Chompy showed me this letter yesterday at the G. He seemed most distraught about the whole situation.

Dear Mr. Wheldon

I am writing to inform you that we were going to offer you the position of poker correspondent in the Edgware and Mill Hill Guardian. This position would have offered you 60 words per quarter for you to give our readers an in depth understanding of the many vagaries of the game.

I do have to inform you though, that it has recently been brought to my attention that you have become something of a serial quitter. In fact around the offices here, you are known as KK. apparently ordinarily that would be Cowboys but in your case it stands for Kevin Keegan the King of all quitters.

I am sure that you agree with me that such an august publication as ours could not be associated with a character such as yourself as we have the lowest turnover of staff in the western free press empire indeed our tea boy Angus has just celebrated 60 years of providing the refreshment in our offices.

We did of course all enjoy your thread entitled Chompy's Recidivist 2010 G Luton League/Scrabble thread, but feel that your dedication and commitment going forwards might be on a par with Carlos Tevez continuing at Manchester City.

We do however wish you every success in finding literary work that ably suits your talents and would like to direct you to McDonalds whom we hear are looking for a new marketing person to come up with interesting messages for the piece of paper that lines the trays in their restaurants.

Good luck
Ed

I was so close to pointage in the £100 last night.  In fact I hadn't even got my coat on and left the table when 'saver for the bubble' discussions started. it was like rubdown Monday had come early Enjoyed the whole afternoon/evening though.  Thanks for the cake vinnydonk.

I hasten to add that the young man concerned got a severe slap down from me about having no class!!!! He was of course next out when he rather stupidly walked his A 10 into my superlative A 7!!!

So good to be sharing the table with those legends of the game that are Thomas Bernard and George Kiss in the 5er. Still I did win the raffle. That was nice.

I think this is a greaqt idea!!! Can't stand Cowell and the league has gone a little stale. Need to rearrange a couple of taxi services and should arrive in time to donk off in the 5er

I dont allways log in

None of you freaks leave me messages anyway unless you want something, so i dont bother

Give us some money!!

I know who the guests are

OUT THEM!!!!!!

So a few days later I find myself back at Heathrow catching a flight to Miami for a quick in and out visit. I will be training a room of over 100 people which way back in my youth would have worried me silly, but as a famous poker player once said “once you can bluff Sicilian everything else pales by comparison”.

I land after a tremendously cramped flight and check into the hotel. I eat well and have an early night. My presentation is in the snooze slot, that first point after lunch. Luckily they are having Chinese for lunch which means they are all pumped up on MSG. I have to tell you, because no-one else will listen, I gave the best training session I have ever given. Truly, no word of a lie. People came up to me and shook me by the hand once I had finished. I spent the rest of the afternoon answering questions and talking to sales people. It was good.

I got back to the hotel at 6p.m. and feel like partying. Now I noticed online that fairly near to the hotel there is a dog track and at the dog track there is a casino and you guessed it folks, at the casino there happens to be a poker room. It doesn’t look too far on the old Google map so I decide to walk in the early evening heat. The weather is lovely but as I am walking I notice that I am starting to walk through an area that is somewhere that Dog the Bounty Hunter might call work.

 Quite a number of the properties are boarded and all of them have railings over the windows. I get to a major road junction and a car with darkened windows slows down next to me. The window slowly winds down (strange how we still use wind when there is no winding on electric windows) and I start soiling my rather pleasant beige Chino’s. I stand transfixed waiting for the out stretched arm with a gun attached, when this woman asks me if I am interested in a little fun. Great in my last two visits to America I have been mistaken for a gay and a male prostitute. I can only presume the poor lady is blind and in charge of a motor car. I politely decline and at that moment spot the Magic City Casino.

This is one rough looking place but in honesty is probably about the same as driving up to the old Grosvenor Luton. As all regular followers of this thread will know Spanish is the order of the day including the police officers who are on duty in the cardroom.  Unfortunately there are no tournaments only cash tables. I hate cash poker. It leaves me cold and I only ever play at Luton very occasionally. So I play the smallest table stakes and over about two hours manage to turn my $100 to nothing. Marvellous. The people aren’t as friendly either. I get the distinct impression that for a number of them if they do not win they will not be eating. Their priorities might be slightly wrong! I take my leave and wait the standard twenty minutes for a taxi in Miami.

On my way back I get the Taxi driver to give me a little tour of the area. Well I have never seen so many police cars patrolling an area; the taxi driver says the airport area is really rough. Great move Snatty. Note to self, go to America for a month and walk through various cities without doing any research and see if I come out alive. If I do, write about it, if I don’t, I won’t need to worry.

The following day I fly home with a sense of anti climax for some reason. I can’t totally put my finger on it other than I know that this dream I had about how this job would go is not the reality I am facing. It happens, and after a few weeks the company and I decide to move in different directions. I wish them all the best. In the eight months I was there I learned a tremendous amount and after a lifetime of working for large multi nationals it gave me an opportunity of seeing things from a totally different perspective. So to pastures new which I am unsure of right now though I do as always have a few ideas.

Ladies and Gentlemen this is Edgware station. This train terminates here. All change please.

The guests couldn't do that or they would be outed as closet forum members who play at Luton and only come on here to see if anybody can be bothered to talk about them.

I say ignore the guests for they are not worthy!

I had spent a couple of days in San Jose and I liked it. Liked it a lot. Good weather, good food and as always I met nice people all of whom have a story to tell if only one can find time to listen. It is funny how listening has gone out of fashion. In the business world I can think of hundreds of courses on how to get your message across and yet so little time is spent on how to actively listen.

And before you think, oh great Snatty has got his holier than thou head on today, I confess right here and right now that I am the world’s worst for drifting off in a sort of Peep Show type way. Now some would blame their star sign, or their psyche, but in honesty I have a boredom threshold of a second. What is worse is that somehow my brain continues to work in the background and I can replay the last sentence without really taking in what is being said. I wish I could slow my mind down just a little and interact fully with the person in front of me.

So meetings all concluded the little white Ford and I are heading towards San Francisco in the warm afternoon sunshine ready for our trek towards home. It is a long flight and I already know it is full. I check in with the nice people at Virgin who don’t give me a free upgrade which means I need to work on my negotiation techniques. I have some supper and just people watch before heading down to the gate. At this point I get a phone call from one of my customers saying that they would like me to present at the managers conference in Miami.

I phone the guvnor who says come back first and then fly back to Miami five days later. Whilst making all of these phone calls I was sitting at the gate staring into what I thought was the middle distance. Well it turned out that it wasn’t. No I was staring at two lesbians one of whom now took total exception. In fact as I looked round I realised that there were a number of single gender happy couples. Now I have no issues with homosexuality, coming from the religion of “whatever floats your boat”, unfortunately the alpha male of this couple started to shout at me!! Not talk calmly, not ask me what I am looking at? No she lays into me about being a homophobe. Of course I stand my ground and come up with some delightfully witty answer like “you have got to be joking!”

Well things went slightly downhill from there to the extent that within a few moments there seems to be a flash mob of hundreds, well at least five or six, asking me why I am being so anti social. Hang on a second all I did was make a couple of phone calls. Only one way to stop this..........

“Listen bitch I am gay now FUCK OFF!”

The crowd disperses quicker than Gillian McKeith can faint. Great as long as I am gay it seems it is okay to stare at whomever I like. This is a strange world we have created. I mean maybe I should have stood up and shouted “Is it because I is Black?” Well of course that would not work, but apparently I am a believable gay. Good to know!
The flight passes without any further incident and I return to a cold and raining Heathrow. It’s good to be home if only for three days. Miami awaits!

For those of you who want a circle line train please go to Edgware road and change trains.

Leaguers sure tore it up last night. Update complete...

Pithy

8 in total 

LMFAO @ 8

18 more like.

All these numbers are lol, reckon Claire, Gav, lucky and me the only ones who tell the truth and I make mine up as I go along

Sir you besmirch my my good name

Sorry, couldn't resist the opportunity.

Hopefully Tom will know I was joking!

Well good luck with that anyway!

Must be Chompy playing games!!!!!

This stuff is priceless

I love my number plate

FF5 5NAT

I got it for myself and personally couldn't give a stuff what anybody else thinks. I certainly didn't do it to look succesful. It makes me smile every time I look at it £699 it was a bargain!