Vegas & The Aftermath - Diary

[Tal]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Francis_Burton

You're welcome.

Wow, that is stunning.

How can one man achieve so much? Travel in those days was unbelievably slow & painful, but he seems to have travelled extensively.

And whilst travelling, he wrote numerous lengthy books, & became fluent in 29 (TWENTY NINE) languages.

Makes me feel like I've completely wasted my life.  

How did you become aware of this chap?

I flicked to a random page of my self-compiled Great Compendium of Gentlemen

He was featured in an episode of QI I saw repeated the other day on Dave.

[The Camel]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Francis_Burton

You're welcome.

Wow, that is stunning.

How can one man achieve so much? Travel in those days was unbelievably slow & painful, but he seems to have travelled extensively.

And whilst travelling, he wrote numerous lengthy books, & became fluent in 29 (TWENTY NINE) languages.

Makes me feel like I've completely wasted my life.  

How did you become aware of this chap?

I flicked to a random page of my self-compiled Great Compendium of Gentlemen

He was featured in an episode of QI I saw repeated the other day on Dave.

Was he Freddie Mercury's great great grandfather?

[Tal]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Francis_Burton

You're welcome.

Wow, that is stunning.

How can one man achieve so much? Travel in those days was unbelievably slow & painful, but he seems to have travelled extensively.

And whilst travelling, he wrote numerous lengthy books, & became fluent in 29 (TWENTY NINE) languages.

Makes me feel like I've completely wasted my life.  

How did you become aware of this chap?

I flicked to a random page of my self-compiled Great Compendium of Gentlemen

He was featured in an episode of QI I saw repeated the other day on Dave.

Was he Freddie Mercury's great great grandfather?

In those days, it was a requirement for officers in the army to have a moustache.

That rule only was relaxed as late as the first world war, because of the scale of the recruitment.

[Mohican]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Francis_Burton

You're welcome.

Wow, that is stunning.

How can one man achieve so much? Travel in those days was unbelievably slow & painful, but he seems to have travelled extensively.

And whilst travelling, he wrote numerous lengthy books, & became fluent in 29 (TWENTY NINE) languages.

Makes me feel like I've completely wasted my life.  

How did you become aware of this chap?

I flicked to a random page of my self-compiled Great Compendium of Gentlemen

He was featured in an episode of QI I saw repeated the other day on Dave.

Was he Freddie Mercury's great great grandfather?

In those days, it was a requirement for officers in the army to have a moustache.

That rule only was relaxed as late as the first world war, because of the scale of the recruitment.

You could also purchase your commission up till 1871-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purchase_of_commissions_in_the_British_Army

[tikay]

Meanwhile......

Busy busy busy here. Just life's trifles & irrelevances, not travelling the world or learning to master 29 languages. I'm a busy fool.

Anyway, Xmas was very relaxing, though quite busy with work. Full update (zzzzz) to follow, hopefully tomorrow.

First, though, I have 13 unanswered PM's in my Inbox from the last 4 or 5 days, my apologies, will get them up to date first before I start waffling about Xmas dinner & recent mini-adventures.

Happy New Year to you all, may it be peaceful & healthy.

Am almost up to date at last on PM replies, just one more to do to a special mate & that'll be me back on top, apologies for the delay.

[tikay]

Has anyone heard from horsey?

I fear he may be unwell again.

I dropped him a PM a week or so ago, but, unusually for him, he has not replied, even though he has logged on since. 

Fingers crossed he is OK.

[Omm]

Just sitting here watching Restoration Man - The Water Tower episode. A couple restore a water tower in Yorkshire into a fantastic home for themselves. Well worth a watch and right up your street Tikay. Talks all about the Carlisle railway line and its history.

Fascinating programme and well worth a watch.

[MANTIS01]

I thought after you were sacked from Sky this diary would burst into a rainbow of colourful stories and railway-based adventures, but no, not a dickie bird. Makes me think you're going to explode onto pay for view with a new poker show like Jeremy Clarkson did with Amazon after suffering a similar fate on BBC.

[tikay]

I thought after you were sacked from Sky this diary would burst into a rainbow of colourful stories and railway-based adventures, but no, not a dickie bird. Makes me think you're going to explode onto pay for view with a new poker show like Jeremy Clarkson did with Amazon after suffering a similar fate on BBC.

Ha, never been busier Mr MANTIS, am flat to the boards with more work than ever, so I'm a bit all over the place right now.

I'm glad you asked though, for some reason it makes me feel better.

I've still to thrill/bore everyone with my Xmas tales. Gill came down, we had the most wonderful Xmas dinner - giant lobster & stuff - and then we had a mini-adventure up the West End, where we dined & saw a Show. Details & photos, I'm sorry to say, were taken & will follow.

[tikay]

Meanwhile, in my own version of "They are dropping like flies", how does this tragedy grab you?

Over in California there is a giant sequioa tree, so big & famous it has it's own Wiki page. Not many trees wood be able to say that, if they could but speak. (Marks out of 10 for the pun?)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_Cabin_Tree

[tikay]

Yesterday, in a bit of a violent storm, it blew over, & is now no more.

It was reckoned to be over 1,000 years old.

Wonder how many living things are over 1,000 years old?

RIP Mr Pioneer Tree.

[doubleup]

In another universe where Tikay and 2 buddies are alone on a plane, get the business shizzle and get to sit in the cockpit and take selfies with the pilots, there would be nothing else in the diary for 6 months. 

If tikay was walking down a street during that period, people would cross the street quicker than they would if Mickey Wernick was heading the other way with a bag full of bad beat stories.

Not wrong.

God bless Mr Wernick. He was the first player ever to nip me for a loan, back in Walsall in about 2003. I was made up, as proud as punch, went round telling my mates - "guess what, Micky Wernick borrowed money off me". Yikes at my naivety.

He paid me back, to be fair. Took a very long time, but he put a sweetener on top by way of thanks. So that kept his credit door open, & he often had a few bob off me, but he always settled up.   

And whenever he won a Tourney which we were Updating, he always gave £100 or £200 to the Updaters, never failed. Thewy was the same.

When it came to bad beat stories though, Micky was the boss. He always carried around with him a newspaper cutting from a WSOP event in about 1990, when he got a horrendous outdraw. Never needed much excuse to bring it out & show everyone. One fella actually asked him about it once, ffs.

I rather like the old bugger, to be honest. He was always very kind to me, for sure.

Back in the day, there was a terrible nipper in the Riverboat in Glasgow and one of the sages at the time said about him "the last thing you want is for him to pay you back".

[tikay]

In another universe where Tikay and 2 buddies are alone on a plane, get the business shizzle and get to sit in the cockpit and take selfies with the pilots, there would be nothing else in the diary for 6 months. 

If tikay was walking down a street during that period, people would cross the street quicker than they would if Mickey Wernick was heading the other way with a bag full of bad beat stories.

Not wrong.

God bless Mr Wernick. He was the first player ever to nip me for a loan, back in Walsall in about 2003. I was made up, as proud as punch, went round telling my mates - "guess what, Micky Wernick borrowed money off me". Yikes at my naivety.

He paid me back, to be fair. Took a very long time, but he put a sweetener on top by way of thanks. So that kept his credit door open, & he often had a few bob off me, but he always settled up.   

And whenever he won a Tourney which we were Updating, he always gave £100 or £200 to the Updaters, never failed. Thewy was the same.

When it came to bad beat stories though, Micky was the boss. He always carried around with him a newspaper cutting from a WSOP event in about 1990, when he got a horrendous outdraw. Never needed much excuse to bring it out & show everyone. One fella actually asked him about it once, ffs.

I rather like the old bugger, to be honest. He was always very kind to me, for sure.

Back in the day, there was a terrible nipper in the Riverboat in Glasgow and one of the sages at the time said about him "the last thing you want is for him to pay you back".

Ha, yes, that was another lesson I soon learned.

When a nipper has a few hundo off you, don't chase it, as his Credit Line is closed until he repays. When they repay, it's time to be careful.

I was so naïve, it's scary thinking about it. 

To be fair, Micky always paid up. There were plenty who never did.

One guy even managed to catch Red-Dog. It was at DTD one night as I recall. The chaps grandmother has just died again. And it's not many who get one past Red.

I was in the queue to play the Grand Prix at Walsall one year, huge queue right out the door for the second sitting of the day. Guy 2 behind me in the queue owed me £500, & I caught his eye, "got anything for me xxxx?"

He was a bit of a flash bugger, & must have had a touch, as he pulled out a bloody great wad of £50 notes, chest all puffed out, & peeled off what he owed me, "there you go Son".

Within seconds, he disappeared in a crowd of others who were also owed money by him. Reckon he shelled out about £4,000 there & then. If he'd been a bit more discrete, he'd have got away with it.   

[TightEnd]

thought you might be interested in this

one of those people you might be unaware of but then you read up....

"Clare Hollingworth dies aged 105: Telegraph correspondent who broke the news of WWII passes away in Hong Kong"

look what happened on her first week in the job....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clare_Hollingworth

[dwayne110]

Just wow, what an incredible woman.