oh, and that's a bad miss

You'll remember my close encounter with snooker superstar John Higgins at Edinburgh Airport back in March, of course. Obviously at sensitive times like these you don't want to steam in and start offering advice, not at 8 o'clock in the morning after a difficult and disappointing defeat, but I gave him a significant look as our eyes briefly met across the baggage carousel, and it was a look which said: you've let yourself down a bit here, John; sure, Robertson's an up-and-coming guy and he's got all the shots, but is he really all that? Has he won two world championships? Pull yourself together, get back home and recharge your batteries and get yourself sorted mentally for the World Championship - that's the one that really matters, not some half-arsed tournament in Newport, for all that it's a fascinating place with some interesting and - dammit - sexually attractive people.

Now I don't want to start claiming that it was my firm yet understanding touch with the telepathic coaching that inspired Higgins to his third World Snooker Championship tonight, but equally clearly without my advice he would have been a hollow shell-shocked shadow of the granite-tough matchplayer he was tonight. It's really very difficult to put a price on that sort of brief yet pivotal intervention - indeed some might say he owes all his success, and therefore the associated prize money, to me. I think that might be overstating it a bit, but I would say something in the region of 20% of tonight's and future winnings might be a fair return for my time and psychic effort.