Now that Hammer has discovered my secret identity and exposed me on the website for the dog that I am, I can save myself a whole lot of time getting ready to go out in future.  You can’t imagine how hard it has been to hold myself back from chasing after those balls all this time, and perhaps you can understand how I ended up with the name Wiggle – I haven’t been moving my bottom seductively to enthral, just wagging my tail excitedly.  And it also explains why I am so sensitive to Hammer’s high-pitched whining…  it’s almost the same tone as a dog whistle.  I don’t ‘sit’ or  go ‘down’ on command, not even for treats, nor am I likely to thrust my face in your crotch -  I have, however, perfected playing dead.

I shall try not to be too snappy or rough on anyone in this week’s report, just bark out the usual scrap of truth with a lot of crap & growling thrown in, maybe gnaw too much on the same subject, like a dog that won’t let go of a bone…

Worried by Hammer’s declaration of standing behind him at all times, aRCe arrived early on Wednesday 28/2 and bribed Craptain into letting him play first, therefore getting all the bending over done before Hammer arrived.  Craptain put yours truly on opening spot too, and I was only too pleased to oblige since I was asked so nicely.  Both aRCe and I struggled with consistency, but he redeemed himself better by scoring 23 against my 20.  It looked like my game was a little erratic – very rude of aRCe to ask where the ‘little’ fitted in, and inappropriate when he didn’t capitalise on his ‘spare’ by scoring off his 3^rd ball and promptly scored a duck to follow – but I was gutted not to get 7 on my last up as it ruined the aesthetic number pattern I was creating on the board.  Still, on the bright side, we only left the team 12 down on the first pair!

Craptain put Jocky & Orical on next.  Now, it is becoming apparent that Taffy has been holding Jocky back, because without his presence Jocky has blossomed into a potential ‘anker.   Yet again Jocky went on and couldn’t put a ball wrong, with the additional advantage of Compact not having arrived yet and therefore unable to administer the Kiss of Death.  Jocky earned himself another stroke of Pussy this week with a masterly 36 and started taking a greater interest in the averages sheet as a result.  Orical, still pumped up on his high score from last week, was scrutinising his own skittle skills and couldn’t help bragging about throwing ‘too straight’ when things were going well but he wasn’t getting the bounce off the pins, like he usually does obviously…  anyway, he scored a more modest 24, made the most of his stroke of Pussy and bathed in the warm glow of his and Jocky’s WPTP having pulled back 22 pins to put us 10 in front.

The Smugglers weren’t looking quite so self satisfied now as they warmed up their 3^rd pair.  In a shock decision, Craptain chose to break up his trainee ‘ankers Hammer & Sparky and Barnesy Junior found himself playing in partnership with Hammer.   This decision may have been provoked by Hammer & Sparky admitting to playing together last week even though we didn’t have a game…  quite what they were up to is anybody’s guess, but it’s nice they’ve made friends – who’d have thought?  They must have mellowed with age.

Apparently, Hammer didn’t go to the Rovers’ match the previous evening, when they got as lucky as Hammer over their scoring, because he can’t run fast enough any more, and he needs to because for some reason his mouth gets him into trouble…  surely not?  BJ, relaxed by all the football success and talk, chalked himself up a well-deserved 31, but missed out on a Pussy stroke due to achieving that with a duck.  Hammer, on the other hand, was ‘suffering’ with his skittles – Craptain’s word not mine, and a blatant shirking of just telling Hammer he was playing crap – but not half as much as we were watching him skittling…  he missed quite a lot, even getting a duck (which I unfortunately missed witnessing) then got the jammiest 9 I have ever seen and unfortunately didn’t miss.  It’s never fair that he got 30 with a duck, but he still wasn’t happy – because he only pulled 14 pins on his oppo…  arrogance is not a virtue MC, and it was shameful how you felt you were above stumping up your duck money:  you should have made the most of putting something in Pussy even if you didn’t qualify for a stroke.

With 10 more pins added to our contraband to put us 20 ahead, Craptain unleashed Young Guns Minidisc & Lodge.  Both had a successful outing, MD chalking up 27 to Lodge’s 25, and having done so they promptly left – no team solidarity for them!  Their efforts earned them a WPTP for smuggling 15 more pins and leaving us a healthy 35 in front, so that there was no pressure on Compact & Sparky as they squared up as warm-up ‘ankers.

Quite frankly, it was getting boring watching the pins scatter by now, and even more boring listening to the squabbling over who moved where in the averages when the emphasis should have been on the opening pair laying down the foundations for our spectacular win, and why we still don’t have a column for top womens score.  Compact was in Exocet mode, sending the balls searing down the alley to take out 34 pins in total – if he is lucky, Conspiracy Pete might even add his 30s to the appropriate column this week!  Sparky took top score with his 37, suddenly not minding being ripped asunder from his partner of the past eleventy twelve weeks.  They confiscated 28 illegally imported goods from the Smugglers and went to town on Pussy, leaving her looking very pink and shiny.

More used to being 60 odd down than 63 up, the ‘ankers had nothing to play for – except the averages.   Trying to give the impression of professionalism so that we took him seriously, which was difficult in light of the Wanted posters bearing his dodgy 70s persona, Craptain performed his loosening-up exercises designed to maximise his skittling power – and avoid his knee giving out at an inopportune moment.  For a while I thought Craptain was going to be a real gentleman and take my place as most rubbish skittler, so I sympathised with his inability to make any impact on the pins.  After reciprocating his own sympathy by telling me it’s as hard at the front as it is at the end – at least I think that’s what he was doing, I didn’t notice where he had his hands – the bar steward went and scored 23!  And, to add insult to injury, tells me I had to be unlucky to get bottom score with 20.  Compact, realising it’s important to sound sincere even when you don’t mean it, almost managed to keep a straight face as he agreed.

The team were so busy discussing the averages and who is going to be missing for most of our last games that we didn’t see Chuckle 1 score a 9.   We made amends by watching his next up avidly, and he put two straight through.  Barnesy told him it was that quality of skittling that stopped us watching in the first place, whereupon C1 got churlish and asked us all to look away because we were putting him off.  He salvaged a 27, and between them the ‘ankers managed to pull another 3 pins to give us a near Devil’s win with 66!

Although peRV was still in a land far, far away, his warm-hearted skittling peers by no means forgot him.  Indeed, they pondered thus:  Vickery is out of the country, the Almonds go from success to success – what is the correlation?  I’m a little hazy on how they got there, but the formula for correlation seems to be  

– peRV                         = w***er

Almonds x winning