THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY...........................

• Trial bid : an attempt to bring a bridge club to court, say for example over a claim for damages following the wrongful dismissal of a member
• Suit : an action one takes up in a court of law in order to obtain some form of legal redress
• Bigot-Johnson : an impetuous fool who is forever putting his foot in the proverbial dung heap. Therefore to do " a Bigot-Johnson " means to drop a right big clanger.
• EBU : an acronym for " Everyone Buggers Up ", given that no one can play perfect bridge all the time and never make a mistake
• Italian " Blue " Team : an appropriate colour reference used to describe a key feature of this highly successful world championship side. After being accused of cheating, all the members sank into deep depression. Such was the sheer scale of their abject despair and despondency, to even describe the team simply as " blue " seemed a gross under-statement.
• Myrtle Bennett : the first woman to be given the label of " top gun ". One of the founder members of " Equal Rights For Women In Sport ", she more than anyone tried to put a stop to male chauvinism running rampant in the world of bridge.
• ACBL : an acronym for " Amazing Cock-ups Bewildering Lapses " which aptly describes the decision making process that inevitably takes place in bridge committees and governing bodies the world over
• Bridge bloggers : generally, a sad and disillusioned bunch of writers operating in cyberspace. Like blind fools, they carry on publishing their works, choosing to ignore the fact that possibly no one is ever bothering to read them. What's worse is that should the opposite be true, then they remain blissfully ignorant of the fact that much of their stuff is written off as " utter crap ".