Weird moments
Jan. 9th, 2006 07:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
peterbirksA surreal instant this morning. With Saint Etienne's marvellous track "Teenage Winter" (from the album about London Tales From Turnpike House) playing on the Rio, and the sight of the BT Tower (a la the front flap of Ian McEwan's novel Saturday) in front of me, I suddenly felt an incredible love for my city. Now, considering how I spend much of my time berating the place these days, this was an unusual occurrence indeed. I guess we have the voice of Sarah Cracknell, the pleasant freshness of the morning, and the complete solitude to thank.
Although the current trend amongst journalists appears to be to calaim that the major influence on any new band was XTC (presumably indicating the age of most modern music journalists), I think that, at least in the case of Hard-Fi and, the admittedly rather longer-in-the-tooth Saint Etienne, we have to hark back to the Kinks. Blur were perhaps the first 90s band to really try to reinvent The Kinks, but Hard-Fi's track "Feltham Is Singing Out" and Saint Etienne's "concept" album Turnpike House owe more to Ray Davies than to anyone else.
Last week was perhaps the quietest I have seen London for many a year. Not only were a fair proportion of London workers still on holiday, but most of the tourists seemed to have vanished. Walking back to the train station via Leicester Square was not the normal duck and dive to avoid bumping into sky-staring groups of Japanese tour groups, European school trips or people of undefinable nationality recognizable only in that they tended to be overweight and wearing baseball caps.
But, last week, none of these groups was there. Luvverly.
++++
From the Pokerstars blog. An indication of how tournaments are going to be won (and lost) in the coming year. If you are the kind of guy who used to win lots of pots by moving all-in here, beware. These days, you are going to need the best hand.
Joe Marcal, a $33-rebuy PokerStars qualifier playing in his first major event has just won an almost uncountable pot. On a flop of K63 rainbow, Marcal check-raised Christian Grundtvig to 60,000. Grundtvig responded by moving in the rest of his formidable stack. Marcal fell into the tank, thinking for nearly five minutes before stacking, unstacking, the re-stacking his chips. He put his card protector on top of his cards and appeared as if he was going to fold. Instead, he said, "I have to call." He turned over KJ. Grundtvig, looking disgusted, turned over a pair of eights. An ace and queen on the turn and river didn't help Grundtvig. He's still alive, but now sitting on a fairly short stack.
Presumably Grundtvig will bemoan his bad luck and repeat the by now well-worn mantra of "but I got all my chips in first".
Yep, and a lot of good it did you.
Although the current trend amongst journalists appears to be to calaim that the major influence on any new band was XTC (presumably indicating the age of most modern music journalists), I think that, at least in the case of Hard-Fi and, the admittedly rather longer-in-the-tooth Saint Etienne, we have to hark back to the Kinks. Blur were perhaps the first 90s band to really try to reinvent The Kinks, but Hard-Fi's track "Feltham Is Singing Out" and Saint Etienne's "concept" album Turnpike House owe more to Ray Davies than to anyone else.
Last week was perhaps the quietest I have seen London for many a year. Not only were a fair proportion of London workers still on holiday, but most of the tourists seemed to have vanished. Walking back to the train station via Leicester Square was not the normal duck and dive to avoid bumping into sky-staring groups of Japanese tour groups, European school trips or people of undefinable nationality recognizable only in that they tended to be overweight and wearing baseball caps.
But, last week, none of these groups was there. Luvverly.
++++
From the Pokerstars blog. An indication of how tournaments are going to be won (and lost) in the coming year. If you are the kind of guy who used to win lots of pots by moving all-in here, beware. These days, you are going to need the best hand.
Joe Marcal, a $33-rebuy PokerStars qualifier playing in his first major event has just won an almost uncountable pot. On a flop of K63 rainbow, Marcal check-raised Christian Grundtvig to 60,000. Grundtvig responded by moving in the rest of his formidable stack. Marcal fell into the tank, thinking for nearly five minutes before stacking, unstacking, the re-stacking his chips. He put his card protector on top of his cards and appeared as if he was going to fold. Instead, he said, "I have to call." He turned over KJ. Grundtvig, looking disgusted, turned over a pair of eights. An ace and queen on the turn and river didn't help Grundtvig. He's still alive, but now sitting on a fairly short stack.
Presumably Grundtvig will bemoan his bad luck and repeat the by now well-worn mantra of "but I got all my chips in first".
Yep, and a lot of good it did you.
