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

• Hog : a player remarkable for the catholicity of his appetite and desire to play all the hands. Never one to trust his partner to be declarer, the hog will endeavour to play in inferior contracts at the risk of obtaining inferior scores.
• Card : a player who strives to be the joker of the pack. Often an amusing, eccentric person who quickly becomes an infuriating and tedious bore.
• Eavesdropping : a well honed practice of those blessed with acute hearing but cursed with a lack of moral and ethical values. An uncanny ability to unobtrusively and secretly listen in to hand details being discussed on nearby tables.
• Best Behaviour at bridge : a misguided notion that bridge players are capable of changing their sinful ways, and adopting the characteristics of a saint.
• Zero tolerance : a totally flawed policy which many bridge clubs foolishly sign up to, unable to recognise its failure to apply compassion to those provoked by others into acts of wrongdoing .
• Committee members : a group of people who step forward to run the club, either gaining selection on a wave of widespread apathy affecting the absent majority, or on a wave of gerrymandering antics used by a narrow but determined minority, who bothered to vote .
• Bridge meeting minutes : a incredibly brief but sanitised record of what when on behind closed doors, where every single bit of incriminating detail is carefully and methodically edited out
• Prize giving : an end of year ritual tagged onto an AGM, where the club's prolific trophy hunters come to collect their spoils. Often these players are seen huddled together en masse in the bar afterwards laughing and guffawing , in what can only be described as a Mutual Admiration Society.
• MUD : what many less fortunate players would like to throw at these smug we've got more trophies than we know what to do with members of the Mutual Admiration Society