Tuesday morning. I bump into the Cooksbridge-based artist Tom Walker in Castle Ditch Lane and he reminds me that his exhibition, ‘Snooker in the Frame’ is still running in the Star Gallery until Saturday. I’m familiar with all the images from research on the internet, but I haven’t seen them in the flesh, so it’s an offer I can’t resist. Plus Tom has set up a quarter-sized snooker table in the gallery, and is happy to play all-comers. Sounds like a great way to spend an hour.

First the pictures, a score or so of frames in colourful pastel. They are ingenious: each one has snooker as a theme, or an influence, or a passing reference. One is a ‘Homage to Dali’ with melting balls and a flaccid cue. Another, entitled ‘Breaking Off’ shows a bride attacking the man bringing up the rear of a triangular phalanx of red-clad soldiers, who has evidently stood her up at the altar. ‘Village Green’ shows a sedate Sussex village with the balls set up in the immaculate rectangle of lawn next to the church. And so on.

He breaks, I get the first ball down. I soon realise he is much better than me, with a precise yet fluid action to counter my wilder hit-and-hope style. Snooker being snooker, there’s still a game to be had into the colours. I concede on the pink. I’m not that bothered. It has been the most memorable game of snooker in my life. AL