- Job you never did but wish you had. (Mine would be footballer if dreaming or policeman if something realistic).
- Thing that no-one on blonde knows about you that you can share with us now. (I cant ride a bike)
- Best decision ever made
- Worst decision
- Do you ever speak to Compo or know where he is or what he's doing these days?
- Favourite 'foreign' food?
- Poker player you found the most difficult to interview or do a show with?
- Poker player you admire most.
- What are your thoughts on the direction of blonde? Do you ever think about ways to re-ignite it a little ? It's such a great forum and has been invaluable for many of us.
Sorry for slow reply Mr Cos, I don't know where the days go, they seem to whizz past & I'm always saying "I'll do that tomorrow".
I'll try to reply one at a time.
Worst decisionSuch a list to choose from, I could find so many. But I'll plump for the day I started smoking.
I was about 15 or 16. My childhood years had been a bit challenging, & I was desperate to be liked, & like most mid-teenagers, very impressionable. I fell in with a gang of lads on my estate. Not a good gang either, but it's all there was. When young men get in a group, strange things happens to their minds. Soon they were nicking cars & all sorts, & I was tagging along. And then there was a terrible accident one night, but that's another story.
Anyway, they all smoked & I was desperate to be "one of the lads". So I went & got myself a pack of 5 Woodbines. I can remember it to this day, & the exact shop where I got them.
I can still remember the sensation when I lit the first one. Horrible. I went all giddy & coughed & spluttered. But once I'd had a few more that soon passed...
I smoked for 55 years, until I was forced to stop by the heart attack which no doubt the smoking caused.
I tried to work out the cost. Very approx - VERY approx - but a pack a day for 55 years, & using current prices, comes to £200,450. And then I tried to approximate my earnings for 55 years, &, again, super approx, it was probably in the £2 to £2.5 milly range. So I spent 10% of my earnings on ciggies.
As I say, I've made plenty of daft decisions in my life, more than most I'd say, but that must be right up there. Course, the moment I had the heart attack I snap quit. So I could have quit any time I wanted. If I wanted.
We all know the usual negatives of smoking - smelly clothes, car & house, bad breath, causes heart disease & cancer. But there's plenty more. For example, when I got into poker, I always used to go for smoke breaks. I remember there was a metal cage at Luton, & a slightly bigger area at DTD, both very small though & 15 or 20 of us would squeeze into it - & there I was trapped, having to listen to bad beat stories from all sides.
Same in Vegas, there were several breakout areas where we could go for a smoke during breaks, but no matter how hard I'd stare at the ground & turn my back on approaching people, Team Bad Beat Story always found me. Nothing annoys me more than poker player who constantly moan & whine. And if I did not smoke, I could have avoided them.
On a slightly brighter note, I managed to avoid drugs all my life, never once touched them. When I was in with that gang of lads I did drink a fair bit, but I saw sense & snap quit on my 21st birthday, & never touched the stuff since. All in all I suppose things could have been much worse.
Will work through the list, another instalment soon.
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