Poker Woes

My God! It just got worse. Now I can't win a hand, let alone a tournament. Here's my latest list of exits:

• My KK meets AA;
  
• JJ knocks out my QQ;
  
• A5s overtakes my AJ;
  
• A8s knocks out my 22;
  
• My AKs fatally meets KK;
  
• KQ overtakes my A8;
  
• My AT meets TT to knock me out.

It goes on for game after game after game of good hands either meeting monsters or being overtaken by the river. Bad beat stories, all of them of course, and part of the poker player’s lot, so I promise never to bore you with them again.

Yet I’m still within bankroll, to the tune of over $200 if I could ever figure out how to get my money out of Neteller. One of the poker mags recently printed a letter complaining about them, so I wonder if they're quite delivering the goods.

All together, I’m losing a lot of enthusiasm. Maybe this blog will save me financially. Please feel free to press the Donate button. (Just joking.)

What We Don't Know We Don't Know

I’m very detached about the state of the planet these days. Oddly, the recent success of the BNP brought this home to me. I commented to a friend that the Greens have had seats in the Euro Parliament for years without making the slightest impact on policy, so why worry about one fascist in the building? Cynical or what?

But I do care about the environment. Not so much for the human race as for all the other species we'll drag down with us and indeed Earth itself – still as far as we know the only place like it in the universe. It’s sickening and frustrating, which is a mere irritation compared with the bother of being abused, persecuted, slaughtered and finally driven to extinction. How would albatrosses, say, feel about this, if they could feel and express it?

One small incident reported by the RSPB, concerning a bird of prey but part of an endemic problem in Malta, is typical. The final episode of Planet Earth provided grim statistics. It goes on and on and it’s up to us to feel the pain.

I guess that's part of the motivation behind this blog. We don't even know the half of what's out there, so how can we feel for it? Surely we could just get present to the fantastic riches that are available right now in the wild world without having to consume them at all. And keep being present to them.

I certainly want to spread the awareness and if I can entertain at the same time, then job done.

The First Singapore Evening, 2008

From Heathrow to Changi; from relative squalor to a 21st-century airport. I exchanged my unspent Barcelona euros to Singapore dollars commission-free, my luggage appeared in time and I could have caught a train downtown. I opted for a taxi instead: I was knackered and certainly didn't fancy struggling my suitcase through rain over the final leg to the hotel.

Not for the last time on the trip, I wondered at the complexity of my driver’s route to my destination. Did he know of one-way restrictions, diversions or bottlenecks that weren't obvious from a map? The tour certainly gave him time to spout off about his Europe experiences and to drive me past the prostitutes.

“Chinese,” he explained.

OK, my hotel was in the red-light district. I seem to have an unfailing instinct for that but he didn't have to go on about it. Geylang was also a fine eating area and I was ravenous, so, studiously avoiding eye-contact with any female, I checked out restaurants, finally to settle on the one closest to the hotel. The odd rain-burst made that seem wise.

Then off to a proper bed for the first time in thirty hours. ⇐ ⇒

A Successful Twitch, Not

Black terns around the Midlands and two early morning reports from Bittell sent Dave and me there just after breakfast. The first problem was to clear the car’s glove compartment drawer out of his way: the catch has broken, which doesn't matter if I have no passenger. I hurriedly dismantled the whole thing and it now lies on my back seat, probably until I get passengers there, which could be many years.

On arrival we decided to check the lower reservoir first. I had my scope’s tripod at half mast because it’s easier to carry and fits in the car where the fully extended legs don't. But it is not as stable and certainly not stable enough for the slope on which I plonked it. Clunk, thud. I got semi-lucky with the optics themselves crashing into earth but the shock was fatal for the tripod head. It may have been weakening for a while.

Deep joy.

We dipped on the tern, even after trudging up to the top reservoir. Steve Payne -- for he, as we had guessed, had reported the bird -- hailed us on the way off the dam to say that it had showed only briefly.

Well, here's a picture of a black tern, just to cheer us all up.

Starfish - Edinburgh Evening News

Finally Starfish has hit the Web without any glitches. Go watch! Go watch!