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It was a Monday night. I was at home. After the call came I phoned the Press Association. Three minutes later it was on Sky News.
After an hour or so of writing for various people I turned off my computer and the sheer awfulness of it hit me.
To lose any 27 year-old to cancer is shocking but to lose such a nice young man who loved life so much is doubly heartbreaking.
There was no malice in Paul. He was just a laidback lad with a great talent for snooker, a sport he helped to keep in the headlines through his three Masters victories and general popularity.
His name should be kept alive. He died four years ago tomorrow and, through the efforts of his various friends, he is still associated with snooker tournaments being played after his death.
One such event is the Paul Hunter English Open, which begins at the Northern Snooker Centre in Paul's native Leeds on Monday.
There is also the annual Paul Hunter Classic in Germany, now part of the European Players Tour Championship, and the Paul Hunter Foundation, which provides opportunities for young people who otherwise have few.
The WPBSA scholarship in his name has been scrapped after three years, largely because the World Snooker Academy, where the scholars spent a year, is no longer a practice base.
The governing body should still commemorate his life and career in some way.
Indeed, the game's wider heritage should be guarded with care because although it is right to look to the future, snooker should not forget the names of the past who have helped make it the television attraction it is today.
22 comments:
Paul was the first player to win the current Masters trophy and now the new board is in place(and are moving forward) it should only be right and fitting to name the trophy 'The Paul Hunter Trophy'.
Sadly missed
- 10:18 am
Is there a case for a statue outside Wembley Arena?
- 11:00 am
I also remember when I saw that shock news. I was back to my office in the morning and clicked to GSC website, suddenly found a grey photo of Paul Hunter. I still not believe, and clicked to sporting-life and WSA website at once. Very sad at that time.
- 11:02 am
I think of Paul often and I still miss him. Especially seeing Matthew Stevens on tv reminds me of his friend. He certainly needs to be remembered and honored now and in the future.
(I also was reminded of Paul this week when someone recalled a certain someone once trying to stop Paul's ranking position from being frozen. That was horrible.)
- 11:21 am
- jamie brannon said...
I had just started out at university, when I heard the news. I was sitting at a computer and it is one of the few famous person death's that had a profound effect on me.
He showed great humility in his tough battle with cancer, was a fast, fluent and stylish breakbuilder, who genuinely had the capability of becoming a World Champion.
- 1:16 pm
Yes the bracketed part of your post was an extremely distasteful matter at the time.
I hope the player who was against this initiative is suitably ashamed.
- 3:40 pm
- snookerfan 4711 said...
I remember too, how I get to know that Paul died: I was riding the tube on my way home from work and we have this little TV's in the tube, showing the latest news, advertisement and stuff that happens in my home town. And there it was, along with a picture of Paul. It hit me like a hammer, for a moment I could hardly breathe! I remebered Rolf Kalb saying that Paul was better during the last Torunament. So I didn't see it comming, I had hopes. I couldn't hold my tears back and started criyng in the tube, in front of strangers, but didn't care. Paul was such a loss! For me, for snooker, for the World-
He was the one that made me watch Snooker. In the beginning I tuned im to see him, not to see Snooker. He had this irresistable Prince chamring smylie and was - if he was anything alike the reports that was written about him - a very nice person. And not one tournament goes by without me wondering if Paul would have won it? I miss him, because he introduced me to Snooker and I'll be always thankfull for that. Wonderful Paul Hunter. If there is a god and a afterlife I'll watch him play again and I'll enjoy it :-)
- 3:56 pm
Lovely photo Dave. His smile will never be forgotten.
- 3:58 pm
If it doesn't become 'The Paul Hunter Trophy'.
If they stop playing 'The Paul Hunter Classic'.
If The Paul Hunter Foundation folds.
And even if they don't erect a statue at Wembley.
I won't forget Paul Hunter, and many others won't either.
That 'Predator'? He was a proper good guy.
- 9:03 pm
I very regret the loss of Paul. I liked watching him in TV, but alas never had the opportunity to meet him live. The announcement of his early death is still the first page of my snooker file.
RIP Paul
- 9:17 pm
God, he was a good looking man wasn't he!
- 1:55 am
11 21 and 3 40 . lets name him it was shaun (christian)murphy. he was the only player out of the 64 asked to vote on it that said no . as a fellow pro i find him disgusting on this. as for jamie brannon im sure he will come to his defence.i think he must have a photo of shaun by his bed which he kisses every night. and i did approach murphy face to face on this brannon ,get the facts kid before typing.
- 10:50 am
- jamie brannon said...
I think Murphy was wrong to say he shouldn't have his ranking frozen, but that doesn't mean he is tarnished as a person forever, I am actually not a huge Murphy fan, I was just saying that there was nothing hippocritical at him being upset when Paul passed away.
- 3:13 pm
I still remember the day I found out he died, closest I have come to crying as an adult. Don't see why they needed to end the Scholarship just because the Academy is being used more regularly, they could easily use the South West Academy.
Paul Hunter, still very much missed.
- 4:48 pm
313 course it was hipocritical.also murphy is the only player who would claim a frame for his opponent not having his chalk.(maguire) .stop looking at this guy through rose tinted glasses and see him for what he really is,a fake .he makes ronnie look genuine.
- 11:00 am
You want a lasting tribute to Paul Hunter that will live as long as the professional game?
The Paul Hunter World Rankings.
- 5:40 pm
tb, with all respect, whaat happens in 30 years when something similar happens?
a tournament in his memory, in england as the country he was from, is fitting in my book
- 7:02 pm
I fail to understand why a "Something similar", happening in the future, would be an argument against almost anything.
- 7:58 pm
cos then somebody from that era would want to rename it after the most recent......as PH wont be as fresh as the next player to....
- 8:44 pm
The problem with naming trophies is that it could be an issue for sponsors down the line - I know this sounds awful but some sponsors might have issues with an event that is perceived as a memorial.
They have the Paul Hunter English Open which is a mid profile pro-am, and maybe they could have given the winner a "Paul Hunter wildcard" into the Masters and done away with the Masters Qualifier. That way they could have linked the tournament played in his honour to the event he's most associated with.
- 12:19 am
good suggestion betsy
- 8:20 am
can anyone tell me where paul is buried?please
- 2:53 pm


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It's so very much easier for us, in the twenty-first century, to extend our physical horizons, than it was in previous centuries. Going on short rail breaks from London, for example, allows us to enjoy all manner of pleasures in any part of the country we choose. We can visit the Lake District for a healthy walk, we can do a tour of Scottish castles, we can participate in a murder mystery weekend in Kent, we can go on a painting course in Wales – all within a few short hours of London by train. There are scores of companies offering short breaks to Stratford as well, just two hours from London, where we can see two theatre performances and spend the night in a hotel then be back in London in time for lunch the next day.
The invention of the railway changed everything. Trains cut straight through everything – hills, mountains, rivers – in straight lines, at a high speed. And trains are becoming even faster. In the time it takes to set off from Euston, check in at our Stratford hotel, see two plays, have dinner, sleep, have breakfast and arrive back at Euston, Shakespeare would have been only about half way from London to Stratford.
If there could be any argument on the side of those who claim that Shakespeare didn't write the plays – something which we at No Sweat Shakespeare strongly contest – it is that surely it's impossible for a man to undertake that journey frequently, on a regular basis, living a double life, and write several of those plays every year for a quarter of a century? (See our piece on Shakespeare London – Stratford commute for more info on this.)
Well when you think about it, why not? The one thing that marks famous people out from the rest of us, the one thing they have in common, no matter what their field may be, is their energy, dedication and determination. Those qualities are what make them famous, be it sport, music, art or anything else. An athlete, competing against the best in the Olympic Games and finally winning a gold medal is a simple example. She dedicates herself to it for four years, astonishing everyone with the total immersion in the preparation that she's prepared to undergo. She's focused, iron willed and relentless. Bitter cold mornings, snow and rain are nothing to her, and while the rest of us are snuggling beneath our blankets on a Sunday morning in winter she's out there, determined on her gold.
How do we know that Shakespeare wasn't like that? Dedicated equally to his work in management, acting, writing, family life and community involvement. He certainly did all those things and kept his hand tightly on them all until his retirement to Stratford. The Victorian writer, Anthony Trollope, author of some fifty novels, is a good illustration of that phenomenon. According to his autobiography this was the pattern of his day: rise early, go hunting, write a thousand words, go to work, dine at the club, go to bed. Every day, unless he was abroad. Trollope didn't just go to work. He was the top man in the Post Office. Roland Hill gets the credit for the introduction of the penny post, the idea of putting a stamp on a letter and sending it anywhere in the world for a small fee, something that changed the world of communication in the same way as email has done in our time. Roland Hill gets the credit because he was the boss, but it was prolific author Trollope, the number two in the Post Office, who actually came up with the idea. Not only did he do that but he travelled around the Empire and America, setting up the structures for the new system. Yet no-one says he didn't write his wonderful novels, one of which, Barchester Towers, is generally described as one of the greatest English novels.
Trollope tells us in his autobiography about his writing in boats and trains. What is there to say that Shakespeare didn't write on the back of a wagon after hitching a ride? Or even as he walked or trotted along on horseback? 'Writing' isn't necessarily putting pen to paper. For many writers it consists on formulating something in the imagination, getting it all right then jotting it down later. So perhaps it was actually on the frequent trips between London and Stratford that the great creative effort took place. He would have been far more comfortable on a two hour train ride between the two cities but as train travel was one of the things Shakespeare could not have imagined, he wasn't missing it, and perhaps his extremely slow, uncomfortable trips were what gave us the great plays that we hurry on fast trains to see in Stratford.

subset: commoncrawl


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Google Adds Feedback Link to Maps, Will Blur Faces After Year
Google made several updates to its mapping program on Wednesday, including the ability for users to report problems, a pledge to permanently blur peoples' faces in its database after a year, and an expansion of Street View.
Google has added a "Report a Problem" link on its maps and directions so that users can report inaccuracies: if, for example, the name of a park has changed, a road has been closed, or a particular building has been knocked down.
"Once we've received your edit or suggestion we'll confirm it with other users, data sources, or imagery," Andrew Lookingbill, a software engineer at Google, wrote in a blog post. "We hope to resolve each edit within a month."
Submit your e-mail address, and Google will alert you when the change has been made.
Meanwhile, the company is looking to add new datasets to Maps and is currently working on adding biking directions, Lookingbill wrote.
But what if Google's Street View cameras capture your image on the street?
The company has already pledged to blur out faces on the public version of Street View, but Google kept the un-blurred photos in its servers.
"We keep these un-blurred images in our databases so we can build better products, for example by constantly improving our blurring technology so that it obscures more of the things it should and less of the things it shouldn't," Peter Fleischer, Google's global privacy counsel, wrote in a blog post. "For example, we might need to read a street sign in a Street View image to make sure that the street is properly named on Google Maps."
In June, however, the Article 29 Working Party, a group of 27 European data protection authorities, asked Google to set a time limit on how long they keep unblurred photos in their database.
"Starting today, we will permanently blur images on our internal database within one year of their publication on Street View," Fleischer wrote. "This means that long term the only copy we keep will be the blurred version. In countries where Street View is already launched the year long retention period will start today."
In addition, Google pledged to fast-track any requests for image removal in Street View.
"We'll move those images to the front of the queue, and permanently blur those pictures in our records as quickly as possible," Fleischer said.
In the next few months, Google will also launch revamped Street View Web sites with more detailed information about the service and where the company's cars are driving.
The Google car recently made a trip to Canada. Google Street View is now live in Vancouver, Whistler, Squamish, Banff, Calgary, Kitchener-Waterloo, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Quebec City and Halifax, Google announced Wednesday.


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The Pacific Life Holiday Bowl officially will slide a few notches down the postseason pecking order from 2010 through 2013.
The bowl announced Tuesday that it has extended its contracts with the Pac-10 and Big 12 conferences for those four years, but with significant changes, as reported in August. Instead of taking the Pac-10 runner-up and a third choice from the Big 12, as it has since 1998, the Holiday will have a third choice from the Pac-10 and a fifth choice from the Big 12 from 2010-2013.
This is because the game was outbid by the Alamo Bowl for the Pac-10 runner-up and a third pick from the Big 12. The San Antonio game was offering those conferences guaranteed $3 million payouts, compared to the Holiday's $2.35 million.
Bruce Binkowski, the Holiday's executive director, said his bowl decided against matching the Alamo's bid because it would have required increasing the game's average ticket price from $60 to $100. The Insight Bowl in Phoenix also increased its guaranteed payout from $1.2 million to nearly $3 million in order to leapfrog the Holiday in the Big 12 pecking order to pick fourth.
Last year, the Holiday hosted two Top 15 teams with Oregon and Oklahoma State. If it had the No. 3 Pac-10 and No. 5 Big 12 teams last year, the Holiday probably would have hosted No. 24 Oregon State vs. No. 25 Missouri.