Mad Harper

This is a poem.. I didn't write it but I love it

2011-09-22T09:09:00.000+01:00

Let Me Explain

Spring, and the tulips urged me
stick to schedule, flower furiously.
I asked for mountains but settled
for some flood-buckled linoleum.
Air was the only sure thing
and even she put up a fight.
I called my eyes near-sighted,
my hands near misses, my arms
close calls, my face old hat,
my head a bluff and raised
my body, a wishing machine.
Stars, thanked. Days, numbered.
I wore a coat because you can’t trust
weather and I looked like rain.

Dora Malech

OUT OF IT.. my field report on www.pokerstarsblog.com today

2009-07-14T05:37:00.001+01:00

FIELD REPORT OF THE HOUR

By Mad Harper

How do people react when they bust out of something like Main Event? Happy, sad? Gutted, in despair, disappointed - or utterly jubilant for having made it so far??

Anyone who is knocked out at this stage of the main event - the start of Day 6, 185 players left from a starting field of 6,494 - takes home more than $36,000. OK, it might not be life-changing but it's still not a sum to be sniffed at and would represent an annual salary - or more - for the vast majority of those that avidly follow the progress of their friends, the top pros or myriad celebrities taking part via the PokerStars and other blogs.

I've now been to four World Series - and more than 40 major PokerStars live events around the world - and have seen every single possible emotion on display as people find themselves knocked out. Utter dismay or disbelief at the impossible, odds-defying one-outer, a wry shrug or semi-embarrassed grin when a bluff is caught well and truly out, laughter, tears, open sobbing.

If you're an unknown player - as most are - your departure from the Amazon Room can take place in relative anonymity. The only "public" announcement that your dreams and hopes are over comes as the dealer shouts out "Seat Open" to the floor manager. Some would say those two words are the cruelest ones you will ever here - spearing your disappointment and turning it into a crushing reality. If you are on one of the two televised feature tables, it's even worse. You can't just slink away - you have to hang around while a technician comes to strip you of your microphone. Everyone knows you've bust. Everyone knows it's all over.

Last year I happened to be watching as Daniel Negreanu was knocked out on Day 1. KidPoker was on the secondary feature table and being railed by a crowd of fans four-deep. Like almost all players who are all-in, he was on his feet - ready to walk away if the board failed to bring him a miracle. Now Daniel is one of the most charming and popular players in the game - I have seen him happily greet fans when I know that he's hungry, exhausted or disappointed. What would he be like at the exact moment when he bust out of the main event? I studied him closely. As the river card came down, he was already turning round towards his fans with a big smile on his face. "Can you sign this for me?", said a hundred railbirds at once. Daniel obliged for the next ten minutes - still beside the feature table - cracking jokes, asking names, shaking hands. It wasn't fake, it wasn't "professionalism", it's just the way Daniel is.

At the other end of the scale was a scene I witnessed in 2005, a display of grief which would have put a Greek tragedian to shame. The player was a PokerStars qualifier who had moved to Vegas and grinded the low-stakes cash games for a living. I had had several chats with him during the first few days of the tournament and he had repeatedly told me he was going to win the main event. The whole shebang. He was sure of it; he just absolutely knew it. Not a shadow of a doubt. I was there when he bust and will never forget it. The player fell slowly to his knees and started sobbing, loudly. It was deep, heart-wrenching despair. He remained there, his face buried in his hands and wailing, for what seemed like a lifetime. A crowd gathered and we all continued to watch. It was car-crash ghastly but we couldn't tear ourselves away. In the end, a tournament organizer came and gently led the him away. He continued sobbing in the Rio hall, more quietly though, for many minutes more.

That was the worst reaction I have seen but most players are up that end of the scale to a greater or lesser degree. Most are not happy; the $36,000 cheque that they're about to pick up from the Payouts room across the way is not a consolation. Yes, they have won thousands of dollars but almost all had their sights on a lot more. Yesterday however I bumped into Dutch PokerStars qualifier Rolf Slotboom in the Rio hall, recently busted. I expressed my sympathy. Rolf Slotboom is a well-known figure in the European poker community, a long-time writer and now a professional player. I had no idea what his reaction would be and was amazed by what he said. "I feel great," he said. "I'm really pleased with how I played - and how it went. It was a great tournament. Thanks so much for asking."

I admire Rolf immensely for that response. It showed he is a true gentleman, but if there is one thing that poker tournaments teach you, it's that even gentlemen can behave like toddlers when their shot at $8 million has been snatched away.

Boggle

2009-06-08T19:11:00.003+01:00

Last night I dreamed that I was sitting with one of my former bosses and a bunch of other colleagues round a big table. My former boss was passing a gift-wrapped present across the table to me and everyone was smiling.

In my dream, I suddenly realised they were giving me a retirement present.

"No", I started protesting "no, I don't want to retire. I'm fine. I like my job. I'm not retiring."

But no one said anything, and they all kept smiling so I opened the present.

It was a game of Boggle.

I was quite pleased because I actually like Boggle.

But I did wonder why they hadn't spent more money on me.

My toe, mad Mad Tony and the Veterans Football Club

2009-02-02T15:13:00.005Z

Today my toe went into rehab. I was rather surprised by this as I had never imagined, in my wildest dreams, that the first part of my body that medical science would deem in need of rehabilitation would be my toe... but there you have it. The medical world has ignored my vices, by-passed my main organs and headed straight to my foot. Of course some of my vices have been contributory factors but I'm glad it's my toe in the spotlight.

As regular readers will know, I broke my toe (or it got broken) back in January when I was pissing about on The Rapids at Atlantis Casino. Ignoring advice from my then medical advisor (Benjo) I did not immediately go to hospital in Nassau and get it sorted. Instead I carried on working, getting drunk, dancing and generally ignoring it (aside from exaggerated limping every time I saw the toe-breaker). The toe got better for a while but then, after an ill-advised dancing spree in Deauville (the pain dulled with oysters, red wine and mojitos), it got worse again. It is now enormous, grossly swollen, like a fat carrot lying in a bed of pale but perfectly-formed asparagus.

Once back in the land of terribly small people, I went to the medical clinic. My doctor did an X-ray and we stared at the results. She professed herself non-plussed and referred me to a Traumatologist.

I was ecstatic. Trauma!!!! Great!!!!! What a fabulous development. The traumatologist said I had incurred a "fractura grande" but, because I had done absolutely nothing about it , my toe was now in massive trouble. Rehab, he said, was the only hope of saving it.

----
The rehab clinic was round the corner (everything is round the corner in Lilliput) so I hopped round and booked myself in for an appointment. Then mad Mad Tony came in and everything went a bit David Lynch.

I have known Mad Tony since I first moved to Sitges. His brother Ricky runs the eponymous town disco, a total dive that you only go to if you are horribly, horribly drunk. Ricky's has not been re-decorated, or in fact cleaned, since the mid-1970s but for some reason Ricky considers this such a marketing plus that even his flyers say "Untouched since 1973". The only saving grace of Ricky's is that if you do bump into someone you know, which you will, absolutely none of you will remember it the next day.

Mad Tony is the antithesis to Ricky but not in a good way. Mad Tony is a fitness fanatic who also runs Sitges Veterans Football Club. Mad Tony is about 45 but his modus viviendi is running and he runs everywhere, all the time. For a while, Tony was trying to woo my former flatmate - a courtship which took the form of running into our flat with a giant pizza, jogging on the spot while eating it, then running out again. It was my idea that my mate Ben - who likes a game of footer at the weekends - sign up for Tony's Veterans Football Club. Both Ben and I assumed veteran meant something between old and past-it but in his first and only match, Ben found himself marking an athlete who had just left Real Madrid and flanked by two Brazilians trying out for Barcelona. Six years later, Ben is only just recovering from the ordeal.

---

So I'm standing in the rehab place when in runs Tony. Tony had told me he was a physiotherapist but I had always assumed his credentials were utterly bogus. "Hi", he said, gripping my arm so hard I incurred two further fractures, "what you done?" "I broke my toe", I said. "Ha ha, playing football?", he asked, and then laughed hysterically at his own joke for four minutes.

Tony disappeared behind a screen and I waited while reception filled out my paperwork. "How did you break your toe?" said the receptionist. "Playing football", I said. She led me to a small cell, right past Tony's treatment room. Tony was on a running machine and talking to a patient.

The physio came in and inspected my toe. She was so incredibly beautiful that I knew if I told my friends, they would all happily break their toes and most of their fingers just to get her attention. She looked like Julianna Margulies from ER.

With my fat carrot cooking under a sun-ray lamp, I lay on my back staring at the florescent lighting. Tony was still with his patient but now seemed to have set his running machine to "uphill" and was having to shout to make himself heard. He and his patient were discussing a rather complicated recipe for calcots. "YOU HAVE TO MAKE SURE THE GRILL IS REALLY HOT", he yelled. A small dwarf came in and spoke to me backwards. I could see light at the end of a long tunnel.

Then Julianna Margulies returned and switched off the sunray lamp. Life slowly subsided back to normal. Tony was standing in reception in his running shorts. See you tomorrow, he said.

D-Day: Operation Overlord

2009-01-25T17:58:00.016Z

On Sunday – and completing a lifetime ambition – Neil and I took part in the D-Day landings and Battle of Normandy.

We were operating with drastically reduced troops as most of the airborne division had fucked off to Amsterdam to liberate their minds. We were also operating with drastically-reduced energy levels having spent the night before getting trashed in the casino bar, rather than going to bed ready for a crack-of-dawn start.

So, unlike the Canadian, British and US forces of 65 years ago, we did not land with precision timing between 6.30am and 7.30am, but instead sauntered out at around half past ten. Although under-equipped in terms of braincells, we were both armed with concierge copies of the D-Day tourist guide. This interesting and informative little leaflet not only sorts the route out for you, but also corresponds to actual road signs making Operation Overlord pretty easy to follow even if you’re hung-over. See map below.

Neil and my route as we try to find a petrol station open on Sundays

There were other factors against us though … weather conditions were unfavourable for any kind of seaside activity (sub-zero wind chill and driving rain) – and almost every single musem on the route is closed until February 1.

Nevertheless, we got in the hire car and headed east along the coast, quickly realizing that the Operation Overlord D-Day route seamlessly segues with another major interest of ours: mini-golf.

The tourism office leaflet inexplicably and massively downplays the mini-golf aspect of the Normandy Landings but it’s totally obvious that mini-golf must have played an important role. Almost every Overlord landmark has a mini-golf right next to it – some with very tricky holes. Hole #7 at the St Aubin-sur-Mer course has a shockingly difficult fortification that must have taken the troops hours to conquer.

We motored on until we got to Pegasus Bridge. “This is Pegasus Bridge” I said as we drove across what looked like an M1 footbridge. “I’m underwhelmed”, said Neil.

Moments later we spot and cross, with no real resistance, the real Pegasus Bridge. This is where, on the night of 5/6 June 1944, a force of 181 men, led by Major John Howard, landed in gliders and took the bridge in ten minutes.

On the western side of the bridge is a house owned by the Gondree family – it was the first building to be liberated during D-Day. It’s now a café and mini-museum, closed until February 1. The Longest Day, starring Richard Todd, tells the Pegasus story or you have a go at liberating the bridge yourself in the board wargame Advanced Squad Leader. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegasus_Bridge)

Next we headed for Juno Beach. This was where the Canadians landed. It was the most successful of all the D-Day landings with all objectives met. We didn’t have time to visit the Centre Juno Beach museum. This was a shame as the leaflet promised the Centre would not only explain Canada’s role in the Second World War but also give an insight into Canadian culture. As far as I know, Canadian culture primarily involves slagging off European poker players but that would hardly explain why thousands of Canadians were prepared to attack a heavily-defended beach to save us. Canadians suffered 50 per cent casualty rates at Juno but nevertheless, by noon, all survivors were ashore and leading elements had pushed several kilometres inland.

By 6:00pm they had captured the town of Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer and set up a mini-golf course.

Although we didn’t have time to visit the Juno Beach museum (open all year) we did havetime to visit Bar de la Mer, the first fast food place to be liberated by the Allies. The waiter gave us two Croque Monsieur cheese toasties and some paper placemats showing pictures of troops wading through the water. He neglected to give us any crayons.

Next on Op. Overlord itinerary was Gold Beach - a very beautiful stretch of coastline lined with farmland at the western end of which is Arromanches. This is where the Mulberry Harbour was set up – a temporary harbour towed over from the UK and constructed out of 600,000 tons of concrete. In the 10 months after D-Day, it was used to land over 2.5 million men, 500,000 vehicles, and 4 million tonnes of supplies providing much needed reinforcements in France.

I’ve read quite a lot about the Mulberry Harbour and always been staggered by the sheer scale, ingenuity and audacity of the idea – bringing an entire harbour across the Channel in bits and then putting it together. Seeing it for real was amazing; many remnant are still there - enormous hunks of steel lying out to sea and marking out a perimeter many miles long.

Neil and I got back in the car and, with time running out, decided to miss out the British military cemetery at Bayeux and head for Omaha Beach.

Omaha Beach is at Colleville-sur-Mer and is sobering in every way. No more mini-golf jokes for us. The beach itself is beautiful, but this just makes it even more shocking.

We stood in the rain and looked down from the high bluffs to the beach way below. It was easy to see what a horrendous task the Americans had faced, struggling to land on a beach, with no cover, and facing an onslaught of fire from the heavily-defended slopes above. It was chaos. Carnage. Thousands died. Mown down. Drowned.

Set back from the cliff edge is the American Cemetery. Rows and rows of white crosses, an occasional headstone in the shape of a Star of David. You can glimpse the sea far below between the yew trees. It’s sombre and the acres of headstones mark an unimaginable loss of life but it is also beautiful. There are two high flagpoles - Stars and Stripes flags flying… I thought about Barack Obama.

We left Omaha and headed back to Deauville. France seemed empty and abandoned. Virtually nothing was open. We now know there are also no petrol stations in the whole of Normandy. Neil had to head back to Paris. I am another night in Deauville. I wouldn’t have missed today for anything – we are all indebted, incalculably and forever, to those that took part in the Normandy Landings.

PS Owen – I have brought you back some pebbles from Juno Beach.

The big toe is next, bitch

2009-01-05T05:28:00.006Z

They call it The Rapids... the new water slide adventure at the Atlantis Resort where you sit in a rubber ring and get Tsunami'd round a water channel left behind by the Mayans... except it's not that rapid so after about ten minutes of stultifying drifting, you start geeing things up by fighting with your friends. So there I am, drifting along, admiring the Aztec ruins, basically minding my own business, when Marty and I start a minor splash battle. We kick water at each other a couple of times and then suddenly I hear - and feel - a strange crack. I lift my foot out of the water and there - in place of my normal award-winning toe silhouette is a replica of Stonehenge.

Toe No. 3 on my right foot is virtually at right angles. I am astonished. "Marty, I think you broke my toe."

Marty looks at my toes - now swollen into the Roman equation for four divided by two - and says: "Are you sure? Don't they normally look like that?"

I hold up my left foot as a comparison. It's pretty obvious Toe No. 3 does not look normal.

I start laughing (shock) and we swirl on for a bit and by now my toe is throbbing. At this point, the Incan water channel splits in two and I go right and Marty - wisely - goes left. I am on my own. I have a broken toe. I am approaching Grade 5 white water and also, I realise, accidentally fast-tracking back to The Abyss - a vertical plunge slide only suitable for people over 48 inches tall with good toes. I really didn't want to do it again.

Luckily at the next bend I spot some Mayan life guards and shout out my predicament. One brave Mayan dives in to the water, grabs my rubber ring and pulls me to safety. They golf-buggy me to the nursing station where someone I am absolutely convinced had no medical training whatsoever gets out some sellotape and straps up the 45 degree toe to a lollypop stick. She tells me my toes are unnaturally short. I ask her if I can have some morphine for the pain.

Marty comes in and I can see he is positioning for Bravado Denial. First, he downgrades my injury to "inflamed". Then he announces I broke my OWN toe on HIS foot. Then, for good measure, he says the nurse is strapping me up wrong.

We all hobble out. Marty starts doing impressions of me limping which I consider tactless in the extreme.

-----

90 minutes later and it's time for the Welcome Party. Hass sees me hobbling into the Coral Bar and immediately suggests we get a wheelchair from Guest Services. Sadly they don't have any Doylemobiles but we get an NHS version and start the long journey to Royal Deck. I swiftly realise what a bad idea it was letting Hass wheel me around. First he is trying to get me to pretend to be Andy in Little Britain. Secondly, he is trying to mow down toddlers. Thirdly, if he sees a girl he fancies, he is trying to mow her down too. His plan at the party is to wheel me straight on to the dance floor and leave me there but I suss that one out and throw myself out of the chair at the party perimeter.

During the party, I realise the toe is a great leveller. Everyone has a toe story and sharing these anecdotes gives us all a chance to bond. Also, even though it was pretty much a freak accident, and I secretly know Marty wasn't to blame, I revel in the frequent opportunities to point him out in the crowd, and shout: "It was that guy there. He broke it."

For some reason, I have to get the wheelchair back to Guest Services by 10pm. I look around for someone to wheel me and spot Laurence. Hoewever after he's crashed me into two dustbins and a tank full of manta rays, i realise he's DUI. Ricardo Pinto appears and, the perfect gent, takes me all the way back to the Coral Lounge. I drink four more whisky colas to add to the three Bahamamas I had at the party (drowning the pain) and decide to call it a night.

I wave goodbye to Marty. He waves back. "The big toe is next, bitch"

Further reading: Wikipedia toe page | Great broken toe pics

Christmas blog

2008-12-24T22:19:00.004Z

This happened a few years ago.. and it’s true.

We were all gathered on Christmas Eve at my mother and step-father’s house in the middle of nowhere. Things were going swimmingly, as is always the case if family gatherings are lubed with neat whisky.

It was about 8.30pm and we were all settling in for a family board game drinkathon when suddenly my step-father said “Oh my god, I’ve forgotten to pick up the turkey”. We all wheeled round to look at my mother. At this stage of proceedings, this was make-or-break. Luckily however she was five vodkas in and just looked vague.

My step-father rang the butcher’s in the vain hope the guy was still open. Nope. Not open.

“Ring his home, he might live nearby” someone suggested. Good idea. We rang directory enquiries only to discover that our butcher was, mysteriously, not listed.

By now my step-father was really beginning to panic. “Christmas won’t be Christmas without a turkey”, he said. Actually I’m a vegetarian so I didn’t really care whether we got the turkey or not but I could see that not having a turkey might blight things for everyone else.

“There’s only one solution”, I said, “ring the police.”

“Why? They haven’t got any turkeys” said my mother. “No,” I said, “But they can find out the butcher’s number and ring him on our behalf.”

Brilliant. It was clearly an emergency and that’s what the police are for. I rang Hailsham nick and explained all to the desk sergeant. He said it was the most exciting thing that had happened to him all night and promised to track down the butcher for us.

Five minutes later, the butcher called. He had left the turkey with the newsagent next door. My step-father raced off to collect the bird and we rang the sergeant back to tell him the happy news. Christmas saved. Phew.

Guest speaker

2008-11-22T17:58:00.003Z

My friend Rich recently had a very bad week. As I strongly believe it's important to let your feelings out and as Richard doesn't have any blog space of his own, I very kindly agreed to let him be a "guest speaker" (as it were) on my blog... so please find below.... in his own words....

RICHARD'S BAD WEEK

With hindsight, not checking the expiry date on the tin of anchovies was a fairly major error. Eight nocturnal visits to the toilet had graphically confirmed this. I went to work on Monday morning feeling like an exoskeleton. It was not a good start to the week. However, onwards and upwards.

On Tuesday I received a chatty email from my ex-fiancée telling me all about her wonderful new life with her new man in rural Ireland. Delete.

The main event on Wednesday was a crucial meeting with the chief investors in my new business. Hundreds, if not thousands of hours had been spent preparing for this moment. Therefore, it was something of a blow when they turned up and informed me that due to the world recession, they were backing out. Could the week get any worse? Absolutely.

On Friday I attended a dinner party with my new love interest. All was going swimmingly until she uttered the chilling phrase “I’d rather be friends.”

There are limits to what one person can take in a week. I felt I was quickly approaching mine. However, the weekend was upon me - a time to relax and recharge one's batteries. What could possibly go wrong? A very bad beat in a poker game? Yes. The theft of my expensive leather jacket in a bar? Correct.

The one of crumb of comfort is that next week can only be better. However, on current form, this crumb will no doubt be eaten by the seagull of fate and leave me hungry.

I am now going to open my mail. I am quietly confident of receiving an eviction order and a paternity suit.

Mantra madness

2008-11-11T01:38:00.002Z

Even though i’ve been at the Mantra Hotel for three days, I still have absolutely no idea how to get from A to B.

A is my room; B the tournament area. There is also C (breakfast).

The problem is that A and B are in separate buildings connected by a walkway and whichever way you go, you always end up on a different level. It’s like the whole place was designed by Escher. You start at the top, you go down for a while and then you’re at the top again. This happens even when you use the escalators.

The hotel bit is really scary because there is no signage. You have no idea where you are. An endless, featureless corridor, marked with meaningless numbers and, half-way along, an unmanned cleaning trolley brimming with bathroom products which you don’t want but feel obliged to steal anyway.

Howard has tried to explain the hotel’s Escher-like properties to me by explaining that the hotel is built on a hill, but this doesn’t hold water. The Punta peninsula is flat as a pancake. Where did the hotel get a hill from?

Despite this drawback (ie taking hours to find my room or the tournament), I totally love the Mantra. Huge room, giant bed, lovely view of stunning woodland , superb breakfast and insta-room service. It’s in the middle of nowhere but the nowhere is a forest, a dune-lined beach that goes on forever (Brazil apparently) and sweet little weather-boarded cottages.

WILDLIFE INTERLUDE

Following his wildlife-spotting achievements in Costa Rica (see earlier blog), Howard has also continued to impress with reports of a goat and a wild boar.
Rury saw the “biggest dog I’ve ever seen in my life” and we all saw a llama.

END OF WILDLIFE INTERLUDE

On Tuesday, Owen and I managed to escape the Mantra for a superb visit to Jose Ignacio, a little fishing village-cum-fabulously-rich people’s holiday home village 30km up the coast. Pretty lighthouse, nice rock pools, a little bit of light paddling (Owen, unexpectedly) and a fresh fish lunch ... superb. The whole excursion was so unlike a normal tournament that I thought for a minute we might be experiencing Real Life.

The tournament itself has also been fun – the first I’ve really enjoyed all year. The presence of some of my favourite players (Jason Mercier, Felipe Ramos, Andre Akkari) plus lovely Owen and dreadful Howard, plus my new best friend Eric Ramsey, certainly helped - but the whole thing had a good atmosphere. Plus it’s my last LAPT so my happiness was tinged with sadness –perfect. Only at an LAPT might someone also launch a spontaneous samba during the dinner break featuring Mike Ward and Greg Pappas on maracas, but after four hours’ of heads-up and no Tim Vance, everyone was getting pretty much stir crazy.

Another highlight of LAPT Uruguay was the Trip to Town. This was the glamorous resort of Punta del Este – the Monte Carlo of Latin America (not) . A rumour went round that we should all head off to a bar called Moby Dick. Actually I have no idea if it was called Moby Dick but when I got there everyone I have ever met in my life was already there and totally plastered. I waded through the millions, got to the bar, found Eric Ramsey and demanded four mojitos. A good live band was struggling to get itself heard above the bad beat stories. The entire tournament was there, squeezed into a tiny tiny space and shouting. Everyone seemed to have gone slightly mad. Nice.

Mini-updates

2008-10-12T05:37:00.010+01:00

These are mini-updates because I have both short-term and long-term memory loss.

Update for Macau: I was totally UP on the whole trip. Thanks to a magnificent few spins of the roulette wheel (run by the lovely Karen), I actually left Macau 80 euros richer than when I arrived. I know this because when I thrust all my Kong Kong dollars BACK at Travelex to take advantage of their Super-Duper Loyal Customer Rate they acted like I was trying to rip them off.
The only downside to Macau involved the never-to-be-discussed-but-nevertheless-fiercely-contested-language-learning contest that I have running with Hass. In this contest, we try to quickly outdo each other in grasp of native language in current destination. To this end, within minutes of arriving in Macau, I learned how to order a wide range of drinks from the bar in both Cantonese and Mandarin, and say thank you. Come Day 1b I was practically fluent and, as Hass had been terribly busy, thought I pretty much had this one in the bag. Hass outdid me yet again. While I was learning Cantonese and Mandarin, he had been SECRETLY LEARNING NEPALESE from the security guards who were all ex-Gurkhas and frightfully impressed that Hass very nearly went to Sandhurst. Damm.

More Macau: obviously going to Macau means I can tick China on the "Where I've Been" application on facebook. if you tick Macau, almost half the globe turns green. Very impressive. Bang. Tick. But actually, I saw absolutely nothing of China or Macau. I arrived in the dark, left in the dark and the view out of my hotel bedroom window was - naturellement - a cooling tower, and the rest of the time I spent at the Grand Waldo Casino which isn't really a country but, if it was a period in history, would have to be described as "Early Marriot". I had one tiny, brief outing when Marty and I went all the way out of one casino and into another: The Venetian. This hardly counts as "seeing China" but it was interesting. For a start, I was at a REPLICA of the real Venetian in Las Vegas which I had been in only a few months earlier. And the real Venetian is a replica of the REAL VENICE which I also was in in May. So in less than five months I got to go to the real place, the replica, and the replica of the replica. This is quite odd and I'd be hard-pushed to say which I liked best. Our trip to the Macau Venetian was a huge success however because as we walked into the bar, the lead singer of the band announced he was a huge Stevie Wonder fan. "I love Stevie Wonder" said Marty. And thus a heavenly night was born.

Update for Barcelona: this started off brilliantly with the EPT Awards. Thrillingly Julian Thew had won two awards and even more thrillingly was arriving too late to pick them up. The powers that be (Hilda) decided that absolutely the best person to go up and collect them on Julian's behalf would be me. I totally agreed and so got to do the thing I most like doing in life which is going up on stage and collecting awards. I was so totally convincing that lots of people thought I really was Best Performance of the Year and Poker Writers' Choice and came up to congratulate me. Unfortunately someone tipped Julian off so the next day he came and got the awards back. Well, one of them at any rate; wasn't totally sure where the second one got to.

Update for Sitges: while I was away in Barcelona working, we moved house. Well, some things moved. The internet moved. Then my bed moved. But the TV, Sky digibox and sofa (the heart of a home in my opinion) lagged behind, as did the cat and my flatmate. The cat got moved last and this slightly freaked him out. He has abandonment issues anyway and everyone moving WITHOUT HIM didn't help. He's making damm sure this doesn't happen again by living out of my suitcase. I am renaming him Isabelle.

More Barcelona: the tournament started bleakly with the announcement to all staff that the glorious days of the Master Account were now over and we would all have to survive on a tiny tiny per diem of 60 euros a day. This became Item 1 on the agenda at our first morning meeting as we explained to Alex that this was impossible, we would all starve to death, never ever be able to connect to the internet again and basically be doomed in every possible way. Ha ha. As it turns out, it was virtually impossible to spend 60 euros a day despite many valiant attempts by my assistant and others to max out. Monte Carlo aside (two bananas: €7.50) it seems likely that the per diem will be more than adequate.

Update from London: London began brilliantly with my computer exploding two days before the tourney began. I say exploding because I used to be a journalist but actually it died quietly, in its sleep (or hibernate), and without any pain. Lina and I watched it flatline for a while before signing the official death certificate. Lina then told me to go and get a Mac. Luckily I was due in the office that day and the genius IT guy managed to salvage most of my files and lend me a PC for the tournament. All was well. I went to the Apple store, bumped into three players and two qualifiers, and bought a Mac. I feel I have changed citizenship, like Italians landing at Ellis Island in the 1900s, it's a whole new world, scarey but full of promise. Big Apple.

London highlights: as this is a tournament we traditionally dread, anything other than horrendous is a plus. But the Vic was spectacular this year... Ollie Bartley, Jeff Leigh, John from Cardroom Magic and all the others have worked unbelievably hard to make this a great event. I'd dropped into the WSOP-E to check it out a few days earlier and it made me realise that we do this well!!! The media room at the WSOP-E looked like a refugee camp. The tournament area was a war zone - you practically had to step on dead bodies to get to the bar and, every time you thought you might get through, an armoured tank (aka ESPN crew) would blast you out the way with some hand grenades. Our tourney was like Switzerland in comparison so thank you, Grosvenor Victoria Casino!

London was also spectacular because everything we wanted to happen happened. Dream final for the main event, dream final for the high roller event. And then the dream results. This never happens... Conrad and I have long realised that as soon as you decide you would like a particular player to win, you are giving them the kiss of death. You don't have to stand right next to them to cool them. You can do it from the media room. Or from home. And now we have EPTLive, you can cool from all over the world. So wanting Michael Martin to win the main event and Jason Mercier to win the high roller was obviously NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. (As an aside, I singlehandedly cooled Queens Park Rangers out of the Premier League in 1996 simply by attending one match and buying a programme).

So main event final table: PokerStars Pro, PokerStars qualifier, sponsored player, lovely French guy (Antony Lellouche), Michael Martin. On the rail, flown in specially - Michael's mum, Brandon Schaefer and Michael's girlfriend. It's all peachy but Michael is card dead and eventually is down to two big blinds. It's like the burning of Atlanta. In the media room, me and Lina watching his ghastly, sickening decline from behind a mound of prawn cocktail sandwiches. Nothing can save him. He is cooled beyond recognition. But then the miracle happens - he goes all in, triples up, all in again, doubles up, all in again, doubles up again. Ha ha. Lots of chips. Less than ten minutes. An extraordinary and totally unbelievable comeback. He swipes his way through the rest of the field and wins. Hurrah. We head for bar and help spend the million except Michael is like royalty (never has any cash on him) so Nancy "I taught him all he knows" Martin gets the drinks in.

One down, one to go. It's another dream final table - Scotty Nguyen, John Juanda, David Benyamine, Isabelle Mercier - and Jason Mercier (no relation, not from Canada, not a former maths teacher) plus a clutch of excellent online pros. I am secretly hoping Jason won't win the high roller event as can't cope with another night of celebrating. But Jason is a phenomenon. He saunters his way to yet another stunning victory. He makes it look easy. Really really easy. In fact, no one could look more relaxed at the table unless they were asleep. And actually not even then because in Macau I did see someone slumped over the table asleep and although comatose they didn't look as chilled as Jason. Jason wins half a million but accidentally puts it in an Icelandic bank overnight so now it's worth £3.50.

So that's the updates. I like my Mac. Roll on Budapest.

I'll have a Macau please

2008-09-01T00:23:00.009+01:00

I really didn't want to come to Macau, in the People's Republic of the Venetian, but - oh my god - I'm so glad I did. This place is a BLAST. For anyone I haven't moaned to in the last three weeks (no one), the back story is this: I have come half way across the world to help a new PokerStars employee settle in to his new role as me. Unfortunately it became totally obvious that this was a flawed plan on the part of Senior Management when JP refused to pole-dance at last night's APPT Macau Welcome Party. This is a mandatory pre-requisite for "being me". Oh well.

I also knew I was going to totally love Macau when I received some spam from the Sands Casino on my mobile phone to enter their monthly Slots Tournament while I was still standing in the queue for immigration. Brilliant.

Hass got here a few hours earlier than me and immediately immersed himself in local culture by learning Mandarian in 15 minutes and then accidentally immersing himself in fifteen main dishes at a local restaurant. This then involved him in the internally-recognised debate that goes: "Ah sorry, I can't actually pay that bill. Can you wait here while I go back to my hotel and find a credit card that didn't max out while I was in Vegas." Although trying to use a dud one dollar bill can get you life imprisonment in China, not having any money at all to pay your dinner bill is not a big issue.

So, despite the best effort of the Chinese people for everyone to learn English by the end of the Olympics, this has in no way spread to the Grand Waldo Hotel. It took me over half an hour yesterday to mime: "Coffee with milk, please" so I am taking the bull by the horns (ancient Chinese expression) and learning Cantonese and a smattering of Mandarin. The Mandarin is for those occasions when the Cantonese is simply impossible to pronounce. For example, "Thank you" is impossible in Cantonese but pronouned "Shi Shi" in Mandarin. So Mandarin it is. Plus it impresses the bar staff because they now think I'm bi-lingual.

The bar staff (and my cleaning lady) might be the only people I get to meet in Macau but that doesn't matter. You can learn a lot from bar staff. Yesterday, for example, I learned how to set the bar on fire and how to order tequila shots. There is also a lovely Chinese girl on the PR team who has been helping boost our language skills. Yesterday, she taught us how to say "Grand Waldo Hotel" in Chinese in case we ever leave the Grand Waldo and then want to come back again. ("Gum Doh")

The tournament starts today and looks set to be a sell-out, record event. My body clock is totally fucked though so I'm not sure exactly what time. I managed to request a wake-up call from reception before passing out last night but they have woken me up half way through yesterday so now I have to go through the whole thing again. Yippee.

The Falls Road - Siktilt-style (pre-ceasefire)

2008-07-01T18:19:00.004+01:00

There are some war zones which are simply ignored by the media. There is no oil to fight over, no despot to topple. The damage and devastation affects only a few inhabitants. The Falls Road in Las Vegas is one such place - remote (can only be reached by taxi) and hidden from the glare of the world's cameras.

I was the first reporter in to Falls Road. I was - briefly - embedded. This is my report...

-----------------------

At first glance, the villa at the end of Deer Creek Falls Road (pronounced Deer Crack by our Ethiopian taxi driver) is just like any other cul-de-sac villa in the sprawl of low-rises surrounding the Vegas strip.

The UK peacekeeping luxury jeep parked in the driveway gives no hint of the devastation inside. It is quiet. It is newly-painted.

Only as you go inside, do you realise that Siktilt has struck again - turning a once-lovely family home/baller-stripper pad into a scene of wreckage and ruin. Clothes litter the floor. Technical equipment is scattered like shrapnel. A half empty suitcase lies by the staircase - its contents strewn. Every surface is covered with decaying food, cans of Red Bull, scraps of clothing.

In the centre of the room is the nerve centre - a mass of laptops,cables, hard drives, CPUs, crisp packets, empty beer bottles, biscuits and Skittles are piled onto the table.

It's a shocking and disturbing scene.

Please note the following videos contain X-rated footage and are not suitable for viewing by young children or people who are eating.

Take 1 (features Lina in a bikini)

Take 2 (features the "sex pole" and "walk-in shower")

Vegas beckons: preparations for the big one

2008-06-24T20:58:00.010+01:00

My "To Do" list prior to departure for Vegas: a triumph of conscientiousness over inertia.

1. Packing and Laundry
This is a worry. I am going to be in Vegas for 17 days. I don't own 17 of anything. We are on a $10-a-day Total Life Support expenses budget in Vegas, so that totally rules out using the hotel laundry service. Rury and Hass are in a villa, so they might have a washing machine but can I really face that?? And surely, if they have one, they will have broken it by now.

2. Enormous tummy
This appeared half way through EPT Season 4 and despite my best efforts shows no signs of vanishing. My best efforts have involved a) giving up ice cream for EVER, b) importing a live-in Argentinian chef who only feeds me soup c) doing sit-ups. Aaah. Damm. Didn't actually do the sit-ups.

3. Win a seat to the World Series
I have to accept this hasn't gone well. In March I won the Sitges Shoot-out Poker Tournament and decided to blow all my winnings on PokerStars steps satellites. I wanted to emulate Lina's superb achievement and also fake a mini-tantrum with PokerStars about whether I could play the main event or whether I would actually have to work. At first it all went swimmingly. I built up a healthy bank of Step 4s and prepared for an intense blitz. Unfortunately I chose to launch my blitz while drunk. Annoying.

4. Work
A lot's going on. And I don't think I've done it.

5. Find my motorbike
It's not where I parked it (18 months ago) and almost certainly has been towed to the car pound. I live in hope that it's been stolen but that won't be happening as I hand-painted it bright pink when I bought it and no one would in their right mind would steal it, and certainly not a Catalan. If it IS in the car pound, which is where it normally is, I have several problems a) an enormous fine as it's months since it disappeared from its parking place b) retrieval issues as it definitely won't start. But if I leave retrieval until after Vegas, the fine will be double my annual income. On the plus side, this will give the council enough money to dig up my road again.

6. Remove barnacles from bottom of new boat
Tick.

Snapshots of Costa Rica (4)

2008-05-30T00:08:00.003+01:00

Golfing tips from Geraldo
The Cariari Country Club had every reason to look concerned when Howard and I turned up to play golf on Tuesday morning. For a start, the Cariari is Costa Rica's premier golf club. Also it's members only. And also - and I think this might have been the clincher - Howard was wearing a Dad's Army outfit.

The security girl looked very dubious. Ditto the pro shop. But we stuck to our guns and dropped PokerStars' name in it at every opportunity. This got us down to the payment area. "You will have to have a caddy", said the club manager, hoping this would throw us off the scent. "Or two caddies if you don't take a cart". We opted for one caddy and one cart and handed over our crumpled colones.

Enter Geraldo, our caddy. He looks utterly miserable and then he spots Howard and looks suicidal. At the first tee, things go pretty well. We don't hit the club house, each other or Geraldo. Luckly Howard has chosen tees which are about a foot long so we blame them for the first few slices.

Howard is, of course, actually pretty good at golf and I am a disaster. Geraldo therefore leaves Howard to his own devices (which mainly involves getting out of bunkers) and focuses his energies on me. It turns out there is absolutely nothing right with my game at all. I lift my head, I swing wildly and too fast and I don't use my shoulders. "Have you ever played golf", Geraldo asks me. I tell him I was course record holder at Portal del Roc pitch-and-putt for over a year. He nods wisely.

By the end of the first hole (10 for me, 7 for Howard) Geraldo has realised what he's up against. He decides to shake Howard up a bit by taking him off-piste in the golf buggy at high speed down a cliff. Howard notches up a 10 on Hole #2.

Geraldo then focuses his attentions on me. Some of it is personal "Do you have a husband? Do you have children? Is Howard your boyfriend?" and some of it is golf-related: "Don't lift your head. Straighten your arm. Use a wedge."

Howard gets a little petulant that Geraldo is giving me so much attention but cheers up when he spots a kingfisher and an iguana, thus augmenting the Attenborough credentials he gained on our raft trip for spotting a frog.

Nevertheless, the front nine is basically a disgrace for us both.
Howard: 7 - 10 - 6 - 4 - 6 - 8 - 4 - 6 - 10 (61)
Mad: 10 - 8 - 10 - 10 - 10 - 9 - 8 - 8 - 6 (79)

By now it is pouring with rain (when is it not in this blasted country) and Geraldo is in despair. Luckily we spy a drinks trolley. Geraldo has a coca cola and Howard and I have coffee and a whisky. Geraldo looks sceptical but things can't get any worse and he's right. Hole #10 is a cracking 5 for us both.

A word at this point about the course. For a start, it's totally stunning. A tropical Sotogrande with iguanas thrown in. Wildlife, exotic trees, acres of manicured fairway. It's beautiful - and one of the water hazards is a full-on ravine with Grade 5 rapids! You don't get that at Perivale Municipal.

We plough on (often quite literally) and Geraldo starts to cheer up. For a start his tips are paying off and I'm beginning to play some decent shots. I even take a couple of holes off Howard. At last we are playing some good golf. It's still raining but it's beautiful and we don't care. We love golf and we're beginning to love Geraldo.

Geraldo, for the record, plays off 3, came 3rd in the Costa Rica Open and has worked as a caddy at the Cariari for 15 years. If I hadn't left my camera in San Remo, you'd even be able to see what he looks like.

The game draws to an end and Howard and I are almost grieved. It's been heaven. Geraldo has been great. Final scores: 109 for Howard; 136 for me.

Snapshots of Costa Rica (3)

2008-05-28T17:25:00.004+01:00

Ramada ramblings
I'm still here at the Ramada, the last survivor from a starting field of over 200. One by one they've thrown in their chips and headed home. I have won by default. Yippee.

You should never trust a hotel which uses maroon as a theme "accent" colour. A hotel which is actively paying tribute to maroon is a no-go area.

But maroon is everywhere at The Ramada, thoughtfully cheering up the background beige with splashes of 70s joie-de-vivre. Occasionally these sprightly tinges slip into crimson and burgundy, but on the whole it's maroon.

The Ramada has been my home for ten days. I know lots about the Ramada. I know the shift patterns, the name of my cleaning lady and how long it takes to get served at the hotel bar, which is called "Fiesta".

A more inappropriate name I can't really think of. Fiesta is the kind of bar where airline pilots and travelling salesmen come to slump and get drunk after a hard day at the wheel. Except they can't get drunk because it takes too long to get served. Maroon is everywhere.

Every night we do our best to get a beer and the staff do their best to master the till. They peer down at the display screen as if they've never seen it before in their lives and struggle to find the enormous button saying "beer". On Day 8 they tell me I can't put my beer on my room because I haven't got a ticket. I've never had a ticket. I have no idea what they mean by a ticket and I certainly didn't need a ticket on Days 1-7.

I have a mini-tantrum and the manager agrees that just this once I don't need a ticket.

My room I quite like. It has a view of the swimming pool and also a derelict 1970s amphitheatre. There is hardly any maroon and the mini-bar is the best I've ever seen - truly useful items such as toothpaste + toothbrush, razor, Doritos, Snickers bars, Alka Seltzer and M&Ms. There is a coffee-maker, a large desk and 97 cable channels. Pretty dammed perfect.

Money is an alien concept at The Ramada. Simply put, they haven't got any. The cash machine busted early on Day 1 and hasn't been fixed since. Reception never has any money. Nor does the casino. Howard tried to cash out $200 from the casino the other day and threw the whole building into a subprime meltdown.

I check out in a few hours and in many ways I'll be sad to leave. The Ramada runs at its own gentle pace, lulling you into a rhythmn of inactivity that is strangely addictive. And I will miss the maroon.

Snapshots of Costa Rica (2)

2008-05-28T16:29:00.003+01:00

Costa Rica and its rich natural resources
Day 1 of LAPT San José was a filming trip with Siktilt. We got up at 6am, piled into a mini-bus and headed up-country. Costa Rica is famed for its nature; it treasures it. It has more National Parks than anywhere else (pretty much) and a vast range of indigenous species.

Siktilt's mission was to capture the essence of Costa Rica so that had to mean wildlife - in all its resplendent and endangered glory.

Stop 1 on the tour was a bridge where, many metres below, we could see some large logs nestling on the river bank. "Those are crocodiles" said our guide. We peered at the logs, Siktilt filmed them for a while and then we toured the gift shop looking for hand bags.

Next stop was the Aerial Tram. In the car park, Rury spotted an iguana and filmed it. Then we watched a video which told us lots about all the animals that dwell in the rainforest and a little bit about how erecting giant pylons up the mountain-side hadn't affected the eco-system one little bit.

We piled into the tram and set off, eagerly scanning the trees and undergrowth for wildlife. "Look, there's a spider" said our guide, pointing out a web spun across the struts of a pylon. "Look, there's a bird" said Rury, pointing out a sparrow.

We marvelled at the sparrow for a bit, then continued upwards. Not a dicky bird. Nada. Wildlife-free, in our opinion. As we descended back down the mountain-side, Carles had a mini-tantrum about the lack of animals and Rury said he'd seen more bio-diversity up his bum.

We headed for the beach and saw some storks. Then we headed to a marina and spotted a Komodo dragon scampering across the lawn of a gated community. Rury filmed it out of the window.

On Day 2, we insisted our guide do better on the animal front. "We need guaranteed parrots", said Hass. "I have a plan" said the guide, and took us to La Paz Waterfall Gardens. Here they have plonked wildlife inside giant cages so you can have a good look and capture the essence of Costa Rica on film. That said, La Paz was truly amazing. Heaving with stunning birds and other animals. Wonderful.

Rury filmed a marmoset which is native to Brazil. "I know Conrad is going to spot that", he said. "Hey Rury, nice work trying to squeeze in a Brazilian monkey in a film about Costa Rica". We discussed slotting in subliminal shots of other animals not native to Costa Rica, such as pandas, polar bears and penguins. "We'll just put in the happy feet", said Hass.

Next was the butterfly farm. Uh oh. Problem. I have a lifelong moth phobia and so, it turns out, does Rury. Our phobia includes butterflies. We stood outside the insectivorium and quaked with fear as the others strutted around inside.

The air was thick with giant and very beautiful blue butterflies. They looked like fairies. "This is like heaven" said Carles. ""I'm not going in there" said me and Rury. "You have to", said the guide. "It's the only way out".

Rury and I then did the bravest thing we have ever done in our lives (and that includes eating from the player buffet in Dublin) and went in to the insect tent. We hid behind each other (which doesn't work) and then tried to hide behind the guide, screaming like banshees if a butterfly came within ten metres. So much for aversion therapy. With our backs to the walls, we inched our way towards the exit sign.

Next stop were the waterfalls. Totally stunning. Reminded us of Indiana Jones. "Actually it was Jurassic Park" said our guide.

Back at the ranch (the Ramada Plaza Herradura Motel), Rury and Hass then created a truly wonderful promo video for Costa Rica which was brimming with stunning shots of beautiful birds and other wildlife. "Nice library shots" said Con.

Snapshots of Costa Rica (1)

2008-05-28T15:42:00.005+01:00

Weather Report
There are two things that I am not very good at: weather and relationships. The latter is well-documented (permanently over-cast with occasional outbreaks of sunshine or thunder). But my Rain King skills are less familiar.

Basically, I can make it rain anywhere, anywhere at all. And I'm not just talking drizzle.

On a trip across the Sahara, I tipped up in Tamanrasset. Middle of nowhere. Hadn't rained for 25 years. But as soon as I approached, small cumuli nimbus started blotting the skies. In minutes it was bucketing down and didn't stop for three days.

Camping once in the Basque Country, it rained so hard that the Red Cross had to be called in to run soup kitchens for people who had lost their homes in the floods. Bilbao was under water. The National Guard were out to shoot looters.

At LAPT Rio, it rained non-stop. Desolate qualifiers, busted out of the main event, roamed the Intercontinental looking for something to do or locked themselves in their rooms to wait out the storm. What they didn't know, and which I thought best not to tell them, was that they would have to wait for me to leave for things to get any better.

So too in Costa Rica. Prior to departure, I checked the weather forecasts obsessively to see if there was any way round what I was seeing on screen: a plethora of icons which meant anything from "heavy rain" to "thunderstorms". Just before catching my flight, I had one last look (I have dozens of weather pages book-marked in the hopes that at least one is being optimistic). First up was the BBC with a news story saying that it had rained so much in Costa Rica that people were dying in mud-slides. Red Cross back in. More soup. The Rain King does it again.

Rio Scenarium blows our minds

2008-05-08T20:12:00.005+01:00

The lack of a Day 1b came as something of a shock in Rio. Obviously I did know that we weren't having a Day 1b - and so presumably did the players. Nevertheless almost everyone at the welcome party acted as if they were taking Day 1a off. And my plans to ease myself gently into Day 1a - and then really take things by storm on Day 1b - were similarly skuppered.

The numbers also took us by surprise. More than 150 Brazilians shelling out $2,500 (or three gazillion reales) thus bringing the total to 314 - a sell-out event. So Day 1 went in a blur, but ended in a spectacular visit to Rio Scenarium. This was the place that Hass and Rury had said was the best they'd ever been to in their lives apart from Dortmund. This set the bar fairly high and I was prepared for disappointment. Sooooo wrong.

Rio Scenarium is a stunning colonial-style three-storey building, beautifully-lit which reminded us of New Orleans. Crowds thronged the streets. Couples on the first floor balcony were swaying and snogging like a Southern Comfort ad. Hedonism and headiness filled the air.

There were a lot of us but, once our VIP-ness had got us past the massive queue, Sarne led the charge to the bar. We lost the French early on (they've surrendered, said Sarne) but otherwise the group stayed/clung together and partied en masse. Sarne managed to bypass the samba-ing snoggers and slung 15 caiparinhanas over so we could start getting drunk. This took approximately three seconds and then we were so totally and utterly smashed all we could do was grin at each other and try to avoid getting snogged.

In Rio Scenarium, and possibly everywhere in Brazil but not the Intercontinental Hotel, snogging is a way of saying hello. It also appears to be the way to say "do you want to dance?", "do you want another caiparinha?" or anything else that needs saying. Couples were snogging everywhere, coming together and parting like waves lapping, skinny tanned backs dipping and diving and blowing our tiny little European minds in a tidal wash of sexiness and samba.

"Let's go this way" shouted Sarne (using actual speech rather trying to snog all of us) and we headed off to another room where the samba was faster and the bodies pressed even more tightly together.

I was starving so my next task was to be-friend a birthday group which was celebrating with a giant cake. Not hard to make friends at Rio Scenarium. In fact, hard to avoid making them. "Target the birthday girl" said my new friend Jenny. Jenny was with her fiancee Micah, who had bust out of the tournament early in the day. "You could do better" I told her, eyeing up Micah's ear jewellery. "I know," laughed Jenny (who looked like Nicole Kidman but better), "but I've already bought the dress and it was $5,000."

At one point, Tori and I got stuck in a queue in the bathroom and easily had as much fun there as anywhere else. Stunning Brazilian girls practised their English on us for hours. "Very good", we said "you can go in next". Well, it felt like hours, or days, or even weeks. The whole Rio Scenarium experience was totally trippy.

Eventually the French reappeared (pretty sure they had lost us deliberately) and we decided to call it a night. This was surprisingly tricky as Rio has a bizarre system of making you queue to get out as well as in.

Once back in the armoured truck, we headed for home. It was 5.30am but this didn't stop most of the group decanting at "Discoteca Help" on Copacabana Beach. Help's unique selling point is that every single girl in there is a prostitute. Obviously this was incredibly tempting and if I hadn't decided to get at least some sleep before Day 2, I'd have jumped off with everyone else. But something just has to give.

Samba on

2008-05-03T13:20:00.002+01:00

Reception agreed that I had come very close to death.

Following an exciting night dancing the samba with Greg Raymer, I came back to my room to find it infested with a swarm of dengue fever-ridden mosquitoes.

Dengue fever is a serious worry here at LAPT Rio. None of us really knows what it is but, much like the impetigo we narrowly avoided catching in Venice, it sounds revolting and we don’t want it. Statistics vary but the one I tend to roll out is that in Rio alone more than 50,000 people have died of dengue fever since lunchtime. Apparently there is a Second Chance aspect to dengue fever – you’re allowed to catch it once, but the second instalment is fatal. Sarne has already had dengue fever so his presence here is an act of fearless dedication to his new role as Latin America marketing manager. Also, Tori has a bruise on her leg which we think might be dengue fever but we’ve decided to see what happens over the next few days.

As it has rained non-stop since we got here, our tales of “outside the hotel” are a little on the paltry side. Also we have had to WORK which certainly took Tori and I by surprise. However, on Thursday we did venture out in a local taxi. I’m now totally fluent in Portuguese but our taxi driver had a very strong accent which meant we understood absolutely nothing he was saying and vica versa. Our request to visit the “historic centre” – picture No. 2 on Howard’s one-page guide to Rio – meant a visit to Rio’s business district. Monolithic, grubby high rises. Not a bar in sight. None of us wanted to get out so we put in a request for Copacabana beach.

With Tori working through her Barry Manilow repertoire, we pulled ourselves out of the taxi leaving Howard to negotiate the $300 fare. Copacabana is – in a word – horrible. Apartment blocks line the boulevard and reminded me of the Communist-era housing estates I saw in Moscow. I don’t know which bit of Rio they modelled Vegas’ Rio on, but it certainly wasn’t Copacabana. As Thursday was a national holiday, the beach was full of Brazilians trying to have fun but it was pouring with rain and no one was pulling this off with any real conviction. After pretending to have fun ourselves, we eventually gave up and headed for a bar. Howard, Tori and I ordered caiparinhas and Carles – still in shock after getting totally hammered on one sip the night before – had a beer. We rejected the “chef’s suggestion” for the “plato do dia” – bull testicles.

Back at the Intercontinental, we bumped into Siktilt. They were heading off to a samba bar in a bullet-proof, armoured tank. Our Brazilian blogger Maria suggested we go too, and ordered a second tank to get us there. Sadly it never turned up – a real shame as Hass and Rury said the samba bar was the best place they’d ever been in their lives apart from Dortmund.

The next day we had to do some MORE work. Tori and I are in slight shock about this but spent an amusing day walky-talkying each other on the radios and writing superfluous press releases.

EPT Welcome Parties are great. We get magic tricks, hoola hoop girls and even semi-naked trapeze artists. But nothing prepared us for the LAPT Rio Welcome Party. The missing ingredient is, of course, Brazilians. My god, they know how to party. By the end of the capoeira show, they were in a dancing frenzy. A samba band had turned up dressed like exotic natives from Star Trek and by the time I came back from the bar, the entire room was bumping and grinding. Tori swept past me in a conga; Mick from Galway was up on stage. Everyone had gone mad. It was awesome.

I woke up today (great news; obviously death isn’t instant with dengue fever) to find the sun shining. Staggering view. There’s nothing at the Vegas Rio that’s anything like this. I don’t think there is anywhere in the world that’s like this. Rio is amazing.

Rio de Janeiro - de verdad

2008-05-01T16:22:00.003+01:00

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil!!! Here for the PokerStars.com Latin American Poker Tour or, more importantly, my 78th holiday this year with Hass and Rury.

I arrived late with Carles Rodriguez – our Spanish blogger. Carles and I had already managed to fit in a mini-break in Madrid and saw Plaza Mayor, the Changing of the Guard and gorgeous, wonderful Tiago.

Twelve hours and two crap films later, and we’re in Rio. All that remains now is to get the Intercontinental Hotel which we manage in a record six minutes as our cab driver is on speed. There - to my delight - are Siktilt, lining up the Caipirinhas and listening to the hotel band singing Girl from Ipanema

None of it looks anything like the Rio in Vegas but the next morning I wake to a stupendous view which makes up for this initial disappointment – pounding Atlantic surf, a favela and someone chasing a chicken.

On further inspection, the chicken chaser turns out to be a jogger. The favela looks fun though and I aim to check it out later today – a scrappily-built shanty town clinging grimly onto the side of a steep mountain. It’s a mere chicken’s throw from my bedroom balcony and dripping poverty straight onto the hotel lawn.

By breakfast, there are armies of chicken chasers dressed in jogging shorts running along the paseo. They’re a determined lot, these Brazilians – there’s a tropical rainstorm going on, the heat is clammy and there are no chickens. Marta takes us on a tour of the hotel to view the tournament facilities. Thrillingly, we are getting real life, armed police as our security plus samba lessons during the welcome party. This is one-up on the Dortmund hoola hoop girl, and may even beat Jan Heitmann’s card tricks.

More to follow....

Monte Carlo: Mad eats humble pie

2008-04-19T18:08:00.021+01:00

Sometime, a long time ago (but which statistical analysis tells me was Barcelona Season 3), I decided that to augment my already outstanding service to the press, I would start producing pie charts which would show - in an easy-to-understand, graphical manner - the wide distribution of nationalities that take part in a PokerStars.com European Poker Tour event.

My first ever pie chart was this:

Lovely.

Anyway, I got a taste for it (pie, geddit) and soon was on a pie roll (contradiction in terms) and producing pie charts for every event.

By mid-season 4, my pies were becoming the talk of the media room. Long before I had the data analysed and colour-coded, the journalists from far and wide (p.c. to follow) would be clamoring for the chart. It was hard to keep up.

Nevertheless, I was doing a sterling job until the EPT Grand Final in Monte Carlo when my pie chart became the source of huge controversy.

Firstly I had only selected the top ten or so countries to include in the pie and all the others were complaining. Also, I had accidentally made Scotland a separate country rather than part of the UK and this had apparently upset Wales and Northern Ireland - who traditionally get lumped in into the UK (and quite rightly, in my opinion. They're lucky they don't all just get called England!!!!)

Anyway, as a result of this controversy, I had to a do NEW pie chart which carefully included Scotland as part of the UK and created an "others" section for countries with crap poker players:

I e-mailed it round to the media with the subject heading "Revised Pie Chart".

Thrillingly, this was opened by no less than 156 journalists including Arthur Crowson from pokerlistings.com who was at home, in Canada, on a Sunday, but decided it was worth opening an email called "Revised pie chart" within about 3 seconds of me sending it.

This led me to create a third pie chart, just for Arthur, which I sent him with the subject heading: Important Pie Chart. True to form, Arthur had snapped open this packet virtually the minute I pressed send.

Special Arthur pie chart:

By this time, pies were becoming all-consuming. Blonde - controversy vultures to a man - started work on their own charts and Chris Chaundler, heading up the EPT vblog team, decided my "obsession" was worth an entire mini-documentary.

I had thought that my revised pie chart would end the debate once and for all. But it was still deemed controversial. George Danzer for example, who might be a good poker player but knows fuck all about pie charts, complained in the video: "That's not possible. 'Other countries' can't be a country". Well, maybe it can't be a country, but it can be a fucking slice of pie, George!!!!

Meanwhile, on Blonde, the debate continued. Pie chart frenzy. Jen (who secretly loves pie charts; she confessed she even has a web page bookmarked called "Funny pie charts") doodled up a few more for fun:

This one was called "DUTHIE PUTS YOU ON...." and was a reference to our visionary leader's performance at guessing hands on EPTLive.com. Terribly cruel, but statistically 100% accurate:

In the hours between actually working, Jen created some more classics and a Blonde forum member called taximan posted up an absolute gem.

Best of all though were the pie charts created by Pip and Bea - working hard in the player lounge and with no access to either laptop or Excel spreadsheet, they hand-crafted some wizard pie charts on napkins.

Player in-ability to open bottles:

Aside from creating a pie chart made out of an actual pie (I think Pip could knock that up; very good at cooking), I really think we might have munched through the whole pie subject so I've now gone into bar charts. I leave you with this hum-dinger: EPT Growth Seasons 1 - 4.

Awesome. More to follow in Season 5.

Unix is a World Series Angel!!!!! and Mad is the Sitges Satellite Tourney winner!

2008-03-24T10:04:00.009Z

What a great day of poker Easter Sunday was!

First and most importantly of all, Unixangel, aka wonderful, beautiful, super-talented Lina Olofsson - the PokerStars nordic blogger - won a seat to the World Series of Poker main event in a $650 PokerStars qualifier!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Go Lina!!!!

I rail-birded my fantastic friend until around 2am where she had worked her way up to 28,000 - about 10,000 over average. She had Shaun Deeb on her table for ages but despite his ultra-cautious play, he eventually got busted. Lina, meanwhile, was playing like a demon and I just knew if she focused, she could do it.

Lina was already super-excited having won THREE seats to the qualifer already. She had sold one and had another in reserve (always good to have a Swiss account!!!) and the seat she was playing last night she'd won in a $3 re-buy tourney.

There was absolutely no doubt in my mind she could do it, but both myself and Dilba, and about a dozen other mates, were furiously MSN'ing her all evening to tell her to CONCENTRATE and FOCUS! In fact, she only went all-in once - with QQ against AK - and played position the whole tournament. What a genius!

WELL DONE LINA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The other great news is that I won the Sitges Satellite tournament!!!! 555 euros. Yee ha!

The tourney was a shoot-out event with eight satellites held in people's houses or bars around Sitges since January 27th. The winner of each went through to the final and I won the first one. The final itself - with more than 1,000 euros in the prize pool - was super-tense and at one point - as we neared the end of the one-hour re-buy period, I thought we might have a fight. Tempers were definitely fraying - and not just at the edges.

Once re-buys were over, the casualties were pretty rapid. The last four were Elske (horribly short-stacked), Richard (chip leader, and playing brilliantly), myself, and Margarita who rarely knew what she had but sucked out on the river over and over again ("Oh, do i have a flush??")

Elske was absolutely terrified of being bubble girl and managed to survive numerous all-ins (including a split pot where the table won with an Ace on the river) while Richard slowly seeped away almost his entire stack in a series of horrible beats against super-lucky Margarita. He and Elske were about level when they both went out in the same hand - but Richard had 400 more chips so took 3rd while Elske was the reluctant bubble.

With Richard out of the way, I wasn't too worried. Even though Margarita had 80% of the chips, I love heads-up and she didn't know what she was up to. Bang bang bang and I was chip leader in no time. The final hand I had AQ and raised it up pre-flop. The flop paired my ace and Margarita's 9 so I raised again and Rita called. The turn brought rags so I raised Margarita all-in. The river paired my Queen for good measure. Yee ha. Game over.

The other good news is that lovely Neil Channing made the final table yesterday of the Irish Open and is MASSIVE chip leader.

Easter Sunday rocks. xxxx

Inaugural EPT Media tourney

2008-02-12T17:06:00.000Z

The first online EPT Media tourney took place last night with only a modicum of violence and some first-class poker on show. Kicking off with 54 players (which beats the "live" record in Dortmund a couple of weeks ago by 10), the tournament included a huge number of top international celebrities such as Pauly "Tao of Poker" McGrupp, Mick McCLoskey, Rick "Big Blind" Dacey, Ms Kara Scott and both Siktilters.

I mysteriously found myself on the TV table - ie the one dominated by people from Sunset+Vine including our esteemed director Daniel Hudson and top cameraman Liam MacLeod. I knew from experience this gave me a fighting chance. Dan was obviously terrified of me (or possibly Kara) and immediately "disconnected" at the slightest sign of a raise.

This gave rise to substantial debate on the sidelines as to what was happening in the Hudson household.

With major names falling by the wayside - including Lina Olofsson, Dr Pauly, Tom Parker-Bowles, Alex Pinkett, Filipe Pacheco, Rury Mason, Martin Derbyshire and Al Laycock, I thought we were heading for another Dortmund situation .. ie despite playing really badly, I come 2nd.

Meanwhile, behind the scenes on MSN, Conrad and Benjo were providing their own insightful comments to keep up my morale. Con thought it helpful to write "tick tick tick" and then hit re-send every two minutes as my blinds got eaten away. Benjo just sent straightforward insults.

Nevertheless, as is my wont, I hung on grimly.

The chat livened up with detailed discussions about the highly-prized PokerStars PCA black velour tracksuit and the Canadians had a gripping conversation about how far away they all live from the nearest point of civilisation. An attempt was made from the rail to fuel an England v Scotland falling-out but luckily Liamski refused to be drawn in.

On other tables, identity was becoming an issue. Some players wanted to keep their user IDs free of blemish and barracking and were refusing to reveal who they were. I accidentally outed a few of those (sorry guys!) while others got outed by their colleagues. In my mind, playing without saying who you were, though, slightly ruined the fun.

The #1 mystery person was Ginsberg who silently and stealthily inched his way towards the final table. Rumours abounded as to Ginsberg's identity. Several people thought it must be Alex Van der Weyer, the mastermind behind EPT coverage who sits beside God/Dan Hudson in the TV truck and predicts what players are going to do with their hands. I tried to start a rumour that it was Conrad - playing illegally on PokerStars (staff can't play on PS except for play money) and only doing as well as he was because he could see all the cards.

Ginsberg remained stonily silent however and during the entire tournament only made one comment as below.

"!"

Unfortunately this wasn't enough to identify him.

At the end, it was Frenchman $kai, Ginsberg and Ricardo "Cacopt" Pinto from Portugal fighting it out. Ginsberg seemed sure to take it but the final hand saw a fabulous suck-out from Cacopt to take the $324 first prize and coveted PokerStars player bag. Cacopt had K4 against Ginsberg's AK. Flop K72. Ginsberg checks, Cacopt bets 3600, Ginsberg calls. Turn 9 - Ginsberg all in. Cacopt calls and hits 4 on river for two pairs.

Full results below and thanks all for playing.

1 Cacopt Porto Portugal $324.
2 Ginsberg london United Kingdom $216.
3 $kaï New York France $129.60
4 liamski glasgow United Kingdom $108.
5 Dashiell London United Kingdom $86.40
6 EPTLogger London United Kingdom $70.20
7 youngjezebel Charlottetown PE $59.40
8 Elgeekay London United Kingdom $48.60
9 robinse Hamburg Germany $37.80
10 Davina Darr Hannover Germany - Bubble girl – player bag!!

EPT Dortmund - the main event

2008-02-02T11:11:00.001Z

After days of impatient waiting and anxious thumb-twiddling, the EPT Dortmund main event - the EPT Media tourney - finally kicked off last night at 11.15pm. The record starting field of 44 players included some of the hottest names in European poker and created a record prize pool of 880 euros.

Among the international stars taking part were Henning Pohl of Hochgepokert (3rd at the PCA), Marc Convey of Gutshot (who had cunningly bribed the dealer to ensure Aces every hand for the first 80 minutes), Swedish blogger Lina Olofsson and Kjetil Flaten from Norskmagasin who superbly co-organised the event and came up with a structure which absolutely nobody complained about (a record in itself), some unbelievably good-looking guys from Ace magazine, Conrad Brunner (PokerStars.com Head of Communications, EMEA - 2nd at EPT Dublin), Benjamin Gallen - rising star of EPT Live (in French), a couple of cowboys, EPT official photographer Neil Stoddart, the legendary Barry Martin, Owen and Martin from PokerListings, Robin and Rikard from PokerNews, Julien Brecard, Pierre Barnasson, the super-guapo Linderoth brothers from near the Arctic Circle, Klaus from intellipoker and many many more.

Sadly two of the biggest names couldn't take part: Stephen Bartley, our PokerStars blogger, actually had to do some work, and Emanuel Adam from hochgepokert.tv has been posted on permanent laptop security detail in the media room and is never allowed out ever again.

Nevertheless, the field was so intimidating that Annette Obrestad asked if she could deal rather than play - this despite her earlier surprise victory in the 100 euro Heads-Up against Rury "I'm gorgous" Mason from siktilt.com (now planned as a regular EPT fixture). Plus, she's not a journalist, so WTF.

While random Germans looked on in an agony of envy from their fearsomely dull cash games, the EPT's media contingent then proceeded to order massive amounts of drinks as they fought it out for a 320 euro first prize. One by one, the big names fell by the wayside (or were violently pushed) and suddenly we had a final table.

To the amazement of the entire German nation, Mad Harper was on it. Players and railbirds alike were totally stunned. There had not been one single hand that I had played correctly - this being pointed out to me every single time I ever had to show my cards.

I was in the money, and the champagne was flowing. More players were keeling over, I busted Benjamin Gallen, a few more players faded away and then it was heads-up. By this point, neither I nor my lovely opponent Kjetil Flaten gave a damm who won. It was a bit like when Mark Teltscher played his best friend Sander Lylloff heads-up at EPT Barcelona but with slightly less garbling.

I played hand after hand in the worst possible fashion - over-raising, bluffing with nonsense cards in an nonsense fashion etc and grimly held for another 20 minutes or so.

Lina recorded some of my best quotes and more pics on her blog. These (apparently) included: ""Why is it so important who's first to act?", "It's all fine, I have my Swiss account" and "Im so good at heads-up, I have him in a bag". I don't remember saying of these things but Lina is a superb reporter and incredibly accurate so I guess I did.

Then with my 78th absurd bluff of the evening (Kjetil can read me like a book but one of those ones with lots of pictures), it was all over. Kjetil is the new EPT Media champion and I am ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY EUROS RICHER for second place.

Huge thanks to all those who took part and especially Casino Hohensyburg for letting the event take place.

Play resumes at 3pm (the EPT German Open final table, a side event that John Duthie has insisted on fitting into the schedule) and Dortmund has never looked lovelier (now it's covered in snow).

(Corrections to follow)

Scrabulous: an upate - ZERO HOUR!

2008-01-23T08:15:00.000Z

"Why are they suing facebook when it's made their tedious game cool again?"

So asked my friend Nick Wealthall (well, facebook friend anyway) - he of the impish grin and stunning Travolta-esque dance floor moves, in a message to me on facebook.

Obviously Nick had a deprived childhood and didn't grow up on Scrabble; otherwise he'd know that whether or not Scrabble is tedious is irrelevant to the long-term Scrabble player.

Childhood Scrabble maketh the man. Childhood Scrabble should be discussed almost immediately in therapy sessions 20 years later. If you grew up in a Scrabble family and were the habitual family winner, you will reach adulthood with a monstrous ego. You will be able to spell (brilliantly); you will have an unrivalled mastery over the English language; you will be - in the family mythology - the "bright one". (Not so the family Monopoly winner; they'll just make money.)

On facebook however, the desperate pleas (in the 50 or so addiction support groups that have sprung up) appear mainly to come from the newly-hooked. These people WERE deprived in childhood - they either didn't have Scrabble or they habitually lost. Now they have a chance to redress the balance - either to win at last (and not just against their poxy siblings) or to win full-stop.

Facebook may not have made Scabulous cool (debatable) but it has created a legion of new users. All hooked. Most, I'm sure, would willingly pay a small sum to keep their addiction going. Half a million daily users. 10p a day. Hasbro and Mattel - do the math!!! I had to use a calculator but anyway, the answer is £50,000 a day. Unless I've got my decimal point in the wrong place. Whatever.

The point is that H+M could make a fortune!!! If facebook Scrabulous addicts are given the chance to pay for their addiction, I'm pretty sure most of them would.

There is a bit more maths in here too. (I've been reading the business pages where the Hasbro/Mattel/Scrabulous story has now been despatched). Facebook is apparently worth $7 billion. Hasbro - as far as I can make out - is only worth $3.6 billion. Hasbro and Mattel only got upset when they heard Scrabulous boast that they were making $25,000 a month in advertising revenue. Toy company stocks are set to fall in value in 2008. Plus Mattel had a really horrible 2007 after they had to recall 18.2 million toys, the most in company history, because of lead paint and design flaws.

Also, Jayant Agarwalla (Scrabulous co-founder) says he "sent an email to Hasbro seeking permission to use their version of Scrabble online, but never got a reply". I assume Jayant forgot to mark his message with the "High importance" flag. Duh.

Anyway, according to Wired, today is D-Day for facebook Scrabulous addicts. Jayant and his brother Rajat (both family Scrabble winners, but useless at Monopoloy, Pictionary and Connect 4) have until RIGHT THIS MINUTE to decide whether to sell up to Hasbro's online games licencee Electronic Arts. Even if they do, or even if they don't, I can't see this ending well for facebook users. We're not crack cocaine addicts! We're not actually going to move neighbourhoods to get our fix!! We're Scrabble players for god's sake. We want our drug delivered safely to where we are, which is on facebook.

Game over

2008-01-16T19:07:00.000Z

It had to happen. I know it couldn't last. But did it have to end so soon?????

I am distraught. Life doesn't seem worth living any more.... no more reason to get up in the morning and certainly no more reason to log on any more. It's the end of an era. The end of Facebook Scrabulous.

The fact that this has come just when I am experiencing a bit of an up-turn in my game doesn't surprise me one little bit. If I was got dealt Aces online, there'd be a power cut. If I won a million in the lottery, the Inland Revenue would immediately implement a 99% tax on unearned income. And only today one of my fondest dreams - that Conrad Brunner, PokerStars' Head of Communications, EMEA, would actually start a game with me - came true. So hardly surprising that minutes later his brother-in-law messaged me to say that the cops were on it and Scrabulous' facebook future was looking decidedly bleak (11 pts).

I had realised ages ago that Scrabulous was probably infringing copyright. On its own site, Scrabulous never actually says the word "Scrabble" anywhere. Instead it describes itself as "the coolest word game" while retaining all the Scrabble hallmarks. Or as Hasbro + Mattel would have it, trademarks. They're probably right, but where does that leave the half million facebook Scrabulous addicts who are now hopelessly hooked.

There are 317 Scrabulous groups on facebook and at least 50 of these are for addicts. There are groups for Jewish Scrabulous players, French scrabulous players, gay Scrabulous players, lesbian Scrabulous players, longest-word enthusiasts, the Association of Scrabulous Sapiens, Scrabulous widows, word-lobbyists (please make "zen" a Scrabulous word), cheat-naming groups and - my personal favourite - a group called "Every time Scrabulous has trouble loading, a little part of me dies". God, I know how that group feel - the bad months of late Summer still rankle - a desperate time.

And now, of course, there are a dozen more "Save Scrabulous" groups - all of which will, I am sure, have zilch effect if facebook really gets sued.

And those that say Scrabulous is something that sad people do at home because they don't have real lives have totally not got it. In the media room at the last poker tournament I was working at, at least five of us were all playing Scrabulous against each other. Cries of "your go" were at least as frequent as "did anyone see that last hand".

All that's really left for me now is to make sure I win all my current games. I'm confident about most of them and hoping to enjoy my first ever win against Tori Coxon (I'm currently 34 points ahead after tossing "ruga" onto a triple) and may even, if the gods be willing, get my first victory against Snoopy. So here's hoping.

Working in Paradise

2008-01-12T18:51:00.000Z

It's not often you have the chance to walk to work through an aquarium on the way to work, but that's standard fare at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure in the Bahamas. It's surreal but you take it on the chin and after a couple of nano-seconds you are seized by nonchalance. Atlantis is a place where even a trip to Starbucks takes you past Mayan temples, Greek Gods and an Incan bingo game. Clearly the designers of the Atlantis Resort and Casino were a little bit confused about ancient cultures but this is Paradise - and maybe Paradise is really like this.

Working at the PCA - as opposed to lounging around on holiday like I did last year - is a deeply weird experience. You wake up. You look out the window. You gaze admiringly at the beautiful beach, turquoise sea, palm trees blowing in the wind, the Mayan death slide and the Spartican lagoon.

Then you leave your room and that's the last you see of it for another 24 hours. Ocasionally people venture out and return with sunburn or irritating stories about snorkelling with sharks. Or sometimes they venture out and just don't come back. Meanwhile those who are working plunge into the poker room and emerge just in time to see the "Pool Closed" signs go up.

There were people going around (well, mainly me) saying they would rather be in Dortmund. In Dortmund, my view from my bedroom window was a train track and although I actually rather like watching trains, I didn't feel quite the same pang of regret and longing there as I left my room each day to head for the casino.

Nevertheless, the Four Horses of the Apocalypse couldn't have stopped me wanting to be in the PCA poker room. On the last day, I did actually sneak off to the pool but spent every minute wondering how the final table was going. The solution to this will be to ensure that, next year, the EPTLive web cast is shown poolside so you can have your Bahama Mama AND drink it.

Bon Nadal

2007-12-21T16:13:00.000Z

This year, for the first time, I am going to spend Christmas in Sitges. Usually I like to spend Christmas in countries that have never heard of it, or are actively against it. For me, Christmas is the perfect time to sample the festive joys of a mini-Jihad so I usually head for Saudi Arabia. Plus everyone has told me that Christmas in Sitges is dreadful.

A normal Christmas

"There's no one here. There's nothing to do. Everywhere is closed". Fabulous. Music to my ears. And, if not music, then the screechy, nightmare reedy instrument that Catalans like to call music.

Already the streets are emptying and everyone that used to live here has now moved into their new home on the A7 or Easyjet queue at El Prat. The claims that there will be nothing to do in Sitges are rubbish anyway. I've got lots to do - for a start, there's poker tonight and then tomorrow I'm going to run a illegal Fight Club in my living-room between Pebble the kitten and Squish the hamster.

Anyone who says pets are not just for Christmas is talking rubbish. Pebble and Squish are definitely only for Christmas - and may not even last that long if tomorrow's Fight Club turns nasty.

We are giving Squish some odds as he's a lot smaller than Pebble and also he's only a hamster. Plus Pebble is not a normal kitten. Pebble is a vicious, rabid killer kitten of the kind only found in Sitges alleyways and only picked up and taken home if you're a 12-year-old ex-pat kid with blinkered parents. By the time Pebble has grown to adult size, he'll have a muzzle and a gun licence. So it's not looking awfully good for Squish.

After Fight Club, there's going to be a few days of intensive TV viewing and then the holiday highlight: Christmas Lunch at Monroes.

Monroe's is a fantastic Sitges restaurant run by my good friends Ben and Paul. Ben and Paul are a gay couple who look like builders and like to dress up in frocks. Hence Drag Queen Bingo, Drag Queen Curry Night and - now - Drag Queen Christmas Lunch. Paul is in charge of food and Ben is in charge of innuendo and lowering the tone. There will be ceaseless jokes about sausages, stuffing and the like, plus a Christmas quiz, lashings of rioja and some Christmas puddings imported from M&S.

Ben Ashton - Maitre D' at Monroes

To make this event even more interesting, I have invited along some highly conservative Argentinian friends who have never had an English Christmas lunch and certainly not one delivered by a cruiserweight in ballgown, wig and inflatable tits. The whole prospect of Christmas lunch at Monroe's is making me drool with anticipation.

So Bon Nadal to everyone - and have a wonderful Christmas whereever you are.

Prague

2007-12-16T12:05:00.000Z

Prague as it used to look....

Prague as it looks now

During my first few days in Prague, I thought it was just a nice atrium, a couple of bars, a small bistro restaurant and a football-sized tournament room full of poker players. So I was pleasantly surprised to discover however that only a 10-minute walk away from the Hilton (or €5,000 cab ride) is an absolutely beautiful city!!! I slightly blame the Hilton for this as the only sights they mentioned to me were the Business Centre and Spa - both absolutely lovely but pretty light on medieval splendour.

However, on the last day of EPT Prague, I managed to escape the Hilton into the sub-zero temperatures - wind chill factor replicating Dalston in mid-Feb - and into the city with my good friend Benjamin Gallen aka Christopher Robin. First stop was the Charles Bridge and luckily Christopher Robin had brought his guidebook so was able to tell me precisely nothing of interest except that for many years it was Prague's only bridge and that also we should have come three hours earlier to avoid the crowds. Plus there are lots of statues of saints on the bridge which I could have worked out for myself. We were both sorely tempted by the Museum of Medieval Torture Instruments but time was tight so we pressed on.

On the other side of the bridge, we put on our breathing apparatus and started scaling the mountain to check out St. Vitus Cathedral and Prague Castle. Once near the summit, I insisted we stop for a plastic cup of hot wine and we gazed out over the city. Everyone who says Prague is rubbish (no one) is talking tosh; it's gorgeous. Once fully-poisoned by the absolutely disgusting wine, we marched on. It was Changing of the Guard at the Palace and Christopher Robin was worried we'd miss the highlight - the daily execution of a political prisoner. I asked CR when his guide book had been published but he couldn't hear me for mortar fire.

After watching several prisoners and a couple of tourists get mowed down by smartly-dressed militia, we did a whistle-stop tour of the cathedral interior. All the usual Gothic arch nonsense, Japanese tourists and a dodgy organ player but also some rather fabulous stained-glass windows.

We headed down the other side of the hill and back into the main city. We were both really looking forward to seeing the famed Prague open-air Christmas Market in the Old Town Square. Not only would we then be able to tick off Area 7 in the guidebook, but also we'd be able to buy expensive, badly-made knick-knacks for unimportant relatives. As it turns out, the Prague Christmas Market was even worse than most Christmas Markets and we decided even unimportant relatives deserved better. The only highlight was I got a stall-trader to teach me "I love you" in Czech (milui té).

Tyn Cathedral is in the square however and is pretty impressive - very much like a grubby, grayscale version of the Excalibur Hotel in Las Vegas. In fact, that is slightly the problem with going to Las Vegas - it ruins all the excitement about going anywhere else. Christopher Robin told me he's not going to bother with the real Venice now he's stayed at the Venetian and I feel much the same way about Luxor versus the Cairo pyramids. Christopher Robin's guidebook had very little to say about Tyn Cathedral/Excalibur except that the genius astronomer Tycho Brahe is buried there. Tycho is famous for a) losing part of his nose in a duel; b) trying to work out whether it's the Ptolemaic system or Copernican system which gives the most accurate astronomical observations; c) dying of a strained bladder after failing to ask the King if he could leave dinner to go to the loo. Apparently "I don't want to die like Tycho" is a well-known expression in France.

Christopher Robin also told me an interesting fact about the Aladdin casino which is that the heavy-duty-Islamic theming of the original is not exactly flavour of the month in the US right now so the whole place has been turned into Planet Hollywood. This fact came out of CR's head, rather than his Prague guidebook, and sadly the Czechs have neglected to build an Aladdin replica in their otherwise perfect city.

Anyway. Enough about Vegas. We were running out of time and had only ticked off Areas 2, 3 and 7 at this point so rushed down Paris street to the old Jewish quarter. Here we paid exhorbitant Jewish prices (I am Jewish so I can say this) to visit the Old-New Synagogue, one of the oldest in Europe and built in the Gothic style. It's still an active place of worship so Christopher Robin (not Jewish) had to put a kapel on his head which wouldn't stay on, even for two seconds. Me and the failed Jew then had a quick chat with the lovely old ladies at the door who said Prague now has a 5,000-strong Jewish community - mainly descendants of the original 50,000-strong community - who have returned to the City since the fall of Communism. They invited us to attend that evening's services but as these all clashed with the final table action back at the Hilton, we had to decline. Christopher Robin (a mine of information) then told me another interesting fact which is that all French poker players are Jewish. Presumably not highly orthodox ones as they were all still playing late on Friday night - including tournament winner Arnaud Mattern.

Sadly, the synagogue was the last stop on our tour of Prague but even two hours was better than nothing and I can't wait to go back. If you want to hear more, check out Siktilt's great video tour - click the Prague link under Day 1b.

"Hottest Poker Chick Over 40" Award

2007-12-09T15:01:00.000Z

To say I am thrilled to win this year's Hottest Poker Chick Over 40 award is something of an underestimate. Shortly after taking hold of the 60 pound bronze-cast Ace of Spades trophy, I was also given the Happiest Recipient Ever award on account of the two-foot grin I had permanently stuck on my face for the next four hours until I fell off my chair at the Aviation Club bar and had to be wheeled home.

Unfortunately owing to time restrictions I wasn't able to give the two-hour speech that I really wanted to. So Here It Is in blog form.

First off, thanks to the organisers of the European Poker Awards, especially Nic Szeremeta. Paris was tres tres gorgeous and - together with my media coaching team Hass and Rury from Siktilt, and my lovely friends Jesse and Mickey May - I had a superb time. Highlights included:
a) gatecrashing Betfair's dinner for Annette15 (thank you Frode and Ollie)
b) seeing the Christmas lights in the Champs Elysses
c) visiting Montmartre and the Sacre-Coeur
d) wearing a dress
e) having a hot date with Benjamin Gallen

Winning the Award was one of the best things that has ever happened to me in my life. I've never won anything. I was suspended as school prefect after only two days and I have never won a Scratchcard lottery ticket. I can't even win a $3 SNG on PokerStars. And I won this award (Casino Staff Person of the Year) for doing something I absolutely love - hanging out at poker tournaments, working with the media, doing little pie-charts showing how many Scandies there are at EPTs (millions), travelling all over Europe, arguing with Conrad Brunner (Head of Communications, EMEA) and stealing bathroom products and ashtrays from luxury hotels. Also I get to work alongside some of the nicest people I've ever met in my life.

There are two people I really wanted to thank for all this: Conrad Brunner and John Duthie. I have known Con for 12 years. We are poker buddies and we also run the Hold'em100 charity poker tournament in London every year in aid of the Royal Marsden. I adore Conrad (this is well-documented) and I love working with him. Conrad got me into PokerStars in the first place by asking me to hand out baseball caps to losers at the very first EPT in Barcelona in 2004. This made me incredibly unpopular with just about everyone at that event and it has been quite hard work ever since to convince them I'm not a total bitch.

And then there is John Duthie. John Duthie IS the EPT so without John, I wouldn't have a job and nor would dozens of other people. I adore John Duthie (this is also well-documented) not just because he's is a wonderful and loyal friend but also he's a VISIONARY and it's not often you get to meet one of those.

Lastly and most importantly I want to thank all the journalists who attend the EPTs. You all work incredibly hard. You don't grumble (much). You are great fun to work with and the EPT wouldn't be what it is without you guys. Your enthusiasm has been critical in turning the EPT into a massive success. And without being too disgustingly emotional about it all, I think we've become a rather lovely family. So I will carry on creating little nationality pie-charts for you all, and I hope you will all carry on coming to our tournaments. Many thanks to all of you, Mad Harper (corrections to follow shortly)

Award NOMINEEEEE!

2007-11-30T15:42:00.000Z

It is some time now since anything truly exciting happened to me (five months actually) and by exciting I mean the A-list celebrity stuff that I spent the whole of June, like, totally getting used to. Directors, producers, make-up artists all fawning over me, journalists door-stepping me for quotes, fans screaming etc.

That was when I starred as "Lollipot" in the Kellog's Crunchy Nut advertisement (see below).
But now it's my role as "Award Nominee" in the upcoming "European Poker Awards" which is drawing the crowds and is sure to be a box office smash hit somewhere (maybe just siktilt.com but there you go).

Anyway, I am deeply, deeply honoured to have been nominated for anything at all. And Poker Staff Person of the Year (especially given the way I play) is a massive tribute. So for over a month now I have been practising my "award smile" (with great coaching from siktilty boys Hassan and Rury, as well as my campaign manager, Mr Conrad Brunner, PokerStars' Head of Communications, EMEA).

The "award smile" is the smile I will give when SOMEONE ELSE WINS THE AWARD. It's a smile of graceful defeat, tempered with humility. It should have a hint of sorrow. It should not be malicious or in any way threatening. Hass, Rury and I are going to spend the whole of next Thursday practising the smile at Eurodisney so that when I am sitting at a normal dinner table, the "award smile" comes naturally and easily. Photos of the smile will no doubt be made widely and rapidly available after the event to see if I have managed to pull it off.

Sadly none of my friends or colleagues wanted to join me at the Poker Oscars and most cried off with damned lame excuses. Tori is going to an office party, Conrad is washing his hair (joke in itself); Duthie is sulking; Pip is watching a re-run of "Dog Borstal"; Robbie is broke and Richard just doesn't feel like it. Luckily Benjo "Loyalty is my middle name but betrayal is my pen name" Gallen DID feel like a free meal, so he's coming along to sit next to me and (he threatens) "french kiss" me half way through the ceremony.

Of course, there is always the tiniest possibility that I might actually win the award. I am up against four others including a girl called Orla who "turned the Irish Open into Europe's biggest ever poker tournament". That's nothing, as a friend pointed out, we turned the Bahamas into part of Europe which may sound easy but believe you me, is fraught with problems. Also, according to my friends Hass and Rury, Orla is "fit" and they would vote for her if they could. Luckily they can't.

So, I've prepared a speech (10 x A4) JUST IN CASE I DO WIN which will thank all the various people who have helped me get where I am today (not the ex-boyfriends, they're all wankers) but principally Mr Conrad Brunner (full title as above) and Mr John Duthie, founder of the EPT, last year's Lifetime Achievement winner and, most importantly, VISIONARY.

If I don't get a chance to give this speech in Paris (and have to do the award smile instead), I'll reproduce what I would have said here instead. With edits and footnotes. Wish me luck..!

Crunch On.... Life as a Lollipot

2007-06-29T20:29:00.000+01:00

Either being a lollipop lady is exhausting, or being an A-list celebrity film star is exhausting but after just one day "on set" for the new Crunchy Nuts cornflakes ad, I am absolutely KNACKERED.

SCROLL DOWN FOR CRUNCHY NUT PICS!

My new life as ~~Julia Roberts~~ Lollipot kicked off at 6am this morning. Early starts are not really my forte but earning 500 euros for lollipopping round a golf course is, so I kept my complaining to the usual bare minimum. Richard was super-perky though because he'd just heard that the very first thing we would be doing on set was having breakfast.

Sure enough, once we'd spent a few hours driving round St Cugat industrial estate looking for the golf course, we were settled into a hearty brekky. Rob had already told us that "Cattereen" (Catalan for catering) is superb on Spanish film sets and I have to say my toasted egg-cheese sarnie was top notch.

Then it was into the trailer for "make-up". The make-up chick was clearly horrified by what she had to deal with and asked for more time. The #7 under-assistant key grip said not to worry as i would be largely covered by my hat, lollipop and size 22 florescent jacket. He wasn't kidding.

There were 15 extras in all, including Saika - another mate from Sitges - playing the role of "A Mum". As Saika has been method-acting being a Mum for 7 years, I didn't think this was particularly challenging until we met the kid playing "Small Boy". Roberto's only job was to sit in a pushchair but it turned out Roberto was a bit of a diva. He refused to get in and burst into tears.

Filming ground to a halt while all the assistant dolly grip gaffer people tried to reason with him.

"Get us another kid", shouted the director, only half-joking. Eventually someone bribed "Small Boy" into the pushchair with 20 euros and some Crunchy Nuts and filming continued. Reechard said he he was going to burst into tears too but hold out for 40 and an entrecote steak.

After Saika did her bit, and "Bridge and Groom", "Swimmer" and "Jogger" did theirs, the film crew disppeared up to the 8th tee to shoot "Golfer" and "Construction Worker". Things started getting rather dull so Reechard and I got out the Scrabble and I beat him 367 / 240.

Despite "Cattereen" turning up with mid-morning snacks and "Repairman" blocking my view with his enormous toolkit, it was still quite dull so Rich and I wandered up the fairway to help the director Jim Canty. Jim was delighted and said it was unlikely he'd even have been able to finish filming without us.

Four hours later and it was finally my turn. Along with all the other extras, I had to run onto the 8th green waving my Stop sign and straining to catch imaginary Crunchy Nuts falling from the sky. I was superb on the first take but apparently all the others were rubbish, so we re-shot the scene 7 times until they got it right.

Then it was Richard's turn. He lay facedown in the bunker while a clutch of 4th assistant dolly grip people buried him in sand. He then had to jump to his feet and stagger backwards catching imaginary Crunchy Nuts falling from the sky. As Richard habitually hopes food will fall out of the sky, this didn't really count as acting but nevertheless, he was quite brilliant and after 402 takes, Jim called it a wrap. We headed back to Cattereen for a bit more food, then bade all our new showbiz friends a tearful goodbye, but not before half the film crew asked for my autograph and the props girl asked for the Stop sign back. Then it was home to Sitges.

Crunch Pics

2007-06-29T20:11:00.001+01:00

Saika, Roger Moore and Lollipot prepare to get into their roles

On set

"Swimmer" aka Miles, who wrote the script

"Jogger" aka Jordi, who normally drives the van

Miles and Jordi, who normally do this kind of thing in private

Roger Moore aka Beezneez Man

The director agrees with Rich and Mad that the shot would work better if the middle bush was moved slightly to the left

Rich throws himself into his role

Sorry, can't talk, I'm in make-up

2007-06-28T14:13:00.000+01:00

For those that have missed Parts I & II, Richard and I ~~are starring~~ are "featured extras" in the new Kellogs' Crunchy Nut advert. The story continues...

Part III: Wardrobe.
"Wardrobe" day was taking place at the headquarters of Mark's film production house in Poble Nou. As we were five minutes early, we headed for the caff next door and ordered some cornflakes so we could 'get into our roles'. Turns out they don't have Crunchy Nuts so we had to have the five-course "menu del dia" instead. Half an hour later, we rocked up in our limo outside Number 37 Calle Llull.

Bit disappointing; looked like a building site. Actually was a building site. Quick consult of map. Wrong address.

Seconds later, we are the real headquarters of LP Production - Number 137. Aaah, that's better. Super-glamorous. Just the kind of place Richard and I feel utterly at home. Mark was at his desk and, for some reason, laughed the minute he saw us. He shooed us through to wardrobe.

Great. Full of hot chicks. Richard was very excited so I threw cold water on him and we gave our names to Ana. 'Aaaah', she said: 'Reeechad ant Mat. "Beezneez Man" and "Lollipot". Very good'.

Thrilled that we had had an instant upgrade from "Featured Extra", we took our seats. Richard is a master of his craft so paid close attention as Ana fitted up two glamorous, extraordinarily beautiful women in front of us. They twirled and swirled and Richard looked rather hot so I threw another glass of water over him.

The girls are in the "casino" scene. Obviously I will be in the casino scene too as, not only am I extraordinarily beautiful, but I practically live in casinos for work. Plus I am excellent at poker. Reeechard also wants to be in the casino scene for slightly different reasons.

No. We are not in the casino scene, we are in the "golf" scene. This is fine too because Portal del Roc Pitch & Putt is pratically my second home and I am excellent at golf. I start practising my back swing while Reechard disappears behind a screen with one of the hot chicks.

Two seconds later he emerges, virtually unrecognisable as "Beezneez Man". It was like seeing Alan Partridge transformed into Daniel Craig. Astounding. I had no idea Reechard could be so smooth and debonair. The wardrobe girl poured some cold water over me and the director gave Rich the thumbs-up.

Then it was my turn. I'd quite liked the dresses the casino girls were in so was optimistic about the "look" they'd devised for my part. Turns out "Lollipot" is Catalan or whatever for "Lollipop". The wardrobe chick hands me a size 22 florescent jacket and asks me if it's too small. I think I can squeeze into it and then it's my turn out front.

Jim, the director, is absolutely thrilled. "My god, she's fabulous, simply perfect, what's her name, etc etc." Reechard tells me this is probably bad news as now I'm typecast. Everyone takes pictures of me for their Facebook albums and then it's back to real life.

Despite putting in about 50 missed calls before we arrived for Wardrobe, Reechard and I very disappointed no one rang us back so we could tell them we couldn't talk. We are holding out for "Sorry, I'm in make-up" at the shoot tomorrow. Mark is giving us a lift in his limo and we're meeting at 6am. As the only way I can possibly do anything at 6am is to stay up all night, I'm going to spend the evening at "Ricky's", the town disco. Richard is a method actor so he is going to spend the night eating cornflakes.

Mark says if there are any Crunchy Nuts left after the shoot, we're allowed to keep them.

Crunchy Part II

2007-06-25T21:17:00.000+01:00

It's been a tense few days. Richard hasn't slept. I haven't been out. We have manned the phones day and night. Finally, the call came. At 15:54 today, Emma rang to say that - thanks to our moving performances at last week's audition - Richard and I have both won parts in the new Crunchy Nut Cornflakes ad.

Yippeee! Hollywood!!! Cannes!!!!! And - more immediately - Sant Cugat!!!!

Richard will be playing the much-coveted role of "Featured Extra (Male)" - at least two other people turned up for that one - and I will be playing "Featured Extra (Female)".

In years to come, when Richard is being interviewed by Parky/Jonathan Ross, he will be able to recall - in mellow tones - that the turning point in his life, the moment when he went from being a total unknown to an instant, overnight, A-list celebrity, came while he was buying some wine glasses in Ikea. I can't remember what I was doing but I will make something up the minute Graham Norton asks me.

Anyway, once the news was out, there was a flurry of activity at Chateau Mad. Emma had requested our sizes!!! I ummed and aaahed between 12 and 14, and Richard retreated to the bathroom to work out some accurate readings of his own. Emma hadn't actually asked for this measurement but Richard thought it worth providing "additional information". For the record, Richard's neck has a 42cm circumference.

The news also necessitated some emergency rewriting of our profiles on Facebook. Richard is now a Crunchy Nut Methodist and I am Fundamentally Crunchy. The shoot is on Thursday - can't wait!

Casting Couch

2007-06-24T12:48:00.001+01:00

It's Wednesday - Rich and I are very excited about our upcoming audition for the Crunchy Nut Cornflakes ad.

As "serial" show-offs, we both see this as a chance to show the world, once and for all, what a talented pair we truly are. The audition is being held in Vinyet and a host of other hopefuls are lined up outside.

Emma writes our names on a piece of paper. There is some debate as to whether Richard should be known as "Richard" or "Hindu Hamster" but Methodist sensibilities prevail and he will be auditioning under his normal name. While waiting for Emma to take our mug-shots, we find a casting couch round the corner and practise our poses.

Emma takes our pictures. "Be more natural" she says to both of us. An absurd grin IS my natural state, so her instructions are hard to interpret. Then, one at a time, it's upstairs to the audition room.

Leslie is on camera, Mark on directing. "Pretend you're running a coconut shy at a village fete." says Mark. "Easy", I think, as I'm pretty sure i've run dozens of coconut shys in my past. I start running my stall, smiling happily at imaginary passers-by. Mark tells me to be more natural. Mmmm. I go for more natural and follow the script and hand Mark some imaginary coconuts.

Given the price of coconut slices on the beach in Sitges, I understand why we have to use imaginary coconuts rather than the real thing. In the ad, the "coconuts" are apparently then going to turn magically into cornflakes and I then have to pretend to snatch the floating flakes out of mid-air. I jump and down snatching imaginary cornflakes out of the air. I realise I am a natural. Made for the part. Mark likens me to Julia Roberts.

I exit the audition room and then it's Richard's turn. Mark likens Richard to Roger Moore. As Roger Moore can't act to save his life, I realise this is Mark's way of telling Richard he hasn't got a chance. Richard confides in me that he was asked to be more natural too. We are both now sitting in, 24 hours a day, waiting for the call.

HOAXED

2007-05-25T10:34:00.001+01:00

I have been the victim of a terrible hoax. Conrad Brunner, my colleague and trusted friend, has PRETENDED to be George Clooney and accused me of insulting him in my blog.

This led me to write a grovelling public apology to George, and then boast to all my friends and colleagues for hours on end that George Clooney reads my blog and calls me "hot stuff" (or words to that effect).

It was a vicious, malicious hoax, from start to finish. But many of you may be wondering how I even fell for it in the first place.

Well, for a start the physical resemblances between George and Conrad are uncanny.

Only their mothers can tell them apart

Then there was the writing. It simply never occurred to me that Conrad could write something quite this good (see below) whereas it was totally obvious to me that if George were to send me a personal missive (even if a bollocking) it would be funny, self-deprecating and charming. Con's style, as he admits himself, can only be described as "cold and abrupt".

Plus, it was a day of many bollockings - and if the whole world had decided to bollock me that day, why SHOULDN'T that include George Clooney?

The master touch, of course, was Clooney denying he was a "craven arriviste" - this was so good that Richard and I spent much of the evening debating how to pronounce it and marvelling over and over again at Clooney's erudition.

When I finally found out about the hoax (Con rang me at 11pm, bent double with laughter) I was still mystified. Con never reads any of my emails, or my blog, so how had he even found out about my Darfur appeal? Plus, Conrad is exceptionally busy - WAY busier than George - even when George is right slap bang in the middle of Cannes Film Festival promoting Ocean's 13... it never occurred to me that Conrad would have the TIME to write a fake George bollocking.

Plus, Conrad never calls me "baby". If feeling exceptionally affectionate or after a massive favour, he calls me "hun", but that's the sum of it.

There were signs of course if I had been smart enough to read them. For a start, the George missive did not start every line with >>>>> (like all emails from PokerStars are supposed to)... as in:

>>>>>"Mad, didn't you catch the speech I gave at the UN last year? You
>>>>>know, the one which made headlines around the world,
>>>>>with video highlights on all major news channels?"

Then there was the small question of how did George have time to read my blog? Well, my friend Raymond answered that one for me... obviously George employs a small army of secretaries whose sole occupation is to trawl the web for unflattering references - and then George personally writes the bollockings.

Well, it's all by the by. I am actually MORE flattered that Conrad reads my blog and bothered writing to complain - on George's behalf - than if George had. Plus, while George is, as I write below, undeniably the World's Most Attractive Man, Conrad is close to being the World's Funniest. It was a superb wind-up.

Oh, and by the way, I counted up how many Google references there are if you type in "Conrad Brunner" and "Darfur" - er, 10 - and he only gets that many because he is wittering on about PokerStars qualifiers on the same page as someone else writing something worthy about Darfur. For the record, I only get one Google reference but AT LEAST I WAS WRITING ABOUT DARFUR!

As penance, I think Conrad should make a MASSIVE donation to savedarfur.org THIS MORNING. I will let you know if he does.

George Clooney - an apology

2007-05-24T18:04:00.000+01:00

As my friends know, I am a die-hard campaigner for ANYTHING that will help end the genocide in Darfur. I badger everyone I meet, I sign all my emails with "join savedarfur.org please", I sign petitions, I make phone calls, I give money etc etc. And I was over the moon when PokerStars decided to give $1 million to the Not on Our Watch charity started by George Clooney and other members of the Ocean's 13 cast.

However, in my zeal to publicise the upcoming charity tournament on May 27 on PokerStars (in which the entire prize pool will be going to NOOW and be matched, $ for $, by PokerStars), I unwittingly upset Mr Clooney.

My blog implied that Mr Clooney had only recently got involved with the Darfur crisis - and quite SOME TIME after me. THIS IS NOT TRUE!!! I worded it badly (I have since re-worded it) and Mr Clooney was understandably pissed off.

His response was:

"Mad, didn't you catch the speech I gave at the UN last year? You know, the one which made headlines around the world, with video highlights on all major news channels?"

"If you don't believe me, you can look here, read the stories and even see the performance I gave - one of my best, I think. "

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=2448328&GMA=true

"But you take me for some craven arriviste ("Now George Clooney has got involved")? I may be regularly voted Hollywood's Most Desirable, but I have a keen polical conscience and I've been committed to this cause longer than any member of the House of Representatives."

"Try Googling "George Clooney" and "Darfur" and just count the hits baby!"

(I did: the answer is 728. )

Anyway, apart from being understandably thrilled that Mr Clooney reads my blog and calls me baby, I am truly and humbly apologetic - mainly because without George Clooney's involvement, far far fewer people in the world would know what's going on in Darfur.

So:

Dear George - I'm deeply sorry if I have offended you. I am totally aware of all the work you have done to make people aware of Darfur. If it hadn't been for you, savedarfur would have FAR fewer members, including myself. As far as I know, they helped facilitate your visit to Darfur and that put their campaign - and the crisis - on the map.

Your involvement gave me the assurance I needed, when I first came across their website, that savedarfur was a bonafide organisation (it could just have been an elaborate web hoax for all I knew) and I have been vigorously supporting them ever since. It is not the fact that you are a star(!), simply the fact that your involvement proved they were authentic.

I am also TOTALLY aware that you are not a "craven arriviste" - as far as I know, you have been an activist forever and make the best use possible of the fact that you are, undeniably, the Most Attractive Man in the World. But it's only your politics that make you attractive to me! (ahem).

Your efforts and involvement have been one of the most important factors in helping turn around the situation in Darfur. It has ENSURED it gets coverage. And I am also thrilled you have set up NOOW which has a wider remit than savedarfur.

All I was doing was trying to drum up business for the next tourney. Sorry for causing offence - and do please play!!! May 27, 15:30 ET. I'll be there under the user id travismiller (I came 7th in the last one and won a signed DVD of your new film)

Love Mad

Phoar!

2007-05-21T19:05:00.000+01:00

Only a few weeks ago, this man had LONG hair, NO motorbike and NO babes. Then he went shopping - the rest is history.

Save Darfur and win a trip to LA!

2007-05-14T14:52:00.000+01:00

For some time now, I've been a supporter of the www.savedarfur.org organisation which is lobbying to raise public awareness about the ongoing genocide in Darfur. They are doing amazing work.

George Clooney and other members of the cast of Ocean's 13 such as Brad Pitt and Don Cheadle have started their own charity called Not on Our Watch which - as well as lobbying - aims to generate lifesaving humanitarian assistance and protection for the people of Darfur.

PokerStars is giving this charity incredible backing. They are donating $1 million directly to the charity and also running three online tournaments to support it. The total prize pool from these tournaments (which only cost $10 to enter, with $10 rebuys, and $10 add-on) is going to Not on Our Watch and will be matched, $ for $, by PokerStars.

The prize for the top four players in the next tournament - which takes place 15.30ET (21.30 British summer time) on May 27 - is tickets to the June 5th premiere of Ocean's 13 in Los Angeles plus 2 nights hotel and $2k for travel/spending. The top 18 receive autographed copy of “Ocean's 13” DVD. Full details are on: www.pokerstars.com/poker/tournaments/oceans/

If you are able to play on PokerStars, PLEASE support this charity and take part in the tournament, and get your friends to take part too. If you are a journalist, PLEASE spread the word through your website, blog, publication etc.

I think PokerStars has been incredibly generous and I am thrilled they are supporting this cause. Please do take part.

Oops

2007-05-07T00:24:00.000+01:00

Missed April.

Loaded

2007-03-29T14:32:00.000+01:00

My favourite moment so far was the during the Welcome Party at Jimmy'z (not a cost effective place to get pissed, incidentally).

Johnny Lodden (yummeeeeeeeee!) lifted me up on to the bar and, as I wrapped my legs round his waist, a three-foot tall bouncer came rushing over. I carefully explained to him that it was ALL FINE, Johnny was with me, and there was really no need to eject him. The bouncer raised his eyebrows which is Monaguesque for: "Actually I came over to evict you." I got my coat.

Picture credit: Neil Stoddart

THE VISION!!!

2007-03-29T13:30:00.000+01:00

Owing to a technical hitch, Tori and I missed The Vision on Day 1a... reason being that Our Leader was still taking registrations and we never thought for a minute that The Vision could happen without him. I was taking no chances for Day 1b and installed myself on the rail three hours early.

There was a nasty moment when Tori tried to trick me into leaving the room to find an extra 40 chairs for players, but I was having none of it and she had to carry in the chairs on her own.

I can say it now, without any bias whatsoever: The Vision was spectacular. To the sound of Space Odyssey 2001, the lights dimmed and the giant midnight-blue curtains on the Salle des Etoiles stage slowly parted.

There, in all its glory, was The Trophy - framed by a perfect drift of sumptuous dry ice. On each boom in the music, The Trophy was illuminated AS IF FROM WITHIN!!! This was clearly the master-stroke in The Vision and Tori and I immediately keeled over with respect and appreciation.

Then, to the sound of The Blue Danube (slightly curious choice this, but best not to argue with a visionary), the even larger curtains surrounding the opposite wall of the Salle des Etoiles were inched slowly open to reveal a stunning vista. Basically the whole of Monte Carlo.

Afterwards I went to congratulate the visionary but, typically, he was rather grumpy. "Great vision, John". "It was rubbish. That lighting guy, he's fucking useless." Apparently, on the second boom of SO2001, it was the PINK lights that were supposed to come up.. and then, on the third boom, the PokerStars logo was supposed to get a flash. I thought it was fab (nearly cried actually) but there's no pleasing some people.

Picture credit: David Lloyd

EPT Grand Final - slumming it in Monte Carlo

2007-03-27T15:33:00.000+01:00

The EPT Grand Final is set to smash all records for a poker tournament in Europe, or indeed anywhere outside the USA. The first record - and it's a toughie - is that I am already the most excited I have ever been before a poker tournament anywhere outside Las Vegas, apart from Poland last week which was VERY exciting, and Baden (because of the food) and also last year's Hold'em 100 (because I thought I might cash).

The other records that the EPT Season 3 Grand Final is about to blast into smithereens are as follows:

Biggest prize pool - over 6 million euros, but I prefer to translate this into Polish Zloty and it comes to exactly 23,217,164.

Biggest top prize outside the USA - over 1.6 million euros

Most glamorous location (apart from the Holy Innocents Church Hall, Hammersmith where we held the Hold'em100 in 2000 and 2001)

Most excited anyone has ever seen John Duthie (including both when he won the Poker Million six years ago and also when he thought his plastic horse might come in before mine at the Sun Casino last night)

Below is an image of Our Leader, explaining his "vision" for the opening ceremony to Simon Young. John has just got to the bit about the trapeze artists abseiling down from the ceiling of the Salle des Etoiles to sprinkle rare orchid blossoms on the players.

Let's not forget that John thought this whole thing up in the bath. Not just the orchid blossoms, the whole European Poker Tour. More than 650 players, 200 journalists and 25 pickpockets are here just because of him. Nice.

However, EPTs are expensive and costs had to be cut somewhere. Conrad, Sven and Tamar selflessly opted out of the helicopter ride into Monaco and took the bus instead.

The Welcome Party starts in two hours, ten minutes and although I spent Saturday wrapped in seaweed at the Monte Carlo Bay Hotel & Resort Spa, it hasn't really diminished my waistline quite as much as I'd hoped. I am therefore going to spend this time doing sit-ups.

Party report to follow.....and in case, for some technical reason, I am unable to file a report, check out Brad Willis and Simon Young's PokerStars blog

What Grand Final?!!

2007-03-27T09:07:00.000+01:00

Things might be hotting up in Monte Carlo for the EPT Grand Final, but the event that people are REALLY getting excited about is the 2nd Annual Sitges Open Poker Tournament. With stars like the Honduran Hamster lined up to play, the event is set to smash all records for a Sitges poker tournament or, indeed, any event ever held in the Garraf region!!

Sadly "Punchy" Paterson (right) won't be there in a bid to clinch the 2007 title this year (he is heading south to visit Mummy and Daddy in Andalucia) but with a strong field comprising players such as "Paddy155", "Pottymouth" Wyatt and Travis B Miller, it promises to be a very exciting event - with 20% of the buy-ins going straight to the Ave Maria Foundation.

The Sitges Open takes place April 15, at 3pm. Full details available from the Honduran Hamster aka Richard. See you there.

Don't Mention The

2007-03-17T08:59:00.000Z

It's been an exhausting two weeks. With one tournament in Germany followed almost immediately by the EPT Polish Open, the massive effort required by all has taken its toll. But we've nearly done it. We have nearly managed to get through the whole thing without mentioning the ...

Of course it's been a team effort. Troops piled in to help when EPT blogger Simon Young, at the end of his strength and unable to fight any longer, tried to write a paragraph about the French resistance falling as the last Parisian bit the dust in Dortmund. We all worked hard to expand our German vocabulary as we chastened slack waiters for not bringing the drinks fast enough in the Hohensyburg casino.

And everyone pulled together to stymie tactless quips about invasions and pincer movements as we trudged towards the Eastern Front last Monday .... it's been hard but we've done it. We've nearly got through the whole thing with mentioning the ...

Of course, it's been harder for some than others. Tori Coxon thought we weren't allowed to mention any wars at all - and visibly blanched when I brought up the Falklands. And in Warsaw, it's almost impossible not to mention the... if you head for the city's Old Town - faithfully, movingly and quite spectacularly rebuilt from scratch after being utterly destroyed in the ..

Plus it was so hard not to feel touched as we saw the happy faces of the Poles as we arrived at the Hyatt Regency en masse at the start of the week. Starved of decent poker for years, liberated at last from the boredom and drudgery of endless flops, turn cards and rivers, they were visibly stirred by the spectacular and sometime reckless bravery of the liberating forces. All-ins every hand, swift retributions for bluffs and weak play, it was clear we - and particular the Scandinavian para-divisions - were a welcome force.

But as we head into the Final Day, we can feel proud .. not only have we taken the Polish capital by storm, we have done it without a single moment of tactlessness.

Post Secrets

2007-02-27T12:11:00.000Z

My sentiments exactly. More at www.postsecrets.com

Life without J

2007-02-08T19:44:00.000Z

Life without with J is not, as you might assume from earlier posts, about getting dumped by someone called J - or even losing a few friends whose names start with J - although it may come to that.

No, Life without J is life without the letter J - 10th in the alphabet, 8 points in Scrabble, a commanding, centre-court position on your average QUERTY keyboard.

Except, after some six months of last gasps and other signs of torture, my letter J has finally died. It is no longer reponds to either gentle touch, aggressive tapping or any of the encouraging techniques I've developed to encourage its presence on the page.

I have looked at my J in the raw. I have cleaned it. I have begged it. But no dice. Or no 'oy' as my keyboard now puts it.

Initially I thought this would be disastrous. Life without J. I simply couldn't imagine it. I rang up Sony - yes, as I thought - it will take over a year and some 3000 euros to get it fixed.

Their answer was: Live with it; live without J.

And in fact it's surprisingly easy. My newly-patented keyboard shortcut (Ctrl + K) takes care of Word and website software. Cutting and pasting (from the new, handy "J" text file I've created) takes care of most other J needs.

But friends called J are going out the window. Too much bother. And a disproportionately large number of PokerStars colleagues who also seem to start their names with J (eg: 'ohan, 'ohn, 'emma, 'o, 'an, 'ens, 'ules etc) are going to have to go too. Or they're going to have to write first and I'll 'ust hit reply and forget to say hi.

In fact, my J has been on the point of death so long, it's not even that hard a transition. A recalcitrant, petulant J is actually worse than no J. My dying J was like a crap boyfriend - promising to turn up, even looking like they might turn up - and then 'ust not.

So J - you unnecessary, useless letter of the alphabet. I will survive without you. You're history. It's over. I ust don't need you anymore.

Five Minutes of Electrical Rest

2007-02-01T20:15:00.000Z

I did it!!! Five minutes of electrical rest!! Although I did accidentally leave the heating on max. and turned the lights off in the wrong order so was marooned in my office and couldn’t find the front door.

But apart from that it all went swimmingly. Headed for my local bar (lots of heat and light) only to discover they too had a social conscience and were busy turning everything off (including the cigarette machine, at a most inconvenient moment). Some people argued that we should be allowed to keep the telly on as we were half-way through a Chelsea-Blackburn match, but then some other people argued that it was a repeat anyway, so the telly went off too.

So anyway, we sat in the gloom, humming Koombaiyah and crowding round an energy-saving candle and watching enraptured as the whole town followed suit and plunged into darkness.

This gave both visiting and local thieves plenty of opportunity for bag snatches, break-ins, till grabs etc and also gave TV Maricel a much-needed lead story for tomorrow's broadcast which otherwise would have been a repeat about the municipal fuck-up in Calle Angel Vidal.

But oh what fun we had. Just like the 70s but with fewer records by Art Garfunkel and Leo Sayer. Or was that the 80s?

And I feel so worthy. Combined with my recycling of the whole of last weekend's Sunday Times, tonight's activism puts me at the very forefront of eco-terrorism. Kisses from the frontline

What Five Minutes of Electrical Rest looks like

A letter of thanks to Superman

2007-02-01T12:24:00.000Z

I was absolutely fuming this morning because yet again, the postman had left me a note in the communal postbox telling me to pick 'something' up at the post office.

It's always a bloody parking ticket and I was fuming because the lazy bastards (postman) never actually ring the bell and deliver my fine into my hands, but find it easier to leave a note meaning I have to hack down to the correo, queue for half a millenia and then have a row in Catalan only to discover, as per usual, that's it's not a bottle of champagne, box of chocs or similarly welcome gift from mystery admirer but just another "multa" from the ayuntamiento for my one single tiny parking transgression committed 8 months ago on my moped (and who says I'm not disabled anyway!).

So imagine my surprise and delight to discover - not a demand for 40 euros - but a ten-strong pile of back issue PokerPlayer magazines!!! Apparently more than one edition of PokerPlayer is too heavy for the postman to deliver himself (work-shy wanker) but never mind. All fury gone. No parking fine - just hours of pleasure to come.

So, the mag is great, hilarious. I am working my way backwards so have kicked off with February 2007.

I have already (obviously) framed p.47 - the cut-out-and-keep poster of Rick Dacey as "Superman" - and put it on my bedside table alongside the picture I took of Mike Matusow when I was stalking him at the WSOP last July. (Tamar has now banned me from stalking The Mouth or indeed making any verbal or physical contact with him whatsoever although I am allowed to smile at him coyly as long as I maintain 100 yards distant. This mean, in smaller casinos, that I have to smile at him from the car park but never mind.)

My favourite line in the mag so far (and by far) is the description of the mighty Paul Cheung on p. 27: musclebound and hyper-aggressive - aaaah, bless him.

So, thank you Rick Dacey, Superhero. Give Cheung a kiss for me. Give yourself one too. This was the best "package" I've seen in a long time (geddit!)

Rick Dacey as Superhero - a convincing portrait

GRUMPY!

2006-11-29T14:38:00.000Z

These are all the things that have made me grumpy in the last 24 hours:

not going to the Caribbean anymore

Pau told me the main reason he opened a bar is so he can pull girls (yeah, he should be so lucky)

computer crashing every ten minutes with what I have now discovered is called "The Blue Wall of Death"

still don't have any hot water after three weeks (scrounging showers all over town is NO fun)

online Scrabble rating has plummeted to all-time low (565)

So, still very grumpy - but Spearmint's valiant attempt to cheer me up has been of some comfort. Check this out: Big Mac video

Highly Personal

2006-11-13T01:18:00.000Z

How personal should a blog be? There are probably a huge number of forums/discussion groups tackling this subject but I really can't be bothered to find these and my focus is closer to home. I have friends who have read my blog and are appalled at how much i have revealed about my 'private' life while others find it wickedly funny and are blatantly encouraging further romantic disasters (like THAT'S going to be a problem!)

Dumped is everyone's favourite post which either means I am totally hilarious when in the depths of despair or they are callous bastards.

The truth is though . . I am probably a natural blogger. I have no sense of privacy whatsoever. Anything that I say to my best friend, I am also happy to put in the Sitges Eco (widely read, once had a picture of my tent on page 3) or publish globally on the so-called internet.

I share this trait with my friend who, for some time has been going on dates in full knowledge that, even if the date goes horrendously badly, this actually provides him with better anecdotal material. his 'good' dates are dismissed by us out of hand (dull, dull, dull); he knows the ones we yearn for are the ones that have gone horribly, farsically wrong - riven with faux pas, missed opportunities and food. He may be fucking them up on purpose. I wouldn't put it past him.

In fact, for both my friend and I, the expression "the morning after" actually means "the morning after spent making friends howl with laughter as we recount each disastrous moment from the night before." The more calamitous the evening, the better the story. My friend and I live for gags: it's a weakness.

So, how personal should a blog get? Should i really mention that i'm into bout #7 with Pau? at present, no one else seems to find that funny - and how will I find a way to make it funny when he dumps me again? (Which he will.) will blogging help? if I reveal too much (everything), will it still be funny?

My gut feeling is "fuck yeah". I can get a joke out of anything. Watch this space. If I go several months without an update, then we'll know a) Pau dumped again; b) it wasn't funny.

PCA update

2006-11-01T16:03:00.000Z

OK, it's official. My tan will be getting a top-up in January.

not that it needs it....

EPT Event #4: somewhere in Ireland

2006-10-31T11:16:00.000Z

There are reports (largely unconfirmed, and from totally unreliable sources such as poker players, journalists and government agencies) that somewhere near the Regency Airport Hotel was a large and lovely city where weak players would find the strength to raise pre-flop, idiots would learn to fold and journalists made of tin would find a heart.

I never saw this city myself and, needless to say, nor did i ever meet anyone who had been there either. But suffice to say, the Regency Hotel was awash with rumours about the place.

Some Norwegians optimistically setting off for Dublin .....

.... but failing to request the following map from reception

------------------------------------

So highlights from the EPT Season 3 Regency Airport Hotel, Ireland event:

Highlight #1: dinner with Conrad. A perfectly lovely 90 minutes until Conrad said he really missed former PS blogger Howards Swains (now a Columbia journalism school student covering the Bronx) because they saw "eye to eye". Massive attack of jealousy. So bad I couldn't order pudding. Apparently Conrad and I only see "heart to heart". Deeply depressing. Eye-to-eye far better. Cerebral, intelligent and stimulating. Heart-to-heart is just wishy-washy nonsense. Conrad not forgiven but borrowed 50 euros off him later which he may forget about.

Highlight #2: Team Sit'n'Go featuring Simon Young, Spearmint, Sven, Neil, Daniel Wallin, Jemma, Conrad, Karen, Gregoire. Great game - played brilliantly. Daniel thinks I should have been more aggressive but he knows nothing about poker. I was Bubble Girl. Simon Young and Daniel chopped for 1st. The pair then chopped again in Team Sit'n'Go No. 2 which I did not attend. (Daniel is my current favourite man in the whole world apart from John Duthie and Richard Thompson)

Highlight #3: cigarette with John Duthie in Smoking Area 6.

Highlight #4: Snoopy from Blondepoker giving me last-minute quality insights for the final table player profiles. "He has a nice house. it has a gym" etc etc . Hilarious. Unusable.

Highlight #5: The following: Daniel Wallin (current favourite man in the whole world), Conrad Brunner, Steve from Gutshot (who offered me at the airport, in the following order: a) his shoulder to cry on; b) a Silk Cut ULtra Mild (see below)), Marc Convey, Snoopy and Chris Hall, all PokerStars people (who are truly wonderful), Jonathan Raab from Bluesquare, Neil Stoddart, Rolf Woods, Rolf Slotboom, Bjorn-Andre, Stiamo, all PokerDucks, all Norsemen, all Pro-Sharks, Mickey May.

Highlight #6: the PokerStars welcome party

Highlight #7: the effect of my new dress at the PokerStars Welcome Party on all those who had previously assumed I was a boy (everyone)

Highlight #8: beating Daniel three times in a row at backgammon

Lowlights: no Sinead. The fact that the Regency only had one cigarette machine which was never re-stocked. By the end of Day 1 (out of all the brands that spend more than £6.40 a year on advertising) we were already down to just Silk Cut and Rothmans (ie no Camels, Lucky Strike, Benson & Hedges, Marlboros etc etc.) By Day 4, just Silk Cut Ultra Mild (tautology) and Parliaments (the Lidl of cigarette brands, plenty left). The food: killed 15, retired a further 40. The prices: £4.90 for a Red Bull? are they serious???? The hot water (none).

And what have I learned from all this?

Take more cigarettes to events.

Don't let Simon Young have position in a Sit'n'Go.

Do not date people who live nearer to the Arctic Circle than you do: their hearts are made of ice and they will break yours.

And, for every cruel and callous person that you meet, there is always someone unexpectedly lovely and caring round the corner to make up for it.

Finally, here is a picture of a lovely dog that needs a home.

PokerStars Caribbean Adventure

2006-10-29T18:56:00.000Z

As part of a complicated sponsorship deal between myself and my esteemed boss Tamar Yaniv (involving a series of half-hour nightly anti-stress massage sessions), I may well find myself heading to the Bahamas in January. Rock on, PokerStars Caribbean Adventure. Picture credit: the incomparably lovely Neil Stoddart.

Dublin

2006-10-22T20:59:00.000+01:00

On Tuesday I'm heading to Dublin for the European Poker Tour Event #4. I love poker tournaments more than anything but the thing I am most looking forward to is seeing Sinead.
Sinead was my deeply-treasured flatmate but a month ago she dumped me and went to Ireland to finish her university degree.
Here are a few salient facts about Sinead:

Sinead is fantastic

Until she moved in with me, Sinead would lose her keys/lock herself out up to three times a week. I said I would evict her the very first time she lost her keys. In nine months, she only mislaid them once.

Sinead is the only person in the known universe to have been given a bar tab at Ricky's, the town disco.

Sinead is the last person in the world that should be allowed a bar tab at Ricky's.

Sinead is late for everything except work. Sinead believes that any time up to one hour after an appointed meeting time is well within accepted limits.

Sinead thought it would be fine to do a parachute jump in a skirt and slip-on Chinese slippers. When I asked her if she had packed some jeans, she was utterly bemused. "I'm wearing a skirt," she said. "But Sinead", I said, "you can't do a parachute jump in a skirt. For a start, it will fly up."
"I've thought of that," she said, "it's a tight skirt."

Sinead doesn't really know how old she is.

When Sinead and I went camping in the Pyrenees, I told her to not to bring too much as I only have a Smart car. She brought her hand bag. No towel, no sleeping bag, no rucksack and certainly not the Grivel Double Spring Ice Axe I'd asked her to bring. She was wearing her normal outfit: top, skirt and slip-on Chinese slippers. The next day, when we arrived at the bottom of Mount Somethingorother for a modest hike up to the summit, Sinead could barely get out of the car park (difficult gravel). Luckily there was a bar there - she was fine.

Sinead: Ready for anything

For almost a year, Sinead (happily) used a phone which had a battery life of approximately two and a half minutes. All mobile calls with Sinead ended abruptly. Sinead was actually offered a perfectly good phone over a year ago but never went to collect it. By the end of its life, Sinead's phone was just a skeleton. It had no outer covering. The space bar no longer worked; all her text messages were just one long word. It looked so disgusting that Sinead would just deny all knowledge if someone saw it lying on the table and asked whose it was. Everyone hated Sinead's phone except Sinead. When it finally died and she picked up the new phone, she refused to use it. She said she didn't want to take it out of the flat in case she lost it.

Sinead is a brilliant teacher; all the children at Speakeasy adored her. They called her "Xumai". They were devastated when she left.

Sinead once started a conversation with me as follows: "Mad, you're not going to like this, but i've been thinking about your funeral...."

Sinead endured hours and hours of tedious, post-Pau dumping analysis. Even when she told me it would never work (something I refused to believe, despite being dumped by him many more times than I've had spaghetti pesto (which is a lot)) and I went out with him AGAIN, she would still sit patiently through the next dumping phase as if it was all brand new.

In nine months living at my flat, Sinead never unpacked. The closest she got to unpacking was putting all her clothes on the floor.

Sinead is one of my favourite people in the whole world; I miss her a LOT.

Parties and Poker

2006-10-21T08:49:00.000+01:00

Party Face

Poker Face

Spot the difference. Correct. There isn't one.

Spiced

2006-10-16T02:45:00.000+01:00

I am very, very worried about Pauly. First off, he claims in his blog that he has gone on a diet and taken up running. This is so utterly out of character it's verging on psychotic.

Secondly, he has been running a essay-writing competition on his Tao of Poker blog entitled: If you could be a Spice Girl, which one would you be and why? .... This is also worrying. For a start, it must mean Pauly can remember who the Spice Girls were. Not a good sign. Furthermore, it must mean he actually knows something about them. He now claims the competition had great philosophical purpose but he's a Yank. It's OK for Americans to talk about the Spice Girls. It's ironic. But I'm British. For us, the Spice Girls are something horribly embarrassing that happened in the 90s which we have spent ever since trying to forget. To bring them up now is just cruel and tactless. We all make mistakes. Ours was the Spice Girls.

(For the record, I want to be Ginger Spice.)

Badenbloggscholshhhhhverbotenbloggenbahn

2006-10-08T19:45:00.000+01:00

Baden snapshots or
Report from EPT Event #3

Puddings/Supercalifragalisticexpialidocious
I am getting very fat. This is the puddings' fault. There are many of them and we must eat them all. Richard would probably die of happiness here.

Disco
Went to a party, danced all night, drank 16 beers and started up a fight. No, I didn't actually - but they are good lyrics. Went to a party at the Hotel Sloshed. Tamar's idea. The disco/club was in a beautiful, converted stable block heaving with teenagers and random poker players pestering us for sponsorship. I was fine but then Mickey handed me a giant Tequila Sunrise and suddenly it was alle kaput. Luckily Sven was at hand to scoop me into a vehicle and get me back to the Hotel Caruso.

Carousel
The Hotel Caruso. What can I say? Deeply, deeply unlovely. The journos have dubbed our wing the prison block. I think it looks like an abandoned Crossroads set. The staff are hateful and unhelpful. Lina's room is considerably smaller than her suitcase.

Room Envy
I always have quite bad room envy at EPT events, but usually it's with Conrad who always seems to get a room at least two inches wider than mine or with better soft furnishings. I never ever have room envy with the TV crew. They are ALWAYS in a worse hotel, often a shit one. Not in Baden though. They have been cunning. They have been here before. They are staying at the Grand Hotel Sauerhof. It is GORGEOUS. Corfield's room is bigger than the media room. It has two sofas, a dance floor and windows opening onto a vast lawn. It is enorme.

OB Cameraman triumphs
Me: So, Dave, that was your first win, wasn't it?
DC: Well, no, you know, yes, well, I mean, well, this year....
Me: So, Dave, that was your first win, wasn't it?
DC: Well, put that way, yes.

Mad Von Trapp or The Hills are Alive with the Sound of My Voice
In a rare attack of energy, I decided to take some exercise and explore the "Kurpark" - a sort of vertical Kew Gardens behind the casino. It was full of little pagodas, temples, shrines and other such nonsense but lovely trees and something i hadn't come across for a long time which I believe is known as "fresh air".

Lost in Space

2006-10-04T22:27:00.000+01:00

Although Pau and I can go months without seeing each other (and make every effort not to) while we are both living in the same town and his flat is only 120 yards from mine, put us anywhere overseas and we are imperatively drawn together - a bit like molecules that simply must unite or risk a hideous chemical implosion.

So it was in Morocco where, despite ample reasons why we might miss each other - eg big country, mostly filled with desert etc etc, Pau and I managed to bump into each other on a 200-mile long beach. Or the time before that in the Pyrenees when, despite similarly good reasons why we might miss each other, we managed to collide on the snowy expanse of a moutain slope.

There were many, many good reasons why avoiding Pau in Ibiza this weekend would have been a good idea. For a start, we haven't spoken since April and every time I do see him he breaks my heart. But I was desperate to dance and I had just been dumped again. What harm could it do? And there seemed little point in trying to avoid him. If deserts or mountains can't keep us apart, what chance was there that we'd miss each other on a tiny Mediterranean island.

However, the truth is that it's considerably harder to find someone you're looking for at the Space closing party than it would be in the Sahara or Pyrenees. Thousands of ravers, cavernous dance halls, desperately confusing geography coupled with seriously messed-up minds make it hard to follow through any plan.

Even if your plan is pretty concrete - eg let's meet at 9pm, by the loos, outside the Main Room - the chances of this coming off successfully are remote at best. For a start, where the loos were when you last looked is very rarely where they are now. (I am not saying that Space deliberately moves all the landmarks around while you're out the room, but how else can you explain the fact nothing is ever where it was last time you went there.)

And even supposing that the loos have stayed in the same place, it's impossible to know how long it will take you to get there. Could be minutes, could be hours. Obviously one always sets off promptly and with good intentions but something invariably happens en route that makes you totally forget what you're up to. Sometimes you bump into someone else, and take a while to remember this isn't the person you were originally looking for. Sometimes you simply get distracted - a pretty light for example, or a whoosh effect that makes you feel like you've been caught up in a bomb blast and takes at least 30 minutes to recover from.

Usually however it's the music. You are slowly swaying your way through, for example, the Terrace, utterly focused on reaching the loos by 9pm, when a track comes on that you simply must dance to. So you start dancing and before you know it, it's five to midnight. You then slowly remember that you had a plan, but you can't quite put a finger on what it was. So you start dancing again (just to while away the time while you try to remember) and then you set off again. When you finally get to the right place, it's no longer the right time or, even the right day. Repeat ad infinitum or until the club closes, whichever is the sooner (infinitum).

Space is not the worst place though - that has to be Turnmills in London. Pau and I spent hours looking for someone (we think it was StuRobbie but not positive) but just ended up going round and round in circles. It was only in a moment of earth-shattering enlightenment the next day that I realised we HAD been going round and round in circles because - duh! - Turnmills is a MILL - and they're circular.

So, back to the point, what harm could it do to meet up with Pau - breaker of my heart, vanquisher of my self-esteem, destroyer of my inner contentment?

As it happens, none. It was fantastic. The months since we last saw each other melted away and I instantly forgave him for turning me into an emotional wasteland and costing me a small fortune in therapy fees to get over it.

We danced all night. We danced our socks off.

We spent several hours looking for Stu, several more forgetting that we were looking for Stu and then a few more looking for Stu again.

We bought some drinks and did some other things I can't remember (probably dancing) and then we danced some more. It was nine hours of pure heaven.

And yes, I realise there'll probably be heartache. But who cares? Heartache, schmartache. It was worth it.

Dumped

2006-09-30T20:22:00.000+01:00

For some time now, Richard and I have been thinking about writing a book together called How not to pull, How not to get laid and How to get dumped. We are each drawing on our own areas of special expertise - Richard, a past master in how not to pull and how not to get laid, and myself the bees-knees on getting dumped. To be honest, if your chat-up lines include telling a Claudia Schiffer lookalike your A-level results, or informing a gorgeous Danish girl that Danes take out more library books than any other nationality, then you're asking not to pull.

And my bit's easy too. Normally I can get dumped as easy as pie. In the days before digital cameras, I could easily get dumped before I even got the holiday pictures back. People have dumped me by email, fax, text and phone. They've dumped me in person. They've dumped me by not calling. One dumped me at the Ikea check-out. Another dumped me by emigrating. When I got back from a weekend away, the cupboards were bare and he'd moved to Spain. Then when I moved to Spain, he moved back to the UK again. He said it might be a record, emigrating twice to get away from me.

In June I went on my first-ever romantic mini-break. All I can say about it was that if that's what romantic mini-breaks are like, I don't want to go on anymore! It was mini, and I guess it was a break but it certainly wasn't what I call romantic. I was dumped in the first two minutes. He said he'd fallen in love. I asked when? (slightly surprised as it was only two days since we'd spoken) and he said: Yesterday.

And then, of course, there was Pau. He made sure I got all the dumping practice I needed by dumping me constantly. On, off, on, off, on, off. It was like dating a light switch.

So, dumped. Soooooooo dumped. I am a dumpee.

But it's been a good few months since I last got dumped and while Richard has been going great guns with his side of things - hasn't pulled, hasn't got laid, despite strenuous efforts on both counts - I was getting a little bit worried about my part of the bargain. Fact is, I met someone truly wonderful - witty, clever, tall, gorgeous. He liked me, I liked him. He laughed at my jokes AND he fancied me. My god, it looked as if it might work out. Not easily, but possibly. I didn't dare tell Richard - he was doing so well! And I was with someone who might not dump me!!!

Well, rest assured, dear reader. All is fine. Everything fell into place and I got dumped this morning. So, quite relieved. While Richard is out and about this evening conducting further field research, I'm sitting at home drafting a few chapters of our book.

I don't want to give too much away but ultimately it's all about choices. If you want to get dumped (and who doesn't!), then make some bad choices. Choose someone unavailable, unattainable. Choose someone unstable. Choose someone married. Or, my personal favourite, choose someone with Asperger's.

And if all else fails, just choose Pau. He's a dead cert for a dumping. Muaks right back at you. xx

Tanned and Titled

2006-09-29T18:26:00.000+01:00

A picture of Liza Campbell shamelessly promoting a) a tan; b) herself

You can buy Title Deeds ANYWHERE but Amazon is cheapest.

It's brilliant (not biased)

Spaced out

2006-09-29T15:14:00.000+01:00

Although an invite from the Midget to join him and his ego in a menage a trois was clearly tempting, a slightly better invite turned up from Stu.

Space Closing Party, VIP Pass. No contest.

I'm nice. I like to dance and no have girlfriend.

2006-09-29T09:44:00.000+01:00

So, last night, stood up by Spearmint for what I was hoping was going to become a nightly ritual but turned out to be - jeez - not ANOTHER one night stand, I turned my attention back to Pau. Pau is useful for one thing right now and that's dancing. He knows the music I like and he knows where it's playing. Sometimes he's even playing it himself.

So, for days now, i have been texting him in the hopes that he will tell me where he is "setting up his decks" as I believe the expression goes. He likes to be enigmatic so he said Ibiza. Turned out to be true. The texts went like this:

Me: Stop fucking about. Where are you playing.
Pau: Ibiza. Wanna come?
Me: No. Yes. Don't know.
Pau: Nice idea. Menage a trois.
Me: Fuck you, you bastard. All I wanted listen to some good music but forgot you wouldn't know about that.
Pau: So rude! I'm joking. You are really welcome if you whant to come. Just broma!
Me: I don't want to hang out with you and some slut.
Pau: What is Slut? Just you myself and I. Big trio.
Me: Ok. I'll come but only if you promise to be nice and we go dancing and you don't pull any girls in front of me.
Pau: I'm nice. I like to dance and no have girlfriend. You need more?

The answer to this was obviously "no" so I started looking up flights. Pip would have killed me. Fortunately, Pau was joking again (gosh, he's witty) and backed down.

So I watched Battlestar Galactica instead (Series 2, Episodes 2-4) .... still haven't been dancing...

Lifts

2006-09-29T09:29:00.000+01:00

i actually really like hotels - except not the Langham in london, which despite the pretty pictures and exorbitant rates, still had me caged in a lift two nights ago for more than an hour.

I shared the exquisitely-decorated (18th century marquette) but incredibly tiny space (max load 6 people, must be thin) with a Norwegian journalist (hunky), a two-year-old (very well behaved, thought he was just in a small room), a demented Irish woman who was CONVINCED we were going to run out of air (and was reaching appropriate levels of panic should this actually have been possible) and her jolly irish husband.

A lift similar to the one at the Langham

As it happens, an hour in the Langham elevator would have been totally fantastic with JUST the Norwegian journalist and not that bad at all with JUST the irish guy (he and i spent much of the hour making prop bets on whether we were going to be winched up or down (both as it happens, not simultaneously).

The moronic staff outside the lift door (once we had been winched up) kept reassuring us that they knew what they were doing as they had been on a training course. shit training course if you ask me as they clearly DIDN'T know what they were doing or we would have been on the same side of the lift door as they were.

Anyway, as the temperature slowly rose to 140 degrees and the staff continued to advise me that the best way to get out of the lift would be if i "collaborated" rather than swear at them.. (i couldn't really see how i could NOT collaborate but still... semantics), we finally convinced them to stop following the training course guidelines and RING THE FUCKING FIRE BRIGADE. who got us out in five minutes.

A fireman

So my lifelong Fireman Rescue Fantasy finally came true (there were five of them - took AGES to kiss them all) and the upside was i get two more FREE nights at the Langham as compensation - although i still don't really understand why, when hotels fuck up (remind me to tell you all about Monte Carlo one day when you look bored enough) they think that MORE nights in their hotel is a great way to make up for it.

soooo... hotels are on my mind ...

Vegas III

2006-09-29T09:24:00.000+01:00

Gets more and more surreal. Did well in the media tourney - about 40th out of 400. my boss Brad made final table, despite the fact that he was sitting opposite a porn star (female) who is apparently the "Most Downloaded" on the internet. She was pretty ropey in real life.
However, my wall of fame chart is now off the wall!!! At the media tournament, I sat with Dick van Patten (old american actor - very nice but very old, in fact thought he might die during the game) and his yummy son Vince (right) who is WPT presenter but more importantly was once ranked 25th best tennis player in the world and beat McEnroe twice!

Actress Jennifer Tilley tried to sit down next to me but I put my Starbucks fudge cake on the seat to put her off. Really didn't want to be sitting next to last year's ladies champion.

Also hung out with Martin Amis (well, i call it hanging out but it's only because he was stuck next to me in the queue for the media tournament and couldn't get away) plus Anthony Holden (author of Big Deal and ex-friend of Prince Charles) and sat next to Tom Parker Bowles at dinner (seriously good fun, totally irreverent).

Saw Drew Barrymore and said hi to James Garner. (Last two probably don't count for wall of fame chart.)

Went to play poker at MGM and was all-in for 50 bucks on first hand with Aces. Very early night.

It all kicks off today - the first 2000 take their seats at 12pm, including my boss/hero John Duthie.

Editor's Note: Sadly there are no more Vegas posts from this correspondent....

Vegas II

2006-09-29T09:21:00.000+01:00

haven't started official blogging yet as it turns out that i have accidentally come a day early.

it's now 5am and despite my best efforts to crack jet lag (staying up late and getting very very drunk) am wide awake.

yesterday was great. got to go to TWO HOT PARTIES. first one was literally hot - Joe Hachem (world champ)'s BBQ at a house in Rusty Branch Drive (just off Sleeping Tree Boulevard) which was several leagues away from the city centre and unknown to any cab driver in the city. (there are 3,000 cab drivers here so that gives you an idea of how very unknown this street is).

given that Joe Hachem is a multi-millionaire I knew this definitely wouldn't be one of those typical throw-a-prawn-on-the-barbie and grab-a-tinny things that Aussies are famous for. WRONG. this was exactly what it was - but lots of the guests were millionaires and some were film stars. also they were all poker players so there was - of course - a poker tournament. free to enter and the winner got a seat in the World Series (worth 10,000). i entered although Tamar warned me that even if i won, she wouldn't let me play. i outlasted Isabelle Mercier, but my pocket 3s (what is that in Hungarian?) were useless against JK.

back to the barbie. it was so hot that there was an air conditioning machine OUTSIDE spewing a fine mist of iced water on the guests. unfortunately, it was spewing so much fine mist that eventually it had turned a large part of the lawn into a Glastonbury-style swamp. when it got dark, some of the smaller guests sank without trace. marcel luske was there looking ever so slightly out of place in pin stripe and tie. Dave Devilfish Ulliot was there too (grunted hello in a kind of snarl - he will never forgive me for ruining his chance with Pip - well, that's how he sees it!)

After several hours of waiting for people to strip and swim in the pool (they didn't), we left - or rather we tried to leave but of course Rusty Branch Drive was unknown to any of Vegas' 3000 cab drivers so quite a long wait. A very grungy but completely gorgeous guy who looked like he'd spent the afternoon crossing the desert on a Harley was waiting with us. Could he share our cab, he asked. absolutely, we said (all girls). unfortunately two cabs turned up and he went in the other one. It was Woody Harrelson.

After dinner at Bellagio (in some wierd kind of Japanese restaurant where you have your own chef standing in front of you pelting you with shrimps) we went to the second hot party, hosted by Full Tilt in a very cool disco at Caesar's Palace. Lots of famous players. The entertainment was the Pussycat Dolls or a band saying they were the Pussycat Dolls. Who knows?

I declared my undying love to Mike Matusow (the guy who got a 40-minute ban for swearing last year) and he returned it (while looking over my shoulder to see if there was someone younger/sexier he could pull). Actually what I said to him was: "Mike, I worship the ground you walk on. You are an animal. You are Neanderthal. Totally unreconstructed. I loved it when you said women can't play poker." He seemed pleased.

Talking of animals, a chimp has been entered into the tournament. It knows how to fold, check and raise but apparently gets bored after a couple of hands and starts throwing its chips around and demanding bananas. I am not kidding.

Vegas I

2006-09-29T09:18:00.000+01:00

Everything has already kicked off in amazing vegas fashion. Managed to gate-crash last night's "hot" party - hosted by bodog.com. Very very extravagant. Like the stuff you read about re parties for the Oscars or Cannes or something - uber-cool disco with loads of weird stuff sort of going on randomly all round us - contortionists, dancers, strippers, midgets (might have been catalans), geishas, naked women in baths etc. very surreal. Am already completely exhausted. Vegas absolutely arctic or wiltingly hot depending on whether you are inside or out. Need to buy a jumper to cope with sub-zero temperatures inside the casinos and a much smaller bikini for sub-tropical environment outdoors. Treasure Island is deeply manky hotel compared to the Mirage but am coping with the ghastliness of ubiquitous beige, beige, beige and odd touch of maroon by getting drunk.

Am entered in tomorrow's celebrity/media tournament. Wish me luck!