Nick Metcalfe is back with his first column of the new snooker season, ahead of the sport's return to the UK at the British Open.
When I was growing up, I didn't think much about snooker in the summer at all.
Once the world champion was crowned at the Crucible, that was basically it for a few months.
Instead, it was all about the end of the football season, then Wimbledon and the Open Championship and whoever England were playing in the big Test series (remember that, Test cricket in high summer - it will never catch on).
By the time snooker returned into our lives, children were safely ensconced back at school, leaves were falling off the trees and lighter evenings had faded into memory.
Compare that to snooker today. We have seen a number of tournaments over the summer, including the prestigious Shanghai Masters - won by Judd Trump - and the long awaited return of the China Open, where Mark Selby was successful.
The snooker season has now extended in length so dramatically, it barely feels like there's a break from the game at all.
Players may quibble over various nuances of the scheduling - sometimes their complaining has merit too - but what they can't say is the calendar isn't constantly busy.
I actually thought the "China Swing" worked pretty well. It gave the last month a feeling of real continuity.
The players tell us time and time again about the sense of occasion at Chinese tournaments, and it's true to say that events in the UK - aside from the World Championship - do not have the surrounding glitz and glamour that we've seen in Shanghai, Taiyuan and Wuhan. You don't see many red carpets in Telford or Llandudno.
After sealing victory in Taiyuan, Selby said this: "I think the last five or six years, when the players have been coming here to China, it's a lot more modern. The technology is incredible.
"It's definitely the best country in the world I think, because everyone can learn from China."
The tournaments weren't perfect of course - the pockets could do with more tightening up - but China has added gravitas to snooker's summers and given the 2026-27 campaign a decent kick-start.
Loss of BBC bowls reminds us how lucky we are
Snooker now returns to the UK, beginning with the British Open, which begins in Cheltenham on Monday.
Channel 5 will have comprehensive coverage of the tournament, much of it on its main channel.
I brought news to a wider audience last week that the BBC will not be showing January's World Bowls Championship in Norfolk.
That is such a big deal for that sport. There was a time when you would see multiple bowls events on television. Now there's next to nothing and the BBC's coverage of the World Championship, which goes back generations, was still the sport's window to a wider audience.
It made me realise again how fortunate snooker is with its TV landscape.
As well as the British Open coming up, Channel 5 will also show the Players Championship and Tour Championship later this season.
The BBC still has the triple crown events - the UK Championship, Masters and World Championship - under lock and key. Pretty much every tournament in the game is on TNT Sports.
Snooker may have been later to the TV party than many sports - it burst into prominence in the late 1970s - but that is half a century ago now, and it's brilliant that the game still has such a significant presence on the small screen.
Long may it last, and long may snooker fans realise how blessed they are.
Vafaei shot surely brought spirit of the game into question
We're forever patting ourselves on the back about how sporting snooker is.
In many ways, it's deserved praise too, particularly when players call fouls on themselves.
That said, the players are not angels and Hossein Vafaei played a shot against Stuart Bingham at the China Open that called into question the spirit of the game.
Vafaei was in a heap of trouble, with the only red he could see being right over the middle pocket. He deflected off that red, sending the cue ball into the pocket.
The reds were now all in a safe position. Bingham had gained no advantage from the situation. Let's say it straight here. Bingham said he believed it was a deliberate foul. I find it hard to believe anyone could look at the shot and seriously dispute that he was right with that assessment.
No rules were broken here, and the referee didn't seem to be concerned at all. But if everyone started playing shots like that on a regular basis, we'd be in a right pickle. Let's hope that isn't the case.