Vegas & The Aftermath - Diary

[tikay]

I do the Sky Poker Show tonight, it must be about my 75th or 76th Show for them, but it's far & away the most important one I've ever done.

We - sorry, they! -  have managed to get a modified version of "The Open" onto a Sky Sports Live Simulcast, which is a very big deal for us. It will be reduced to 2 hours, & will start at 10pm, & be titled "Five-O".

50 runners, £100 entry, £5,000 Guaranteed, means we can give better focus to the entire field. It starts at 10pm, & the whole thing will be shown Live.

Getting onto Sky Sports might sound like a shoe-in for Sky Poker, but it's anything but, & they've done well to get it approved.

We have done 3 rehearsals, (one technical, two "full-on"), & ran the Show as a modified version of "The Open" for the last two Thursdays. I did the first with Paul Musselle, & the second with Richard Orford, (which is tonight's pairing), Richard & I. After this week, touch wood, the Show will run as a live Simulcast every Thursday on Sky Poker & Sky Sports, & repeat on Sky Poker on the following Monday. It will be preceded by a special edition of "The Club".

Technically, it's very different to "The Open", as we are addressing a different audience entirely, & we've had to throw our "Branding Document" (the Bible of how we do the Show) out of the window for this, which I found quite awkward. And I've had to change my delivery, so instead of chatting as I would to pals at a poker table, I need to "drive it" a bit more, rev it up a bit. I don't think Jesse May or Sid Waddell will lose too much sleep though.

I'm not nervous as to my performance, but I am a bit stressed about the overall Show. The whole Team are well excited about it, & have all worked extremly hard to adjust to the different Sky Sports disciplines we need to adjust to, different camera choreography, graphics, "into" & "out of" breaks, da de da. My worry comes not from messing up, which I'm entirely capable of, but of letting the rest of the Team down, because it means so much to them all. After today, I'm not scheduled to do another Thursday (Five-O night) until the end of May, 6 weeks away, but if we mess up tomorrow, well, you know how it is, first impressions are so important, & we gotta make sure it goes without a hitch. Our trump card, though, is Richard Orford, who is just so good. I won't hide behind him, but he is so re-assuring to work with. I'm so glad he's coming to blonde Bash, I think he'll get a great reception from the blondes.

To those outside the industry, & I include myself in that, as I'm just an amateur who got lucky, you'd think Sky Sports would not be that fussed about a weekly 2 hour new Show, but it's astonishing how much interest they've shown, & input they've given. The Sky Suits have seen it (the dry runs) several times, been to Feltham, & are generally enthused. And I know that every single Sky Poker Suit, & a whole bunch of Sky Sports Suits, Serious Suits, & even Seriously Serious Suits will be tuned in, watching every second of it. I just hope I dont choose this Show to make a pigs ear of it. For myself, too bad, but letting the others down would devestate me.

That bloody Compo played in the Sky Poker Sunday Showdown with Helen Chamberlain & Tim Peters this week, & somehow finished 15th I think, (how?) & thus qualfied to play the Final this Sunday. He's such a luckbox.

Meanwhile, plans are well in train for the next Sky Poker Live Day, & I've been working on that muchly this week. I'm Official Water-Carrier.

There used to be a management saying, "staff get promoted until they reach their incompetence level". It's just possible I may have arrived there. Been some ride though.

[tikay]

This is "the Church of the Savior on Blood" in St Petersburg. It's real. You must visit St Petersburg, it's a treasure chest of such Churches & Palaces.

[tikay]

The Winter Palace, St Petersburg. Some gaffe, eh? The world's best Art Collection is housed in there, in The Hermitage.

[tikay]

Another view of The Winter Palace, from the grand & imposing Square. That "obelisk" you can see is solid granite, & weighs 700 tons. It's totally free-standing - not fixed in position at all, just weight & gravity doing it's thing. Can you imagine how they got the thing upright, with, I suppose, ropes & pulleys & levers, all those years ago?

[77dave]

You may be a King or a simple street sweeper, but sooner or later you'll dance with the reaper.

Bill and Ted

Remind me who Bill & Ted are?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1AEDwsoCx8&feature=related

[tikay]

"Just another" St Petersburg Church.

[tikay]

And this, believe it or not, is a Shopping Mall. Eat your heart out, Arndale Centre & Meadowhall.

[tikay]

The Peter & Paul Fortress, again, St Petersburg.

[tikay]

I was walking around St Petersburg one day, turned a corner, & suddenly saw this - The Cathedral of the Resurrection. I just stood & stared at it for hours, it's just a miracle.

[tikay]

This snap of the Winter Square gives a clue to the grand scale of it. The arch in the background leads through to Nevsky Boulevard, & the Taleon Palace - which is a Casino. Cashed there, runner up in the Main Event, too, which paid for the trip, & it's where I first met Murray Brown. But what is poker set against the majesty of this?

[77dave]

Hi Tikay

Just seen this list of the 7 wonders of the civil engineering world.

1/ channel tunnel
2/ CN tower
3/ Empire State Building
4/ Golden gate bridge
5/ Itaipu Dam
6/ Netherlands North Sea protection wall
7/ Panama Canal

Whats your opinion on the 7 and are they any wonders that you would put in the list instead

[tikay]

One last view, once again, the Winter Palace. I'lll be getting complaints if I Post any more.

[tikay]

Meanwhile, this is the best that British Architects could come up with for £700 million - The grotesque British Library. Even more telling, the beautiful building next door is St Pancras Station Hotel - which would sit well in St Petersburg.

[tikay]

Hi Tikay

Just seen this list of the 7 wonders of the civil engineering world.

1/ channel tunnel
2/ CN tower
3/ Empire State Building
4/ Golden gate bridge
5/ Itaipu Dam
6/ Netherlands North Sea protection wall
7/ Panama Canal

Whats your opinion on the 7 and are they any wonders that you would put in the list instead

That may be the best & most challenging question ever in this Diary Jim, wow! Thank you. It's 6am, & I have a full day ahead, & I need to think about that question long & hard. Thinking on that will help make the trip to Feltham pass in a flash - what a question!

My first reactioin is that The Panama Canal is deffo IN "my" seven. Not sure about any of the others yet. The Hoover Dam certainly merits some thought. Only half an hour away from you, you lucky bugger.

[tikay]

Moskvich just sent me a PM about my St Petersburg pics, the thrust of which was.....

I don't want to be too churlishly pedantic, so thought I'd send you a message... The Church on (Spilled) Blood and the Cathedral (or Church) of the Resurrection are the same thing - but usually gets called by the former name. (Cos of the blowing up of Alexander II on that spot).

And the shopping mall - if I'm not mistaken that's actually GUM in Moscow rather than Gostiniy Dvor in St Pete. I could be wrong, but I don't recall them looking that similar (or even identical).

My apologies, & my thanks to him. Memory issues here.......

I love it when peope comment on these entries, even if only to correct me - at least I know someone is showing interest.

Thanks Moskvich.

I visited Moscow, too, but that did not do much for me. I stayed in "The Ukraine Hotel", which is monumentally large, & quite indescribably awful, & the Lobby was teeming with prostitutes. Not too keen on Moscow Airport, either, but that's another story.

OK, to bed.