Andy Richardson: Baize is a chance at victory without the crash and burn

She Who Must Be Obeyed suggested it would be a good idea to put it in her office. Which would mean, of course, that she would be the arbiter of who plays when and would be able to polish up her skills while I am working hard to pay the mortgage and a council tax bill that has risen more quickly than the price of Russian gas.

My plan had been to claw back some vestige of self-pride by winning the odd frame and pretending I’ve never played before. That ploy worked once before when I did my best impersonation of Fast Eddie Felson on a boozy weekend in Italy.

A friend for whom I was writing a book challenged me to a game of pool. “Have you ever played before?” said Stephen, as I gently dabbed blue chalk on a queue that resembled a 5ft long wooden banana. “Nah,” I lied, as I proceeded to school him in the dark art of hustling.

Four frames later he signalled defeat in a curious way that might go best unrepeated in a family newspaper. It was a curious way to raise the white flag, as Stephen later agreed, when the booze had worn off.

My chances of a 4-0 drubbing against She Who Must Be Obeyed, however, may be slimmer. She has form, when it comes to competition, and has just informed me that she used to hang out at all-night snooker clubs, without telling me why.

The last time we took each other on in a sporting pursuit was during a long weekend in Scotland.

We’d been driving aimlessly until we found a go-kart track and I suggested we take each other on in our very own Grand Prix. She Who Must Be Obeyed displayed unusual enthusiasm for the task and after dark mutterings about being into cars as a kid, we made our way to the start line.

I blasted away in a blitz of burnt rubber but slowly realised that would be the only victorious moment of the day.

Despite zigging this way and that, despite trying to bend the rules like – allegedly – Michael Masi and Max Verstappen on the final day of an F1 championship, I was powerless to prevent her surge. She stormed past me with a smile visible through her crash helmet as I drove beyond my reasonable limits and spun into a wall of tyres. And then she lapped me, while I was reversing. And then lapped me again, because she was so damn good.

Later, the talk turned to drifting. I imagined it was something to do with snow and the onset of cold weather in Scotland. Which shows how little I know about driving go-karts on a track against a woman who, it transpired, had been her school’s both-sexes champion and who’d driven competitively since the age of 11. The extent of my experience, in contrast, had been to try a handbrake turn on an icy car park in Iceland while driving at 7mph. She won.

My only victory at driving, curiously enough, had come on another occasion when I’d been in Finland with three other journalists on a press trip.

We were invited to go ice rallying on a snow-bound track, which meant smashing up old Volvos in an England versus Germany shoot-out. England won. I thank you. And the German journalist fumed for three days at being shunted off the track.

Still. There is still chance for a victory on the green baize. Saulius is at the door, so must dash. I’m off to practice my best Rocket Ronnie impression.