200 Japanese pensioners win awesome award

I'm just now hearing in my ear piece how roughly 200 Japanese pensioners who make up what they call the "Skilled veterans corp" a Dad's army of clever boffins if you will, have volunteered to clean up the Fukushima nuclear power station mess. Their logic obviously being we'll be dead before any cancers from radiation poisoning kicks in.

This is of course beyond awesome and why I will move to Japan just as soon as I win the lottery. This kind of courage, self sacrifice and altruism is sadly something that could never happen here for so many depressing reasons. Not because our pensioners aren't as hard-core, just simply our layer upon layer upon layer of jobsworth bureaucracy at every level of governance would make it impossible.

Pensioners: We want to clean up the mess of this knackered nuclear power plant, we're all retired skilled engineers.

Health and Safety man: "Sort out a nuclear accident site!?" deeply inhales, shakes head, makes condescending tutting sound with tongue, "not without adhering to ...lists two and half thousand regulations.....you won't, it's more than my job's worth."

Fantasy WSOP

My in-mob fantasy WSOP competition team will be as follows:

Phil Galfond (C)
Liv Boeree
Chris Moneymaker
Yevgeny Timoshenko
J.C. Tran
Andrew Robl.

Wild cards:
Daniel Alaei and Scott Seiver.

Token strumpet: Liv Boeree. And why not?

Nonsense of the highest order

Last night I dreamt I'd parked my car under a tree for the shade but when I got back it was wrapped almost entombed in the trees' branches that had snaked themselves around my car. It was like I'd left it there for decades and all manner of flora had grown around it.

What on earth does this mean? Which of my inner psychological issues is my mind addressing with this symbolism? Or is it to be taken at face value? Am I warning myself of the dangers of leaving my car unattended in close proximity to a tree for many decades?

This and more will addressed in a meeting with myself this afternoon. But top of the agenda will of course be our new Pigeons'* game strategy. It feels like many many weeks since the last Pigeons' game. I'm quite the sure the Government is stealing time from us while we dream. It's why I always leave one eye open when I sleep.

The new strategy will mostly be built on a foundation of not playing every single hand. Also..we will we utilise a strategy I've been reading up on recently which is not offer up an enormous raise when it is quite clear even to those passing the table to go to the lavatories that my goose is cooked.

Coupled with outrageous luck and no one else turning up, it's a strategy with no flaws. And why not? With my prize of many monies I will invest in some comfortable airy new lounge wear and some fizzy coke bottles.


*Grammar question: It's the Three Pigeons Pub, and the game is located at this pub so could be said to belong to the pub so should it be "Pigeons's game," "Pigeons Game" or "Pigeons' game?"
I'm sure it's the latter. Silly language.

The calm before the storm

I've just been handed a dossier on the Euro-zone economic crisis from my foreign correspondent, a marmoset called Dudley. He was the first to report from the Berlin Wall in November 1989 that David Hasslehoff would be performing live and earlier that same year was asked to hold the lunch box of a Chinese student who then went off to stare down a line of tanks depicted in that iconic photograph during the massacre of Tiananmen Square. In short, his information is to be taken seriously, and it confirms what we've been saying on the blog for some time now; there's a storm coming, we're doomed and it's every man for himself.


As we speak the CIA in the US of States have concerns of a military putsch in Greece as a consequence of its inevitable bankruptcy. Having organised and financed the Greek coup d'état in the 60s they ought to be able to spot the signs.

The consequences of which will ultimately draw the entire continent of Europe into a war. Unfortunately for us we do not have a Winston Churchill waiting in the wings to see us through this conflict. We have David Cameron who is currently in Ibiza with Pete Tong. And of course even if we did have a Churchill, with all the classic timing of a $5 Rolex sold by a Puerto Rican on 5th Avenue, we have dismantled our Armed forces anyway.

The long and the short of the situation is as follows; there is a natural order to things in life and a united European super state runs completely contrary to it. And when we as humans have the impertinence to assume we can run against the tide in this way it always ends in disastrous violent failure.

Thusly; Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal are to be jettisoned from the Euro and adopt their former currencies. Other nations will also fall by the wayside causing a level of economic hopelessness in those states, not to mention awful rebel folk songs, that can only be assuaged by violent campaigns engineered by military juntas.

Two blocs of nations will become established across the European continent. Essentially any nation with a laissez-faire attitude to paying tax whose citizens spend most of the afternoon asleep will form one vast army easily identifiable by their Russian weapons and the plumes of feathers on the enormous hats worn by the officers in the tradition of all useless armies.


The second bloc of nations will mainly consist of France, Germany, Turkey and Great Britain (who we understand have promised to provide refreshments in lieu of a fighting contribution).

As war is waged in Europe the financial markets across the globe will melt-down and a mad scramble to hoard hard assets especially Gold would begin. We of course have no gold as Gordon Brown sold it all because he is a genius.

The American dollar briefly and the Chinese Yen would then be the only currencies worth more than the paper they were printed on. The entire globe save for China and America would begin starving and out of desperation a third world war would begin.

China having roughly 2 billion people located around the world, would use the European conflict to begin their campaign to seize control of the entire planet and would overwhelm everyone within approximately eight days. America would enter secret negotiations with China promising them anything they wanted just please don't hit us in the face.

China hits the 'mercans hard in the face and now owns the world. Cutlery is withdrawn from all shops except spoons and anyone caught eating with anything but two sticks is removed for re-education in heaven. Everyone is forced to wear pyjamas at all times and dentistry is outlawed. Mass starvation purges almost 3 billion people from the world's population.


What happens to the few who survive under Chinese rule is anyone's guess. But slavery I imagine will be viewed as a life of luxury only a very privileged few will get to enjoy. I personally cannot contemplate this future without some wee leaking out.

You'll have noticed none of this has been discussed in the main stream media. The printed press preferring to focus on who Ryan Giggs has been sleeping with instead. There is a history of our media ignoring approaching epochal events like wars.

They refused to even acknowledge the second world war had begun until Buckingham Palace had been shelled. Today however we have t'internet and lucky for us we do as now, thanks to me, we have just enough time to evacuate the area.

I'm moving to Japan where I plan to set up a school teaching young girls how to wrestle. I suggest you do the same. This is it people. It's happening. It's every man for himself.

Good luck everyone.

A national treasure

This is absolutely priceless from the Independent. Ninety of the Duke of Edinburgh's best gaffe's. I very nearly shit and pissed myself laughing at these. My favourites are number 3 and 14 Gawd bless you sir.

Transplantation, euthanasia and sandwiches with the vicar

Bollocks to it: the Arthur Schopenhauer's approach to life

I'm afraid it's that time of the year again where we need to discuss serious things. Or one serious thing. THE serious thing. This usually happens sometime in the week or so following my annual review at the big house. I look upon it as emotional house keeping, a time where one just needs to clear the dust off one's dilemmas in case the vicar comes over for sammiches .*

So of course as we know, the results from my annual poking and prodding were not good, but this is simply the nature of the Cystic Fibrosis beast. I am old now at 36. In CF years which I calculate to be 2.5 per healthy human year, I am now 90. A good innings even for a tortoise. The issue at hand is whether we're absolutely sure we don't want a second innings.

* * *

We're of course addressing the transplanting question which is a part of the annual review interrogation assessment which we usually just put a neat line through in red biro. This means in real terms over the past few years my annual review has become nothing but a social visit given there's not really anything else to discuss if I'm not to pursue the transplantation option.

The reasons for my preference in simply fading away at mother nature's discretion has always been a profound discomfort at the notion of having my chest spliced open and my innards replaced with someone else's. But more than that, I've simply never really felt the world was that nice a place to fight that hard to stay in it.

I feel quite assuredly that of all the things that depress, anger and frustrate me, my health is quite far down the list. Consequently my problems would not be solved even if I was blessed with the lungs of a race horse. I would just be able to gasp and sigh more deeply.

I believe a rather inconvenient truth is those undergoing transplant wrongly assume it to be a panacea for all their frustrations and problems in life, not just those directly caused by the illness. Cystic Fibrosis in reality has had as much a positive influence on my life as negative and is ultimately inconsequential in how happy I am. But it takes a long time to realise this and like those anamorphic artwork, this only becomes apparent when it's considered from a very specific point of view.


I don't know anyone who is truly happy. I know lots of people who are deluded and as many people who are almost comatose drifting through life like a husband following his wife through Debenhams, but that's not the same thing. There has to be something fundamentally wrong with that. I live in a rich country with an abundance of everything one could wish for, economic crisis or not, yet almost everyone is miserable and angry.

The first thing vast swathes of the population think about when they first wake up is how desperately they'd like to still be asleep. The weekend exists so millions of people can drink so much that they literally forget who they are. How can that be? Was it always this way or did we take some sort of wrong turn somewhere a few centuries ago? How have we gotten to a place where most people in the country are only truly happy when they're unconscious?

Bliss

However we got here, we are here. And I can't see that I should want to hang around any longer than is absolutely necessary.

A lung transplant is not even a cure anyway. It's maintenance. It's a brutal last ditch attempt to delay death. But it's also an incredible gift at the same time, and given how I am less than enthusiastic about the whole thing, a healthy available pair of lungs really ought to go to someone who would be more appreciative.

This all makes sense to me. But it's this question of how I see the world which needs to be addressed before I can put my duster away. I've often asked myself if I am a fool for letting this opportunity for a new life and a second chance slip away. I don't think I'm a fool. A second, harder question to answer however, is am I scared? Scared of putting myself through the transplantation process?

Do I not wish to have this transplant because of how I see the world, or do I see the world the way I do because I do not wish to have a transplant? Am I simply scared of battling my way through it all and am trying to justify wimping out as it were through a form of conscientious objection?

I've discussed this with myself at length this week and I am satisfied I am not a coward. There's no need either to look at it in those terms, but even if there were, I think it takes more courage to refuse a second chance than to endure the post-transplantation convalescence.

It's the rewards of a new life that are the issue. The state of the world I'd be rejoining. It's like a convict making an application to have his sentence extended, a reverse parole. Allowing fate to decide the issue is far more liberating as much as it can be.

The world is unpleasant not just because of the millions of starving children in third world countries or the wars or the disasters etc etc and the injustice of it all. I'm fairly well detached from those things that I can ignore them without too much trouble nor could I do anything about them if I wasn't.

It's more the people in society who seem hell bent on making life as unnecessarily crap as possible. Everyone is so self-interested now; politicians who ought to be in jail, poorly educated proles with ten children, obsessive political correctness, multiculturalism, people who work in call centers, car park attendants, football fans, celebrities, the Daily Mail, Giles Coren, lefty socialist sandal wearing eco-maniacs, Keith Chegwin and oooh everyone.

The shitness is more suffocating than CF. It's like being imprisoned in one gigantic trap or experiment seeking to measure the levels of human frustration. Well bollocks to that. Like the mouse said, "keep the cheese, I just want out of the trap."

We vastly over-estimate the value of our species and life. We flatter ourselves individually and collectively that we're important and life is to be cherished. We're not and it isn't. We're just programmed to fear death so we all stay alive as long as possible to reproduce. It's an evolutionary whatsaname thingy.

I've known many cases of CF patients who have put themselves through the ordeal of a transplant having promised themselves the world should they succeed only to then spend their lives watching telly and eating Quavers. Their lives no more enriched or happier. Just longer.

They do this for the same reason people who win the lottery end up no happier than they were before. We become complacent. We get used to these gifts quickly and fail to appreciate their value and then they disappear.

In real terms whether we wish to accept it or not, life, as Arthur Shopenhauer so accurately observed, "is so short, questionable and evanescent that it is not worth the trouble of major effort." Fortune is in charge anyway. I'm sure we have very little influence on our own destinies.

By "major effort" incidentally that also means being euthanised when the time comes. This also is too much of an effort. This is not a religious objection. I am as agnostic about the Lord our God and father of the baby Jesus as I am about garden fairies. Just wherever possible the plan is to keep human beings out of the equation. They'd only end up doing it wrong anyway and distressing my loved ones further.

"We're sorry there were complications. I'm afraid he's still alive."

In short it would be a conceit to believe I had any real control over this business. It's embarrassing really how we flatter ourselves in these matters pretending we have some influence over them. So the plan therefore is to continue to let nature take it's course as she sees fit. To not feel persecuted or liberated. It's as you were and why not? And I think that's quite enough dusting for one year. My dilemmas are sufficiently clear. More tea vicar§?


* the vicar coming over for sammiches is of course a metaphor for death. No vicar would ever be welcome to come to my house for sammiches.

§ This is a metaphor for carrying on as we were. I would never offer an actual vicar more tea.

What IS she wearing!?

I hate to sound like a cat owning fat divorcee consumed by a persnickety obsession with enforcing draconian coffee cup washing up rules at work, but Kate Middleton is too thin and needs to start eating cakes again Michelle Obama's get-up if you squint looks like a jelly fish..

I mention this because the trivial is clearly this years' important. Nero is supposed to have played the fiddle while Rome burned. Fast forward 1960 years and while the western world crumbles under monstrous debt and an obsession with eco-bollocks that will all but reverse the Industrial revolution David Cameron and Barack Obama played table tennis.

Well fine then, fine. No fine. But if the suits we've entrusted our futures to don't care, then I shan't either. I will care only that the Duchess of Cambridge's knees are now wider than her thighs and other bollocks.

I will kill time before Mexico play Ecuador this weekend by trying on my hats and re-enacting famous battles with Jelly babies. I suggest you do the same.

Confirmed. We're fucked.

We're fucked. There's really no hope for us. We're doomed. It's every man for himself. If you were in any doubt as to how seriously our politicians are taking the plight of the nation and the crap heaps in which they've unnecessarily landed our armed forces, you just had to watch David Cameron playing table tennis with Barack Obama to have all of your worst fears and suspicions confirmed...they couldn't give a flying fuck.

While we stand inanimate like a domino waiting to be toppled over in an economic Europe-wide melt-down, and while we're fighting two wars, our Prime Ministers meets with the President of the United States not for emergency talks, but to play ping-pong.

I can only assumed they got all the serious business of our impending bankruptcy and the security of the globe squared away by email or something to be able to find the time to fuck around with some school kids and freeing up Obama's schedule affording him time to spend two days with the Queen looking at portraits of famous battles won by the British Army in the 19th century most of which involved us slaughtering Obama's ancestors and stealing their land.

I have a vivid imagination, but even I couldn't conjure up images of Winston Churchill striding out to the wicket at Lords for a photo-op with Franklin D. Roosevelt teaching him the intricacies of a good forward defensive stroke while US and British forces prepared for the D-Day invasion of Normandy.

I like Obama, even if he doesn't know what year it is. But it's clear that he is as lost for answers to his own nation's problems as Cameron is for ours, but at least I think Obama cares that he doesn't have a scoobies what to do.

I think it actually does bother him how monumentally naive he was in his estimation of what he could achieve as President. And I think he is embarrassed just how much he underestimated the task and how ridiculous all those grandiose speeches now seem. Cameron on the other hand is having the time of his life.

They all are. Clegg, the Cabinet, Miliband. They are all shooting off so many gay pheromones it's amazing they have the strength in their legs to stay upright when meeting Obama. I can just imagine Cameron pacing up and down the corridors of number 10 adjusting his tie and smelling his breath every two minutes until the $10m armored Jesus limo finally arrived. Oh my God oh my God oh my God he's here he's here, how do I look?

It's a fucking disgrace really. And it's embarrassing. We used to own Obama's country, both of them. Now our own Prime Minister can't even shake hands with the President of the US of States without climaxing.

If Cameron had any balls and cared about the future of this country he'd have pretended to forget Obama was coming, gone fishing and left him to endure a week of racist jokes from the Duke of Edinburgh. If America is to royally fuck us up again, it's only fair we return the compliment.

"How do you stop five Africans from raping a white girl?"

Pudding of the day sponsored by Avram Grant

Yum

A gallimaufry of random celebs for no reason whatsoever

Lessons to be learnt

From Richard North's EUReferendum site: The story repeats itself

Whatever Transport Secretary Philip Hammond and his ridiculously named "Cobra" emergency response committee may say, or the Met Office, or civil aviation authority, about lessons learnt from last years months long horse shit from dangerous Icelandic ash clouds, they are still fucking everyone around unnecessarily.

The problem is they're using computer models to explain why an Icelandic volcano means we can't fly to the Canary Islands for a week or two of drinks and nookie. The same computer models that have predicted in the past that by the 21st century anyone wishing to venture out to the coast for the weekend will head to Cheltenham.

What is actually needed of course is that fooking airplane with all the gadgetry and the boffins to operate it all, to fly through the ash and around and about it and tell us exactly how dangerous it is.

This was not possibly last year because there's only one plane capable of doing it and it was being painted at the time. Yet with all this guff about lessons learnt, it's also not available now because..it's busy.

You'd have thunk given how many billions of monies the delays must have cost everyone, quite apart from the thousands of people who were stranded in foreign lands without sufficient underpants, they might have considered maybe clubbing together with other EU Governments and fixing up a couple more of these planes just in case like.

But no. Computer models is the way forward still. Computer models the like of which predicted there would be no polar ice caps by 2010, and people in North Western Europe would be barbequing on Christmas day for ever more until it all got so hot we were all burnt alive.

All of them, absolutely sodding useless cunts. And you can quote me.

Skin crawling. Cringe. Can't look. Please no.

I bet he get's this a lot: Cameron high-fiving
a thoroughly pissed off Barack Obama

Obama's visit

Obama shakes the Queen's hand while
the Duke of Edinburgh growls at his wife

Who ate all the rations? Obama frowns at the girth of a fat soldier

Cha cha cha

Sweetie, do tell; is it true what
they say about black men?

Oh pwetty

A word cloud of the last few days' blog entries. I'm having it made into a duvet, which you can buy for £500. Gold!

The honourable gentlemen are making me cross

Order, order!! The honourable gentlemen will refrain from

appointing himself lord chief justice of the whole galaxay

While House of Commons speaker and very small man John Bercow was giving John Hemming a telling off by pointing at him and frowning, across the way in the Ukrainian Parliament, vice-speaker Adam Martynyuk was applying a sort of Vulcan death grip to the wind pipe of Oleg Lyashko who perhaps unwisely had referred to Martynyuk as a 'Pharisee.'

Now of course in a country where some 10 million people were starved to death by Jewish Bolsheviks in the holodomor, this was perhaps not the wisest choice of words or course of action to take when you're denied the opportunity to make a boring speech. But it was necessary and sadly could never happen here.

Go to sleep now cunt: a point of order Ukrainian style.

When Parliament becomes irrelevant, either because the state is so corrupt it's law making process is merely for show or as with our own Parliament it has ceded all power to a larger more sinister body, the MPs have to find ways of remaining relevant.

Violence is the best way of at least being seen to care. Nothing says "passion" like stoving in the head of a member of the opposition with the heel of one's shoe. The problem we have in this country is our MPs just don't get it.

Our Parliament is steeped in the tradition and heritage of over a thousand years of being world war champions and owning almost everything. Not being conquered in a thousand years is unrivaled awesomeness, not even Phil Taylor has shown this level of consistency.

But this is of course not the case now. We're finished as a nation, but our Parliament is still marinating in the stagnant juices of history and the Empire. It's all so very complacent and familiar and familiarity breeds contempt. The self-importance of our Parliament has prevented them from realising they have to spice things up a bit if they're not to drift into total obscurity.

It's not enough anymore for thirty MPs to wave their order papers at each other shouting 'reesign,' or 'bravoooo.' Even the most ill-informed member of the under-classes has now realised our Parliament is pointless and impotent. So if they want the public to re-engage with them and continue the facade that we're still a functioning democracy someone must drive a fountain pen into Chris Huhne's face before it's too late.

We protect those in the public eye from unwarranted intrusion..

Unless you're Ryan Giggs

*My favourite of all these injunctions is of a famous ex-childrens TV present who was photographed crying while wanking on someone's grave! Like something out of a Phillip Roth novel. It's a funny old world to be sure.


One more word on this injunctions business and then I must go out and buy some marshmallows. This whole business of privacy pertains to ones private life no? But surely "private life" in the case of Giggsy refers to his wife and children.

Once he goes outside in public and starts giving arbitrary Welsh strumpets six of the best in the dark corners of night clubs that is surely very much his public life. We're often told how these people are role models. What if a small child walked past as he was humping Ms Thomas in an alleyway?

His image of his hero, like Giggsy himself, would be blown to bits. I've emailed in to the legal system and to God and cc'd Barack Obama and bcc'd Keith Chegwin (for no reason) and reminded them, once you fuck around with people - dead or alive - you aren't married to, you're fair game to appear in the Sunday papers, now stop being silly, that's what I always say.

The rat's out of the bag

And what you are is a lying cheating Welsh bint shagger according to John Hemming MP. I am of course paraphrasing.

Bless her

I promised Kathryn Brown I wouldn't reveal her identity so these
texts were just with someone I know earlier, let's call her CTB.

Alice through the looking glass

Using my cunning I've wagered on some results today which I fancy have no chance of coming in thus, because I everything on the last day of school is always upside down and inside out, I can't fail but to enjoy a return on my investment to the tune of many many monies.

Therefore and with this in mind I shall sit back and enjoy as West Ham, Fulham, Aston Villa and Stoke bring me riches that would make King Midas himself look like the area manager of H. Samual.

*Fuck it West Ham
** Fuck it Stoke
*** Fuck it Fulham

Jocks in we don't give a monkey's about ridiculous English laws shocker

Couldn't happen to a nicer bloke

I look forward to reading Giles Coren's critiques of prison food. We of course don't advocate the throwing of people in prison for gossiping and don't think 17th century star chambers have a place in the 21st century, but we make an exception in this case as he is such an odious self-obsessed cunt.

I say cunt, but of course he has neither the *warmth or depth to deserve such a comparison.


*Joke borrowed from author Amy Sedaris.

Weekend horoscopes

Aries - At least a handful of people will think it's cool that you fucked an expensive prostitute while your wife and children waited for you at home for movie night. However, everyone will think you're a cunt if you take out a super-injunction.

Taurus - I'm afraid there's no justifiable reason to do the school run in your pyjamas.


Gemini - By "making your relationship work" you still appear to mean making him do what you say, isolating him from his friends and denying him even the simple pleasures in life.

Cancer - While it is important to install a sense of discipline in your children, water-boarding them to find out who ate your Toblerone is going too far. Especially as it was your wife.

Leo - There's a heavy concentration of planets in your sign this week which ought to be enough to justify your recent weight gain.

Virgo - One of your strengths is your ability to make objective decisions without your emotions clouding the issue, but you let yourself down this weekend by sucking off three army lads who only wanted directions to a betting shop.

Libra - While it's obviously inconceivable that Rachel from work fancies you or would allow herself to even be alone with you, continue flirting with her anyway because you can't win the lottery if you don't buy a ticket.

Scorpio - You should be on telly, you're so funny.

Sagittarius - Healthy relationships are built on sharing and openness. So it is of course perfectly reasonable to tell your partner what turns you on, just not when it's her 8 year old son.


Capricorn -Look, just pack it in. You know what I'm talking about.

Aquarius - While you're correct in that not all rape is the same, you ought not to physically demonstrate the difference to all those who disagree.

Pisces - Unfortunately you've reached that age now where teenage boys would likely describe you as a "MILF," that is if you didn't weigh 18 stone and look like one of Jabba the Hut's shits in a flannel nightie.

If you can't beat 'em join 'em

So just to be clear, a Premier League footballer, let's call CTB, is asking the High Court to ask Twitter to reveal the identity of a Tweeter - which is to say invade the person's privacy - in order to protect his privacy.

I doubt CTB can spell hypocrite, but I'm sure he knows what one is. A media lawyer cum parasite was wittering on earlier about how the tweeter was the hypocrite for using the anonymity of the interwebs to expose these injunctions, but this is of course bullshit.

These injunctions only serve to protect those very rich individuals and companies who have fucked someone. Either literally or metaphorically royally fucked someone. And if you're exposed you deserve it.

Back in the day as Raedwald explains you couldn't ask the courts to protect you if you wanted a wrong protected. As there's no such thing as a crime anymore or behaviour that is morally wrong, this is no longer the case.

Effectively an injunction is just applying to be above the law. It's something we should all aspire to instead of being frumpy and angry about it. I'm afraid we're doomed in every conceivable way and it's every man, woman and CTB for him or her or itself.

Good luck everyone.

Adishnul ** What I just sort of said only better explained by a legal boffin (@_MillyMoo on the twitters) - Beneath The Wig

Rapture!!

I've been taken. I'm freeeeeee.

Rapture song of the day

I dedicate this song to the Subway Meatball sammich lest my dearest Marinara not know how much I love her.

DTD Grand-Prix tournament report

Oxygen atoms sharing electrons yesterday

So now then with just a few hours to go before I get to either meet God or meet a fiery sort of earth quakey death, I better leave my experiences at DTD on Thursday to posterity should poker not exist in the new life.

If you're in a hurry, it was a bit shit. If you're not I'll elaborate.

I hadn't played anything resembling proper poker for some time, six months at least. Who knows what the young whipper snappers had done to the game in that time?

Imagine being a parent and leaving your teenage progeny at home for six months while you go on holiday. The sort of state your house would be in when you returned was how I imaged the poker landscape to have changed. A whole new lexicon of silly poker terms, all manner of ridiculous bet sizing and appalling headwear.

In fact it was OK. I had been blessed initially with a very soft table to ease myself back into the game and was up to 15k from a 10k starting stack within about five minutes. Some proper players then joined the table and it toughened up a bit, but I had found my sea legs by then and was doing OK.

It was a nice table too, very pleasant chatty and cordial. All the reasons why I started playing the game in the first place. Unfortunately our table then broke and I joined another one populated by the kind of petty wankers who make me not want to play the game.

My chips started bleeding away as a guy sat two to my right was playing every hand and this prevented me from really opening any pots with the usual junk I like to mess about with and I had no hands to speak of for many many levels to play back at him.

By the time this table broke I was down to about 7-8K having found no answers to the conundrums set by 'playing every hand' guy and my enthusiasm for the event had long since departed.

At my new table, I was immediately charged with the Big Blind. It's an age old excuse and a silly one, but after a raise and a re-raise, I decided the pocket tens in my possession were good enough for an all-in manoeuvre as it was the best hand I'd seen for hours.

Initial raiser guy folded, re-raiser guy called with Jacks and I slumped off for a flat and unpalatable bacon sammich. Good game me.

As a sub-plot to this I had of course meant this to be an occasion to begin getting used to wearing O2 in public. I failed. I couldn't manage it and consequently I was unable to play cash with some pissed blokes who appeared to need their money taking off them as I was knackered.

Speaking of O2, to further my feeling of inadequacy from not having any answers to the various poker questions posed of me, Alan then completely randomly without any warning bombarded me with pissed physics questions I couldn't answer either and which made my face hurt.

He'd already asked me on the journey up to Nottingham why O2 was called O2 and not just O, on which I drew a blank. And now at 1am he was asking me to explain what the universe was expanding into and whether a Casio wrist watch sent into space would, according to theory of relativity, be a few minutes slower when it returned. How we didn't crash is a miracle.

I don't fucking know

What I did learn however, was that I need a certain measure of alcohol to be competitive at the poker tables and to make stuff up when people ask me things I don't know. Not blind drunk, not BANZAI! drunk, just nicely 'don't give a monkey's' drunk. Somewhere between three and four pints of German beer.

If the Rapture people have miscalculated again and the world in fact does not come to an end tomorrow, I may venture over to the Londons with Alan again next weekend to the Fox pokering establishment for whatever's going on there, but only if I've got time in the intervening days to learn everything so I can at least answer Alan's questions if I fail again to answer the pokering ones.