Not precisely polymaths, but a tale of a professional snooker player trying to avoid the poker tables, and a former footballer doing the Frankie Dettori.

Red wine and poker don’t mix.

One bottle is ok; you can get through on the buzz, but once you drive the screw into the second cork a barrier comes up, like one of those old wooden ones protecting car parks.

The last time two bottles of red wine met poker I was in Lewistown Hall playing in a £10 rebuy. It was a decade ago. I shared a table with Ryan Day, the Welsh professional snooker player, and he was on me bumper-to-bumper all day. I remember seeing the seriousness of his face in my rearview mirror. Then he was gone. Or was I gone? I found out the next day that the man Day had won the lot.