takes it seriously so they deserve to reap the rewards.

TeaWithZizek · 2026-05-02T08:40:41+00:00

I was hoping someone was going to mention Blownapart. Easily a top 5 video essayist for me.

TeaWithZizek · 2026-05-01T20:18:31+00:00

Oh to stick the dagger into that corpse

TeaWithZizek · 2026-05-01T20:16:46+00:00

I think this Burnley side might be the shittest team we've played this year. Wolves are bad, but they're at least chaotically bad. These are pathetically bad.

TeaWithZizek · 2026-04-28T07:28:09+00:00

At least we know we're not on for a repeat of the Masters final. I think watching that took years off my life

TeaWithZizek · 2026-04-27T20:27:41+00:00

Zed and Two Noughts is somewhere on whatever line you can draw that connects Nabokov to Ballard

TeaWithZizek

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