Morning JR.
I had to google "Urban Expolorers" for starters, never heard of them.
http://www.urbanexplorers.net/As to the "Mail Rail" opening to the public, you can have an even Ten Shllings with me it will never happen. H & S on Railways is horrendously strict. Try getting that past these people, good luck with that.....
http://www.rail-reg.gov.uk/server/show/nav.1210Anyway, more to the point, how is life with you these days? You still with that up & coming Poker Site?
We've shared some fun, & adventures, down the years, you & me, especially the Usual Suspects thing. Can you name those "Usual Suspects"? What a great night we had to start that, in Trafalger Square, when Sir Clive Sinclair dropped in & promptly fell asleep with a glass of malt whiskey in his hand.
What are your views on your baby - the GUKPT - as to how it has grown up after you nursed it from the cradle?
Hope all is good with you & yours, & be good to hook up soon & have a latte.
All is well with me. I still of course have fond memories of my time with Grosvenor and the GUKPT, but rarely make it into any UK cardrooms these days. I haven't even visited the Vic since it's recent refurbishment. I played the Goliath in 2012 however and was most impressed with the way that event has really taken off. GUKPT main festivals seem to have had mixed fortunes over the last few years, but numbers seem to be growing again at the last few events and I am glad that Grosvenor have stuck with the tour through some harder years, to get to the stage they are at now. I was quite sad to see Blue Square disappear however, having been with the company since the beginning, before it was even called Blue Square. Oh well, maybe that box of old Blue Square memorabilia that I still have in the attic may be worth putting on e-bay one day. Card protector anyone?
The Unusual Suspects:
Suspect Where are they now?
'Burnley' John Falconer Burnley
Simon Nowab no comment
Stuart Nash any recent sightings?
Ian 'At-iT' Bradley Works for Sporting Index
JP Kelly Deauville, he just cashed in 10th place in EPT Main
James 'Flushy' Dempsey queuing for a drink in a pub in Sheffield, according to latest fb sighting
Jen Mason media coordinating and journalising for various organisations, I believe
Joe Grech any recent sightings? presumably still around
Ricky 'The Online Qualifier' McElroy Online?
Mickey Wernick Not so well these days
Jen was a deserving winner and also narrowly missed cashing in EPT Deauville and the EPT Grand Final that year (2006), but indeed Sir Clive snoring away whiskey glass in hand was definitely the highlight of the promotion for me.
My latest baby is the Eureka Poker Tour, which is now about to enter its fourth season. It started off as a small scale tour, taking in various locations in Central and Eastern Europe, but has grown considerably in the last year, with national participation records broken for the main events in Bulgaria and Croatia, capped off with a monster in Prague last December, where 1,315 took part in the biggest Eureka Poker Tour main event to-date. The next event on the tour is in March in Vienna and is likely to be another 1,000+ runners tournament.
But, I have another baby on the way too...and not a poker related one. Fingers crossed, all being well, I'll be a dad in May.
Back to more interesting matters...
Whatever 10 shillings works out at in todays money, I think I can afford to lose it, especially a 'never' is beyond both of our lifetimes. I really hope they do open it, even as a tourist ride and museum, but I guess it will depend on what happens to the Royal Mail's Mount Pleasant site above it, as there are developers interested in it for flats.
The story of the explorers who broke into it a couple of years ago is here:
http://www.placehacking.co.uk/2011/04/24/security-breach-london-mail-rail/Its quite a long read, but has lots of photos and also info about disused underground stations they got into too. They ended up getting caught of course, but had a terrific adventure along the way.
Hope to catch up with you soon Tony, but my latte days are over. I'm strictly an espresso man now