They're urgently phoning out for new superlatives at the snooker World Championship, where the tables have gone 147 crazy. Ronnie O'Sullivan had only recently finished punching the air in celebration of his maximum break when Stephen Hendry fell short of matching him at the last red. A little later Peter Ebdon went one ball better but then parked the black on the lip of a pocket. Then, in the next frame, Ali “The Captain” Carter stepped up and cleared the table.

It is the first time that there have been two maximums in one World Championship at the Crucible. Archaeologists agree that this is like finding the Holy Grail then noticing another one, over in the corner. John Virgo got so caught up in Carter's break that he stopped commentating and started coaching. “Play a good one, son ... it's OK, it's OK ... deep breath, now. Remember your technique.”

Virgo also said: “Do you know, when I was playing, I didn't realise the game was this easy.” He could have a point. Just as golf courses have had to adapt to the increased power and accuracy of Tiger Woods, so snooker may have to head off this new breed of maximum breakers at the pass. Smaller balls? Bigger tables? A bit obvious, maybe. What about a minimum cue length of 45 feet? And a randomly exploding pink. That should slow them down.

Turning away dizzily, one noticed that it was also that time of the year when the Professional Footballers' Association awards are handed out - in other words, too early. As you probably appreciate, the football season hasn't quite ended yet, meaning that there is time for any number of Player of the Year nominees to become involved in post-match altercations with groundsmen on lawnmowers (it happens, apparently), making their honourable shortlisting look a little previous.

Still, I suppose you have to pounce before everyone goes on holiday, leaving Jeff Stelling, the night's host, addressing a Grosvenor Hotel ballroom audience consisting largely of chandeliers. The televising of the PFA awards (by Sky Sports) conforms to a ritual so time-worn that it is pretty much set in wide-screen stone. Tradition insists that it starts with a rib-tickling archive shot of Andy Gray's mullet and ends with Sir Alex Ferguson giving the night's biggest award to Cristiano Ronaldo.

And in between the show must offer a number of quick-cut video recaps, in which an entire season of football is boiled down to a collection of knee-slides, and present the annual archival opportunity to wonder whether wearing a novelty bow-tie in 1995 was the last time Alan Shearer did anything truly wild on television.

The hot news from the frontier of fashion (which is to say, the hotel lobby beforehand) is that today's footballer is increasingly happy to interpret “black tie”, the dress code stipulated on the invitation, simply to mean a dark suit. This is an advance on the freelance foppishness of yore that led some players as far astray as morning dress and designer cravats. But it does have the disadvantage of rendering what is intended to be a joyful footballing celebration (I'm right about that, aren't I?) a touch funereal.

Only the always admirable Stelling seemed to have taken the trouble to go the extra, Edwardian mile, as intended, by wearing a wing-collar. Gaze upon him, Portsmouth players, and learn. Looking smart and, above all, appropriate, is possible, even on less than £50,000 a week.

The PFA's evening has been pioneering among awards ceremonies in doing away with acceptance speeches in favour of the more controllable acceptance interview, wherein the host closes in on the triumphant player with a microphone and a series of semi-rhetorical questions (eg, “would you regard this as your best season?”), thus efficiently guarding against gush and overrun.

It's something we would like to see taken up across the board, not least at the Oscars. Think how much tedium would be spared if a Hollywood Stelling equivalent could keep the victors on the rails with questions such as: “Do you think that people are finally saying, with this award, that they love you?” or “You'll be delighted for God, I imagine” and if the winner could reply: “That's right, Jeff.”

Incidentally, on a point of order, it is a remote possibility, perhaps, but this could turn out to be the first year in which a club entirely unrepresented in the Premier League Team of the Year selections (Chelsea) win the league. Again, suspending judgment about the season until the season has finished doesn't look like an entirely preposterous idea.