The early riser

[peterbirks]

One of the advantages of scouring the news in the early morning as part of your job is that you see snippets that might be of value. The news that McGrath might miss the fourth test after sustaining an injury was enough to make me check out the price on England. It doesn't look to me as if this has filtered through to the 4.1 available, so I had a small interest, with the intention, of course, of trading it back before the game starts. Be interesting to see how important McGrath is rated, given his ineffectiveness in the previous test.

+++++

This morning London seemed to set a record for degeneracy. It used to be that my walk from Charing Cross to work at 6.40 was a peacful journey. No Longer. Today we had two screaming drunks on the platform as I arrived, plus another comatose drunk being loaded onto the train by his friends. Then there were three or four nutter drunks outside the 24-hour Chinese restaurant on Wardour Street ("established 1997", it says, proudly, in neon), and then the final coup de gras, a scamster just north of Oxford Street. Conversation went like this.

"Excuse me"
"Excuse me".
I turn to listen to the 25-year-old or so Asian guy.
"It's okay, I'm not going to ask for anything" (At this point I know that this is a scam. The rest is just entertainment).
"I've got money" (waves five pound note). "But, the thing is. I was getting really worried. You're the sixth guy I've asked and most of them have ignored me, and ...."
"Look, what you are doing is trying to quickly establish a relationship. You have one second. Why are you talking to me?"
"Well, I've locked myself out of my car, and ..."
"No problem. That happened to me. We'll go to the police station and they have keys to help you out".
"I've already tried that."
"So how am I meant to help you when the police won't?"
Scamster gives up, walks across street in search of another mark.
"It's a scam, mate, Ignore him."

Just one final strike from Pete, there.

Fortunately I made the last 200 yards to work without seeing one drunk, con artist, drug addict or psychopath. Quite an achievement, really.

Comments

Back to scamming

[geoffchall.livejournal.com]

Just back from Vegas and other parts American. For some reason I had expected Vegas to have similar on-street scamming but never saw anything like that. Maybe there is stuff like that downtown, but the Strip doesn't seem to benefit from these delights. It does have the surreal bunch of hustlers dishing out the prostitutes' cards wearing the charmingly direct 'Strippers 4 You' T-shirts.

It takes a bit of a mind-shift to remember the relaxed laws on prositution in Nevada, but even so, $44 does seem to be a bit on the cheap side - although of course that's the before taxes (and frills) price.

I did find the place jaw-droppingly bizarre. The concentration of all that money and sheer excess into 2-3 miles of one road is incredible. I didn't find it too hot (it was about 105-108 most of the time), but I can live with that so long as I'm not in the gym or running. Liked the hotel, although I understand people's complaint that the Luxor is gloomy - all that black glass and 40 watt bulbs has an effect.

Hated the casinos. I have a built-in aversion to manipulation like all that piping fresh bread smells into supermarkets. Thus the ways in which walk-through routes to everything are channelled through the machines and the gaming rooms irritated me immensely. I went with a vague intention to possibly dabble a bit, but this meant that every penny stayed in my pocket (or rather it went on shopping and eating).

The one thing I liked most was the egalitarianism of the whole place. Nicki and I were strolling round at 1.30am waiting for her 'A' level results and wandered into the Bellagio. We were in scruffy shorts, flip-flops and T-shirts, but were mingling with people obviously dressed up to nines and no-one batted an eyelid, nor did we feel uncomfortable or out of place.

Nicki picked up her 3 A's (and a B in Gen Studies) at a payphone on the Southern end of the stip. Nicely surreal and this means she'll be off to UCL in a month.

Pub Hours

[(Anonymous)]

Peter,

It seems the reason you brits have to put up w/drunks on early morning commutes is clear: the pubs don't open early enough! Let them pubs open for biz every morning at 6a.m. and the drunks and scamsters will be hustling an even earlier crowd around 5:30 a.m. for the price of their first pint and you will have a peaceful walk to work. I'd get on to your MP about this if I were you.

BluffTHIS!

Re: Pub Hours

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

It's funny that you should mention this, Bluff. In the old days, when I was a drinker, the pubs tended to open at 11am, although those of us desperate for booze before then could always find a friendly newsagent's/off licence that would sell us booze at 8am.

However, when I was in New York (when, as you know, the bars often stay open until 4am), it was virtually impossible to find a bar that opened in the morning. I eventually found one on 2nd Avenue, but I think that I was the only person in there drinking beer. Of course, if I lived in New York, it wouldn't have been a problem — I would have known where to find beer at any hour.

The London problem is a result of late-night drinking clubs -- some legal, some shady after-hours places. I frequently come across the detritus of the previous night's partying, including some "ladies of the night" who are either up very late or up very early. London has already become a 12-month city -- now it's on its way to being a 24-hour city.

BTW, the peak time to be approached by prostitutes on the Strip in Vegas is between 4.30am and 7am during the week. They call it a 24-hour city, but it ain't. I've walked from the MGM to the Boardwalk in the early early morning, before dawn or even the hint of dawn, and seen hardly a person or a car. As with London, Vegas attains a weird kind of beauty when all that architecture, built for crowds, stands abandoned, like a deserted family.

Re: Pub Hours

[(Anonymous)]

What do you suppose the scam was?

btw - I suspect the Mcgrath news had filtered through, England were bigger I believe - one sure fire way of checking whether or not the news is fresh is to look at the charts (trading).

Re: Scams

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

I did look at the charts. That's why I thought that the price had "further to go". No loss if it hadn't -- I can chuck it out at a small loss or let it run.

The scam would involve relieving me of some sum of money to get a cab to an urgent meeting, or back to Queen's Park where he had a spare set of keys. Or whatever. The guy would give me some kind of promise to pay and a false name and address. I guess that the actual sum would be between ten quid and twenty quid, depending on how well-off he thought I was.

Their skill is in the fast establishment of a relationship or, rather, an imagined relationship on the part of the sucker. Once you spot this, these scams are relatively easy to resist and deflect. You simply say "I do not have any relationship with you". This mantra never fails.

Interestingly, I once had a guy try something on me at the Stratosphere. Cunningly, he pulled open the door for me where there is a long corridor to the main part of the casino (and a longer walk after that to where the poker room was), so I had to suffer him walking next to me for a good five minutes while he established this "relationship" between us (well, he thought he did). Only at the end after the build-up that it was his 21st birthday and he had just broken up with his girlfriend and he was down from Chicago to celebrate (he wasn't, I caught him out on Chicago...) did he deliver the punchline on how he just needed $15. He didn't get it.

Note also how Craig Grant used this technique at a final table. He talked to a player (who went on to win the tournament) for much of the time, sitting close to him, establishing "friendship". Then, when the potential mark collected his winnings, it was "you couldn't spare me a nifty until Monday, could you?" To the unwary, you can be drawn in, not realizing that you have done nothing towards the creation of this non-existent friendshuip. And, not wishing to be rude to a "friend", you lend the money. Just remember the mantra "Craig (or whatever), there is no relationship between us apart from the one you have created in your own mind".

Re: Scams

[(Anonymous)]

I find being a Sociopath helps a lot with these situations :-)

JG

Re: Scams

[(Anonymous)]

Very good advice, and as you say, an excellent mantra.
On the scam, I thought you said he was waving £5 notes, but you didn't it was a £5 note.

On BF, I think the price had dropped form 4.5 to 4.1. Where you've been unlucky is the poor weather, which has seen the draw price fall some more - you should have hedged and layed Australia too, thus nullifying the draw/weather.

Re: Scams

[(Anonymous)]

Hi Peter,

In the states here, very often the scammers/beggers, especially the alky-need-money-to-buy-booze type, will start off when they accost you by saying, "Excuse me sir, can I ask you a question?". My response is, "You just did", and I keep walking.

BluffTHIS!