Don't worry, be happy

It's nice to see that Lottery money is going to be used to help Londoners to be happier. Unfortunately the general thrust of this is "Be more optimistic, take more exercise, and grow vegetables in your window box". I already grow peppers and chillis; I take exercise (if anything, I might over-train), and the recommendation to 'be more optimistic' is something I try at, really. But there might be a reason that Londoners as a rule are not an optimistic bunch. As the opposition MP might have said on The Thick Of It "It's the shit door. It's the door that you open when you want to feel like shit".

It's perpetually fascinating when people from the outlands, responding madly to the mildest criticism of their own region (e.g, writing the line "I drove for miles in Leicestershire without finding a petrol station" would generate dozens of responses from Leicesterites saying that it is all your fault, not Leicestershire's) by launching into their own diatribe against London. This totally misses the points that (a) this is no kind of counter-argument and (b) I would probably agree with most of the points made anyway. It doesn't take away from the point that one reason the place is so horrible is that there are very few Londoners in it. London is like a flat that's rented rather than a home that's owned. We all know that the former is not kept in as good as a condition as the latter. Which is a bit of a bummer for we permanent residents.

Anyhoo, it's nice to get some lottery money for a change; call it a part-exchange for our three hundred quid a year extra that we'll be paying until I die for the privilege of watching some drugged up Asians winning all the swimming medals in 2012.

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Of course, another reason for London getting it in the neck is that a large proportion of the people who come here from outside don't really want to be here in the first place. It's just here is where the jobs are.

I'm beginning to wonder how the people in their 20s today are going to cope when the next recession hits. It's now 16 years since the last kick-you-in-the balls "I'll never get a job again" recession. Certainly most of the people in this office can't really imagine the idea of being unable to get any job. Not being unable to get the job that you want, but being unable to get any job, even one that you don't want but you are willing to do "because you need the money". This is a bit like being the really popular and good-looking girl at university. It's not exactly good training for learning to cope with how horrible the real world can be.

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I played like a total donk last night, and I still won a bit of money. This convinced me of two things. The first is that a sound mental state is nearly all that matters when it comes to winning at No Limit. If you only play when you feel 100%, you will clean up from people who are playing when they aren't 100%. The trick, of course, is getting to feel 100%. Last night I didn't feel great. I was tired and a bit grouchy. Net result was being too laggy, calling when I shouldn't, and spunking away cash.

The second point was that the fact that I still won money; this was either evidence that I ran particularly well (which I didn't -- the shortish tilto-episode was caused by me running badly against a donk) or that there's a sufficient gap in class that I really ought to be hammering away at the $200 buy-ins, rather than working on auto-pilot at $50 buy-ins or semi auto-pilot at $100.

The catch is that one of "make sure you feel 100%". That's such a rare feeling for me these days that I'm perpetually worried that I'm setting myself up for a $600 loss.

To which, of course, my more rational side should reply: "so what?"


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