Hi Kevin, I really enjoy your coverage of Mondial la Marseillaise on Youtube, thank you

Shocking if true

I was playing in a melee yesterday and had a decent player and we were against two very strong players. With me pointing and him being arrogant we found ourselves in deep trouble at 12 - 1 down. I asked to switch and after a little discussion where I pointed out it couldn’t get any worse and he was missing loads he agreed to swop. Slowly we started to come back, one point at a time with me hitting boule after boule and getting lots of carreau. The fun part was when we won our second point to make it 12 -2 I remarked “pas morte” which was greeted with immense hilarity by everyone watching and the players. It came down to the last boule every end, time after time I had to play a miracle and I managed to pull it off each end. Every time we won another point I said the same thing…..pas morte. The next thing it was 12 - 12 and we had a large crowd as we were holding up the entire melee. I had a situation where they were lying 3 after a dodgy cochonnet movement and there was no feasible way I could beat 2 of the points. So I lobbed onto the jack and moved it to our boule and we won the game! The crowd at this point went crazy. This melee happens every week with over 100 players turning up and it was a very memorable game. It’s never over until someone hits 13! Do you have any similar stories?

This weekend was strange but also great. I got to meet some legend and film them. Fazzino was superb all weekend and possesses a huge desire to win that simmers deep inside with barely a flicker of upset. A few shrugged shoulders and arm flapping and LOTS of muttering when things didn’t happen with Foyot’s game. A gentleman who was taken away to sit down after games and who stayed away from people wanting his time. Loy was a gentleman, played superbly, massive desire to win, exceptional in point and shooting and held the game on his own many times. He took time to speak to me, we chatted about Normandy, his game and my time in France and he remembered me from filming him a few times before. Foyot was poor at best, sometimes dreadful and occasionally good, very occasionally. He wanted to boss Loy who was NOT impressed with his game and there was plenty of quiet words exchanged between the exasperated Loy, the fed up Fazzino and the arrogant Foyot who may have been magnificent but this weekend his decline was exposed. Some people we’re jeering him when he blamed the piste, the wind, the sun, the stones, luck and anything else to try and deflect from his poor performance. When I met him at lunch he was totally disinterested, hardly said a word and just grunted at me. He did agree to a selfie and couldn’t muster a smile for me or anyone else who asked. Maybe it was a bad weekend, maybe his days are over, maybe it was the heat, maybe he just isn’t interested anymore. I guess even the best can have bad days at the office

I’ve got a big announcement for everyone coming later today……this is just a quick teaser to get you to come back tonight 7pm French time for the big reveal