“We’re trying to stop our little darling spending so much time on it”
“Us too. It’s such a waste of time.”
“I just can’t see the good in it.”
“I’m all for a bit of fun, but games we used to play were – well – more imaginative.”
“And the temper! I ask him to come down for supper and no, no, he has to finish this one game – screams and begs like some sort of gin drinker from the East End – and then hours later, when of course I’m now cross because dinner is cold and we’ve all been waiting he comes up having clean forgotten about food and blames me for not telling him”.
“It can’t be right.”
“And what I can’t understand is sometimes there will be three of them, standing round the silly thing, only two of them playing but the other is happy just to watch.”
“Barmy.”
“It’s making them so fat and unhealthy too.”
“It must be damaging their brains.”
“Exactly. And my husband seems to get sucked into it too. Does yours? I send him up to fetch the boy and half an hour later they come down looking sheepish.”
“Well as long as he’s paying!”
“I know! I just can’t keep up with all the different new versions. There’s one from America now that has different coloured balls.”
“No! For kids?”
“I know! It’s called … dash, it’s not billiards”
“No we’ve got a billiards machine.”
“Is that the one with the pockets?”
“No, no, that’s snooker I think”
“Pool. That’s it.”
“Probably. Ghastly names really. So babyish.”
“That’ll be Christmas then. I’m fed up with it. Where are we meant to put the things? There just isn’t the space.”