Pool and Ping Pong

There's no contest, of course. Pool is much more 'us' than ping pong, more brain and sagacious decision-taking with g and t in hand, than all that instantaneous hand and eye and leaping about. Ping pong is not as weighty as pool of course; the pool table can't be taken up the hill for the summer, whereas a ping pong table....

Or badminton? That needs just the net and shuttlecocks light as feathers. But are we light as feathers, in the heat? Croquet is impossible, no lawn; lawns belong in another culture, another world with the rhododendrons and the rain. Water polo? That sounds just as vigorous as ping pong but cooler and the Australians could coach us all. Backgammon always leads to tears (and poverty, compound interest and backgammon have some essential but obscure identity). Ditto poker.

An obsessive, if short-lived, interest can make the vacation; something must be found. Perhaps we can all fall inappropriately in love.