Nostalgia in Australia

There's a bit of malaise among Aussie players these days, which spawned a new blog - "The Boules Lounge" - written by "Roger Casquette". An appropriate alias as "casquette" in French means "cap" but is also the term used when you try to shoot another boule but end up merely hitting it on its head without further effect.

Whether the gripes are justified or not is none of my business, but I found it interesting to read the posts and the constructive comments because they touch on the recurring, universal topics of "social play vs competition" and team selection for international tournaments. A good way to see how other players feel about it and what kind of solutions are being discussed.

"Roger" als has a nice collection of phots in the right column, including the game rules of Bryant Park, NY!

Whenever the subject of accommodating the needs of both social and competitive players within the same league comes up, I suggest to consider the Dutch system, where some years ago they introduced a two tier membership: one for those who play exclusively in their own club, and one for those who travel to regional and national competitions. No system is perfect, but with over 18,000 members the Netherlands is certainly one of the most dynamic petanque countries, # 4 worldwide.

And - looking at their new website - I see they now also have a Google Map! I should have patented it ;-)