Vegas & The Aftermath - Diary

[Longines]

As a London commuter who lives in the sticks I have to agree that the Tube rocks. I mostly use the lines between St Pancras and Moorgate and all the carriages are now air-conditioned; the underground bit can be more pleasant that the overground walk.

PS if there are escalators at Edgware Road Circle line then they hide them pretty well as that's my fairly frequent route to the Vic - there are only stairs available.

[RED-DOG]

a place where I am certain people go to hone their lack of compassion and consideration for their fellow man.

Praiseworthy prose Mr B.

[tikay]

Had a bit of a disaster on last night's Show, which featured young James Atkin as a guest, & who was very good.

I've developed a habit of fiddling with my spectacles, a sort of nervous mannerism. I paid the bill last night when, mid-sentence & in full flow to camera, one of the lenses popped right out. Never felt so daft. And how small are those teeny-weeny screws that hold the lens in place? Try finding one of those when your bins have broken.

It was my "good" eye, too, the other one is just a passenger these days, so I did the rest of the Show in, literally, a blur. Some running repairs with Elastoplast enabled me to drive home, feeling a bit like one of those old tramps with his glasses patched up.

UKPC starts tomorrow, too, & as per, the last minute bits & bobs are all flooding in, I had 9 texts this morning asking me about regular UKPC info. I was, of course, a proper cheerful Charlie at 5am when I awoke to that lot. Guess it's part & parcel of the job.

I head up to DTD tomorrow morning, & will be there for 11 days straight. I love being there, but 11 days might test me a tad, especially when it's tough to even have a wee without fielding questions.

The first few days will be fairly easy I think, but the TV crew arrive on Thursday, so it gets a bit more testing then, what with the need for a different wardrobe each day, so I end up rotating jackets, shirts, ties, almonds etc.

All very interesting though.

I'm equally nervous & excited. Luckily, in DTD we trust, so it should be plain sailing, but you never know. The last one, with one notable exception, went off as smooth as a baby's whatsit, so fingers crossed for some more of that.

I'm hoping I can play the Omaha, too, but that's not 100%, I need a Pass first. 

I might even play the Mini, might not be able to resist, I love 6 Max so much. Shame I totally suck @ NLH these days.   

Yeah, might just flick it in

[AlunB]

shaded=underground

white=overground

fascinating for you

Quite enjoyed that Rich. In track miles, the split is almost 50-50 I believe.

What a thing of wonder the London Underground (including overground) is. 250 miles in total, some 4 times greater than Crossrail, which is being vaunted (with good reason) as a modern miracle of Civil Engineering. The traditional "Tube" was built over a century ago.

I try & use it as often as I'm able, the punctuality, cleanliness, reliablity & frequency astonishes compared to back in the day.

Even so, the sheer volume of folks using it beggars belief. I exited at Edgware Road Stn one night last week at around 6.30pm, & the queue to get in the station was some 200 yards long. They have no escalators there, either, so every punter has to use a clunky passenger lift. There are stairs you can use - 140 steps I seem to recall - but they were, for me, a step or two too far. I know, I tried them.  

You don't use it much then

I think I, like most Londoners, have a love/hate relationship with the tube. It is indeed all the things you describe, apart from clean. I think not dirty would be a fairer description. But it is also unbearably hot in the summer, absurdly crowded and a place where I am certain people go to hone their lack of compassion and consideration for their fellow man.

"not clean"?

Maybe not, but MUCH cleaner than it used to be. Back in the day they even had "smoking" carriages, just imagine what they were like.

The advent of free newspapers - Metro, & Evening Standard - is another great thing, but it means people discard them willy-nilly, & that makes a mess inside the carriages. When we had to paid for the Evening News, we took it home. Why? Because we PAID for it.

I have a peculiar theory about this matter, in that I have a hunch that TfL deliberately do not go to too much effort to keep cleaning this mess up, because it is one of those things that no matter what you spend, it will continue. In fact, the MORE you spend, the more litter is likely to be generated. Perhaps we should blame the litterbugs rather than the train operator?

It's sort of like the toilets @ DTD. They used to have a man in there full-time trying to keep the place clean, but people still peed all over the floor. So they did away with the man - not literally - & now patrons moan at how dirty the toilets soon become.

Or another example, lets say "Customer Care" in Online Poker. The BETTER the Customer Care service, the MORE customers will use it. I know it sound bizarre, but it is true. There is literally no limit to what a business can spend on Customer Care, but it gets past the point of being cost-effective, & if the service is too good, it gets used a lot more. I think something like 90% of CC contacts are made by the same 10% of players, too, the high-maintenance (= high-cost) ones.

All counter-intuitive, but true.

As to the Tube being unbearably hot & over-crowded, yes & yes, but it's a pretty big ask to solve. I'm sure many parts of the world would die to have something as good as the London Underground. Not ideal, far from it, & no, I don't have to use it for the daily commute, so I'm a bit one-eyed perhaps, but all in all, I am convinced it is a true modern miracle. For sure, it is FAR better than it used to be.

You ever used the Paris Metro? Their trains have rubber tyred wheels, good God, no class those Frenchies. The sound is all wrong.  We want metal on metal. Only poncey railways use rubber tyred wheels.  

I have indeed. Many times. And it is the source of enormous irritation each time as they insist on making you walk for miles underground so they can pop you out at some nominally chosen location rather than letting you get out where the metro stop actually is and walk to the place they have given it the name of. Apparently we would all prefer to walk underground. They have done the same thing at the new Kings Cross underground. You used to be able to just pop out onto the road and walk into the station like a grown up. Now you go under about 2 miles of hermetically sealed walkways to arrive on the platform. Progress I believe this is called. Pfft.

I absolutely agree the tube is a marvel and Londoners are extremely lucky to have it. It's also a true trial of emotional strength to use it as a commuter. At Victoria I often had to queue to get into the station, queue to get onto the platform and queue to get onto a tube. All for a 6 minute journey. It's why these days I tend to walk everywhere if I can. There is, of course, little the companies running it can do about this. They can't make millions of people leave London and in the case of the Victoria line they always have one train in the tunnel and one at each station at all times during the rush hour I believe. That does, however, mean that when even a little thing goes wrong a LOT goes wrong.

[AlunB]

As a London commuter who lives in the sticks I have to agree that the Tube rocks. I mostly use the lines between St Pancras and Moorgate and all the carriages are now air-conditioned; the underground bit can be more pleasant that the overground walk.

PS if there are escalators at Edgware Road Circle line then they hide them pretty well as that's my fairly frequent route to the Vic - there are only stairs available.

The Overground is air conditioned now too. Sadly most of the newer deeper lines never will be as there simply isn't room. They will always be like ovens in the summer.

[AlunB]

a place where I am certain people go to hone their lack of compassion and consideration for their fellow man.

Praiseworthy prose Mr B.

TY. High praise indeed

[tikay]

shaded=underground

white=overground

fascinating for you

Quite enjoyed that Rich. In track miles, the split is almost 50-50 I believe.

What a thing of wonder the London Underground (including overground) is. 250 miles in total, some 4 times greater than Crossrail, which is being vaunted (with good reason) as a modern miracle of Civil Engineering. The traditional "Tube" was built over a century ago.

I try & use it as often as I'm able, the punctuality, cleanliness, reliablity & frequency astonishes compared to back in the day.

Even so, the sheer volume of folks using it beggars belief. I exited at Edgware Road Stn one night last week at around 6.30pm, & the queue to get in the station was some 200 yards long. They have no escalators there, either, so every punter has to use a clunky passenger lift. There are stairs you can use - 140 steps I seem to recall - but they were, for me, a step or two too far. I know, I tried them.   

You don't use it much then

I think I, like most Londoners, have a love/hate relationship with the tube. It is indeed all the things you describe, apart from clean. I think not dirty would be a fairer description. But it is also unbearably hot in the summer, absurdly crowded and a place where I am certain people go to hone their lack of compassion and consideration for their fellow man.

"not clean"?

Maybe not, but MUCH cleaner than it used to be. Back in the day they even had "smoking" carriages, just imagine what they were like.

The advent of free newspapers - Metro, & Evening Standard - is another great thing, but it means people discard them willy-nilly, & that makes a mess inside the carriages. When we had to paid for the Evening News, we took it home. Why? Because we PAID for it.

I have a peculiar theory about this matter, in that I have a hunch that TfL deliberately do not go to too much effort to keep cleaning this mess up, because it is one of those things that no matter what you spend, it will continue. In fact, the MORE you spend, the more litter is likely to be generated. Perhaps we should blame the litterbugs rather than the train operator?

It's sort of like the toilets @ DTD. They used to have a man in there full-time trying to keep the place clean, but people still peed all over the floor. So they did away with the man - not literally - & now patrons moan at how dirty the toilets soon become.

Or another example, lets say "Customer Care" in Online Poker. The BETTER the Customer Care service, the MORE customers will use it. I know it sound bizarre, but it is true. There is literally no limit to what a business can spend on Customer Care, but it gets past the point of being cost-effective, & if the service is too good, it gets used a lot more. I think something like 90% of CC contacts are made by the same 10% of players, too, the high-maintenance (= high-cost) ones.

All counter-intuitive, but true.

As to the Tube being unbearably hot & over-crowded, yes & yes, but it's a pretty big ask to solve. I'm sure many parts of the world would die to have something as good as the London Underground. Not ideal, far from it, & no, I don't have to use it for the daily commute, so I'm a bit one-eyed perhaps, but all in all, I am convinced it is a true modern miracle. For sure, it is FAR better than it used to be.

You ever used the Paris Metro? Their trains have rubber tyred wheels, good God, no class those Frenchies. The sound is all wrong.  We want metal on metal. Only poncey railways use rubber tyred wheels.   

I have indeed. Many times. And it is the source of enormous irritation each time as they insist on making you walk for miles underground so they can pop you out at some nominally chosen location rather than letting you get out where the metro stop actually is and walk to the place they have given it the name of. Apparently we would all prefer to walk underground. They have done the same thing at the new Kings Cross underground. You used to be able to just pop out onto the road and walk into the station like a grown up. Now you go under about 2 miles of hermetically sealed walkways to arrive on the platform. Progress I believe this is called. Pfft.

I absolutely agree the tube is a marvel and Londoners are extremely lucky to have it. It's also a true trial of emotional strength to use it as a commuter. At Victoria I often had to queue to get into the station, queue to get onto the platform and queue to get onto a tube. All for a 6 minute journey. It's why these days I tend to walk everywhere if I can. There is, of course, little the companies running it can do about this. They can't make millions of people leave London and in the case of the Victoria line they always have one train in the tunnel and one at each station at all times during the rush hour I believe. That does, however, mean that when even a little thing goes wrong a LOT goes wrong.

BOOMIO. So good, that when a failure occurs, the whole thing implodes very quickly.

Going back to the example of the DTD toilets.

Punters complained about the state of the toilets despite DTD empolying a bloke to try & keep them clean. So they done away with him, saved £200 a week, the moaning still continues, but DTD are £200 a week better off. Bit of a circular argument that.   

[david3103]

Commuters in Perth, WA, act together to help a fellow passenger.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-28674322

Do you think that would happen on the 8.05 into Waterloo?

[tonytats]

One thing few people realise is the challenging geology in which the underground is built once you get going down the a13/ commercial road /east of aldgate
In the most part of London it's London clay overlain in some places by river terrace gravels pretty easy soil to tunnel in
On the 15 billion pound railway when they installed the coffer dam in the Connaught crossing between Victoria Dock and Albert Dock I was amazed to see that steel lined tunnel that had been installed by Victorian engineers
I've drilled overwater just to the east of that point where a tunnelling machine got stuck and eventually abandoned !
In the 1980s !!
to achieve that steel lined tunnel in the 1880 s was some piece of engineering ingenuity !!
But there's been very little mention of the geotechnical investigation / instrumentation used to design this massive project which was a bit disappointing

[Redsgirl]

shaded=underground

white=overground

fascinating for you

Quite enjoyed that Rich. In track miles, the split is almost 50-50 I believe.

What a thing of wonder the London Underground (including overground) is. 250 miles in total, some 4 times greater than Crossrail, which is being vaunted (with good reason) as a modern miracle of Civil Engineering. The traditional "Tube" was built over a century ago.

I try & use it as often as I'm able, the punctuality, cleanliness, reliablity & frequency astonishes compared to back in the day.

Even so, the sheer volume of folks using it beggars belief. I exited at Edgware Road Stn one night last week at around 6.30pm, & the queue to get in the station was some 200 yards long. They have no escalators there, either, so every punter has to use a clunky passenger lift. There are stairs you can use - 140 steps I seem to recall - but they were, for me, a step or two too far. I know, I tried them.  

You don't use it much then

I think I, like most Londoners, have a love/hate relationship with the tube. It is indeed all the things you describe, apart from clean. I think not dirty would be a fairer description. But it is also unbearably hot in the summer, absurdly crowded and a place where I am certain people go to hone their lack of compassion and consideration for their fellow man.

"not clean"?

Maybe not, but MUCH cleaner than it used to be. Back in the day they even had "smoking" carriages, just imagine what they were like.

The advent of free newspapers - Metro, & Evening Standard - is another great thing, but it means people discard them willy-nilly, & that makes a mess inside the carriages. When we had to paid for the Evening News, we took it home. Why? Because we PAID for it.

I have a peculiar theory about this matter, in that I have a hunch that TfL deliberately do not go to too much effort to keep cleaning this mess up, because it is one of those things that no matter what you spend, it will continue. In fact, the MORE you spend, the more litter is likely to be generated. Perhaps we should blame the litterbugs rather than the train operator?

It's sort of like the toilets @ DTD. They used to have a man in there full-time trying to keep the place clean, but people still peed all over the floor. So they did away with the man - not literally - & now patrons moan at how dirty the toilets soon become.

Or another example, lets say "Customer Care" in Online Poker. The BETTER the Customer Care service, the MORE customers will use it. I know it sound bizarre, but it is true. There is literally no limit to what a business can spend on Customer Care, but it gets past the point of being cost-effective, & if the service is too good, it gets used a lot more. I think something like 90% of CC contacts are made by the same 10% of players, too, the high-maintenance (= high-cost) ones.

All counter-intuitive, but true.

As to the Tube being unbearably hot & over-crowded, yes & yes, but it's a pretty big ask to solve. I'm sure many parts of the world would die to have something as good as the London Underground. Not ideal, far from it, & no, I don't have to use it for the daily commute, so I'm a bit one-eyed perhaps, but all in all, I am convinced it is a true modern miracle. For sure, it is FAR better than it used to be.

You ever used the Paris Metro? Their trains have rubber tyred wheels, good God, no class those Frenchies. The sound is all wrong.  We want metal on metal. Only poncey railways use rubber tyred wheels.  

A group of us were once waiting for the metro after a long and tiring day in Paris.
When the packed train pulled in, as we waited for the passengers to disembark we noticed through the window there were a group of four seats vacant, so a soon as the way was clear we all made a mad dash for them, jokingly pushing and shoving and holding each other back.
Imagine the victors horror when upon reaching their seats, it became apparent they reason they were empty was because someone had done the most gigantic turd ever right there on the floor between them.  It had obviously been there sometime too, seriously, this thing wouldn't have looked out of place in Jorvik.
Always able to make the best of a bad situation,  we quickly retreated to stand in the space between the carriages, and watched with a mixture of glee and sympathy all the other passengers who did exactly the same as we did at every stop. 

[tikay]

I mentioned "Straight Flush" by Ben Mizrich, & how dreadful I thought his style of writing was.

Should have been a great story - Absolute Poker - but it was all puff & fill, barely any substance. Shocking, really poor.

My next book is the total opposite, facts, detail, & not a single word of puffy fill.

"Great Train Robbery" by Andrew Cook is just cut & pasted copies of Witness Statements, Court Evidence, that sort of thing.

And you get ALL the detail, presented exactly as you'd wish. No fluff. 

One of the Great Train Robbers - Roger Cordroy - gets arrested & taken to a Poloce Station. His share of the loot is in his car, & he has the key on him. So he secrets it about his person. But it started to hurt him, & he could not extract it, so he bottled it & fessed up.

And it was reported like this.....

I, M J Saunders, am a registered medical practioner residing at 61 Grove Road, Bournemouth.

On the 16th August 1963, at 1.15pm, I removed a key from the rectum of Roger Cordrey and handed it to a police officer.


Thats what we want. Facts, matter of factly. 

[RED-DOG]

Delete we, insert I.

[GreekStein]

Congrats on the bink. Didn't even read about that terrible fold.

P.s. Who's this 'conky' guy you sometimes refer to?

And finally, be thankful it was MC on the show. I'd have ripped you to shreds about your glasses

[Eso Kral]

For any readers or Tikay himself a thread created for a couple of special Blonde members

http://blondepoker.com/forum/index.php?topic=64141.0

[tikay]

Somehow, the photo below found it's way onto Maria's Facebook page. Don't blame me, I don't even have Facebook.

It was "Liked" by over 30 people, mostly mutual friends.

Notably, Conky Cos "liked" it.

I think he's hitting on me.

Incidentally, anyone recognize the big bloke, dark blue top, far left of photo? Very well known on blonde.

Click to see full-size image.