The Cooish: boxing at the Palace, a tennis near-miss and Gef the mongoose

Welcome to The Cooish, our regular round-up of what the island is talking about. Today: fists, forehands and a famously chatty mongoose.

First, the boxing. Nine island boxers were in action at the Palace Hotel on a Saturday night of amateur boxing staged by New Horizon, Isle of Man Today Sport reported on 24 October.

The paper’s headline promised a “feast” of action from the evening.

On the tennis court, the Isle of Man 45-and-over team narrowly missed out on a county title, according to Isle of Man Today Sport. Along the way the islanders came up against Norfolk, Cornwall and North Wales.

Falling just short at county level against that sort of opposition is still a respectable showing for the island’s veterans.

And no Manx round-up feels complete without Gef, the talking mongoose. Isle of Man Today has returned to the tale with a piece asking whether one particular incident marked the end of the creature. The piece is headlined with the words “I gave him a smack”.

The article quotes an unnamed person describing something that “snarled and spat and clawed more venomously than anything I have ever seen”. As ever with Gef, readers are left to decide for themselves how much of it to believe.

That’s The Cooish for today. If something has got the island talking where you are, let us know.