Sales jobs
Earlier I wrote about the 'interview' I had with La Maison d'Essence. I left the meeting at the earliest opportunity and never followed up what would have happened if I had stayed. I suspect that I would have been made to sell copycat perfumes to friends and family for a few weeks before being told that I hadn't hit target and then dumped.

I haven't always been so shrewd. After I got made redundant from Sanwa Bank in late 1996, I was interested in getting some sales experience for when I might start a business of my own. I saw an advert for a sales job in East Finchley and went along to it. The company had in the past published a reference book called 'The Parliamentary Yearbook'. This year, the idea was to publish it as a CD-Rom for the first time. The job was just to sell advertising space. It involved making cold calls to managing directors.

The pitch was to insinuate, without ever stating it, that you were a civil servant. Instead of phoning up and saying 'I'm calling from XXX Ltd, publishers of the Parliamentary Yearbook', you were told to say that you were calling from the 'Parliamentary Information Office'. You started by saying 'As you know in your industry, it's of the utmost importance that [here you filled in something that was specific to the industry]. Well that and other key factors are going to be addressed in a forthcoming report by [the goverment minister for the industry]. In order that you can add your voice to the report, we are offering you the chance to comment on the issue and in addition there will be space for a full corporate profile. In order to underwrite our free distribution to X thousand goverment offices and businesses, there is a charge. It's X for the full page and Y for the half page. Would you like the full or the half?'

Of course you rarely ever got through the whole pitch without being interrupted, but it did happen sometimes. I lasted about 9 days without getting a single deal. It wasn't that I couldn't do it. I was given an impossible sector: translation bureaux. Most were small business with only a couple of translators and trying to get them to spend #500 when their Yellow Pages ad that brought them all their business cost about the same was a complete waste of time.

You were not expected to use your real name. Names were made up for everyone. Place names and product names are good as they are easier for people to spell. So there was a Mr Lancaster, Mr Wilkinson and so on.

Only one man in the whole office made any real sales. He was pitching the airlines, who had far more money to waste. He was younger than me (about 25 at the time) but his voice made him sound a lot older and he would pretend to be about 60. I heard him say things like 'Ha ha ha. Yes my grandaughter's tried explaining computers to me but I don't get it at all'. You have to imagine the slackness in the vocal cords to get the full flavour of it. It was hilarious to watch, espectially as he used to march up and down on the tables in the office wearing a furry hat with antlers sticking out of it while he was talking to the head of some airline. I'll never forget the time he was telling one of them which of the competitors had already booked (one of the most convincing arguments for any paid employee who isn't spending his own money) and he said 'I think we have Virgin. Let me check.' He then turned to nobody in particular and asked 'Have we got Richard? ... ... Yes! Richard's on board'.

I would recommend that anyone should try and spend a week in one of these 'boiler room' operations. You learn a lot about how people operate and how to isolate the actual decision maker in any organisation.

A friend of mine is far better at it than I was and has at times scratched a living out of it. The fact that he was fantastically talented at it and only made a small return should let you know what a waste of time it is to believe all those ads that tell you that someone in the office made #3,000 last week. He has pitched under a hundred false names. My favourite is 'Leroy Von Fame' - a subtle reference to the character of Leroy from "Fame" - a hit TV show from the early 1980s.

La Maison d'Essence
Has anyone else ever gone to an interview for a company that calls itself 'La Maison d'Essence'. I did a few years ago and it was a most strange affair.

I went to a first interview in a building in Wembley and was later that day told that I was accepted to come to a second interview at the end of the week. The latter wasn't so much an interview as a seminar. There were about fifty of us there. The first thing that we were told was that for every one of us there, another five had already been rejected. I found this hard to accept. My first interview had taken about 20 minutes and I saw no other candidates hanging around before I was there or after I left. Yet somehow they had seen about 250 other people, presumable between Monday and Thursday of that week, as the second 'interview' was on the Friday.

We were sat in rows and told about the amazing opportunities to be had in selling copycat perfumes and aftershaves, which they referred to as 'renditions'. They claimed it was totally legal.

The first few weeks were supposed to be spent on selling and it wasn't made entirely clear how we were supposed to get our sales leads, though the mention of friends and family made me suspicious. I looked around to see whether anyone was as untrusting as I, but instead I saw a sea of serious faces all writing down the nonsense being spouted by the speaker, who looked all of 19 years of age. In fact the company didn't seem to employ anyone older than 20.

When they asked us for personal information, I made my excuses and left. I can't find anything about the company on Google. This makes me more suspicious.

Has anyone else here ever come across this company?

DY

P.S. In case this looks familiar, it is a copy of a post I wrote on the Hendon Mob forum.

He's the real deal
There is a common argument, usually brought out by Bush-haters when they are losing an argument, that 'Bush isn't the real president. He lost in Florida'. It is used to undermine his authority.

It's nonsense.

The 2000 US election was certainly one of the closest of all time, but nevertheless Bush won it, regardless of what you hear.

Here's why: Florida is on two time-zones. The majority of the state is on EST (Eastern Standard Time). But there is a small area known as the 'panhandle' which is on Central Time and is thus one hour behind.

On the night of the election, after voting had ceased in the majority of Florida, the television networks, led by NBC, declared that the state had gone to Al Gore at 7.49 Eastern Time, which was 6.49 Central Time. Polls closed on both sides at 7pm. The effect was that many thousands of people in the Central Time Zone's 10 Florida counties didn't bother to vote at all, as they thought that it was a 'fait accompli'. There was still another 11 minutes for voters in the panhandle to reach the polls and those who were in line at 7pm as the doors closed had extra time to cast their votes.

The affected parts of the state are overwhelming Republican. The effect was that Bush lost an estimated 10,000 votes - far more than Gore ever claimed to have lost to the 'hanging chads' incidents.

So let's hear no more about 'Governor Bush'. He won. He's the president. That's it.

Back ... shortly.
As most people know, I'm a firm atheist and rather than apologising for not being able to believe in something that I find implausible and often immoral, I prefer to go on the attack. So from time to time, I like to follow the discussions on a newsgroup called 'alt.bible.errancy'. One day, just to stir things up, I wrote to ask:

In the first verse of Revelations, it talks about things that are due to happen 'shortly'. The things have not happened and 2000 years have passed. How do those who take the bible literally account for this? There is no definition of the word 'shortly' that means 'in 2000 years or more'.

First reply I got was from Tim S, who is on my side, but has studied the bible in far greater detail than I. He wrote:

After the turn of the first century CE, the expectation of an imminent return began to wane and around 120 CE the expectation of a quick return pretty much died. We see evidence of this in 2nd Peter where the author is answering those who understood the failed predictions of Jesus and is saying that Jesus will come but God doesn't want any to perish so God is holding off till more can be saved and the interesting thing to note here is the author doesn't try to argue that Jesus will come back soon.

That's why I date 2nd Peter well into the 2nd century, possibly around 115. The imminent return was just getting ready to die off completely but here the author still believes he's living in the last days so I wouldn't date it later than say 140 CE because only an idiot would continue to think the "last days" would last from the mid fifties to 150 or a hundred years. Even the author of 2nd Peter began to suspect something was up and offered this apology for Jesus' "lateness".

2nd Peter verses 3 to 9:
First of all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. They will say, "Where is this 'coming' he promised?

Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation." But they deliberately forget that long ago by God's word the heavens existed and the earth was formed out of water and by water. By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed.

By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgement and destruction of ungodly men. But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.

Jason G., A christian who believes in the literal inerrancy of the bible, then appeared offering clarity ... for a price:

The answer to this question is quite simple. It's in my book. Link below.

JG

"The Skeptic's Annotated Bible: Corrected and Explained" Nearly 4,000 clarifications of the scriptures! Link: http://sab.jcsm.org

Which wasn't entirely generous of him. It is however very brave of him to offer to 'clarify' the scriptures, as the last page of Revelations contains a curse on those who add or subtract from it.

Specifically it says in Rev Ch22 Verse 18 to 19: 'For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book. If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: and if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.'

Tim came back with a very good point:

Jesus' followers, including the writer of Revelation believed Jesus was to return "soon". He didn't so Jason and the Bible are wrong. Anyway, Jason, can you provide another example in the Bible where "shortly" or "soon" is used and the referenced event occurred 2000 or more years later? For the anonymous writer of 2 Peter to be correct, you would have to find such an example. You won't.

And the discussion has faltered there. Nothing more has been heard from Jason, but somehow I feel confident that he'll be back .... shortly.

Men of his calibre are hard to replace
I went to an all-boys school. It's the tragedy of my life. The school was situated at the top of a hill in High Wycombe. At the bottom of the hill was an all-female public (ie. private) school called Wycombe Abbey.

When I was 15, we were informed that there was an opportunity to attend a debate to be staged between the two schools. I was keen to go. Just think: the chance to meet girls and get into an argument - a double whammy. Sadly the subject of the debate was totally uninspiring (something to do with the benefits of a classical education). I was keen for an education of a more practical kind: the opportunity to talk to girls of my own age. I had read 'How to win friends and influence people' by Dale Carnegie and was confident that I had a sufficient theoretical understanding of how to behave.

I went to the debate and got thoroughly bored by it, as did most, before the highlight of the evening came: the chance to have dinner with girls who were more insulated from boys than I was from girls.

But disaster struck and it came in a way that I could not have possibly forseen. What could go wrong? The answer is that the debate took place on the same night that news emerged of the death of a minor celebrity. His name was Jon-Erik Hexum and he was the star of a show called 'Cover Up'. I doubt that many remember him or the show. He was a good looking man. Sadly, he wasn't too clever. His death came in a totally stupid way. On the set of the show, he decided, as a prank, to pick up a stunt gun and point it at his own forehead and pulled the trigger! It wasn't suicide. It was sheer stupidity.

I'd heard the rumour at school that day and the news reached the girl's school that night. The girls were all horrified, but to my friend Tony and myself, it was hilarious. It seemed the perfect revenge that someone so good looking and so obviously blessed with all the luck one could hope for lacked only the intelligence not to stick a loaded gun to his head and squeeze the trigger for a joke.

The more the girls at the dinner table wailed, the funnier Tony and I found it. Slowly we sensed that we were not winning any friends, but it was too late.

Many years later I briefly considered a career in HTML programming and studied the first few chapters of a book about it. While fiddling about on the PC, I typed in Hexum's name out of the blue to see whether anyone at all remembered him. To my surprise, I found that there were several memorial sites dedicated to the memory of his short life.

Like this one. Click here!

Right then and there, I knew that it was pointless to pursue a career in website development if there were people out there building sites for free to someone who had been dead since 1984.

So Jon-Erik, your career may have been short and may now be long forgotten, but you totally shredded my chances of pulling a posh bird when I was a teenager. You bastard.

P.S. Cover Up must have been one of those cursed shows like Superman and Diff'rent Stokes. Hexum was replaced by an Australian actor in a similar role. He died of AIDS in 1995.

Water finds its own level
Pot-limit players who play limit poker for the first time often come out shocked at some of the calls they see other players making and complain that you 'can't make a move'. They are usually told 'You were playing low limit. If you move up to the bigger games, it's not like that'.

Well I've spent several hours today and yesterday playing the $30/60 hold'em on Pokerstars and I have to say that it's complete crap. Perhaps it's partly because yesterday was the 4th July (US Independence Day) and the site has a 20 per cent deposit bonus, but I have seen some truly horrendous play. Certain players I have marked down as not to be bluffed under any circumstances.

As I write this, I've just seen someone win a $867 four-way pot with Queen-Seven. Oops. I've just won a $1,227 pot with Jack-Eight! What? I was in the small blind, it was multiway and it was suited.

There are people with more money than most willing to gamble it up in the big games just as much as those in the $4/8. The tightest games are those with the semi-pros who know how to play tight, but don't have the bankroll or the tolerance for large swings. By far the worst limit game I've ever been in was a $10/20 hold'em game that started one morning in the Mirage when I was there in 2002. It was not a game. It was a hostage situation! I was lucky that I got called out to a different game after 15 minutes as I could feel Stockholm Syndrome setting in.

The next tightest game I played was another morning game: $8/16 in the Bellagio. It was obvious that the game would be no good, as the players all knew each other (must be locals) and one of them was complaining about the rake he'd paid in Atlantic City (grousing about the rake is a clear tip-off that someone is playing for their rent money). But the casino soon started another game at the same limit and I transferred to that one. I expected the rest of the rocks to follow me and none of them did. They carried on talking about their cats and dogs, oblivious to the fact that the second game was clearly much better.

I never understand how so many strong players can ignore the importance of game selection. It's one of the most vital aspects of winning play - albeit one that you don't see on Late Night Poker! Imagine Jesse May commenting on that. 'Holy Cow. David's been offered the seat. He's not sure. He's asking Brian for more time to think about it. He paces up and down. Two faces he's not seen before. That's good, but one of them has only got #150 in front of him. That leaves three professionals and four strong non-pros. He's looking at the other names on the list to see who's coming next. Hmm. A few initials he doesn't like. That's it. He's passed. So Barny, do you think he was right to pass?'

My feelings about George W. Bush
I have been challenged to explain what I feel were the US motives for the war against Iraq and I have promised to write about them on this site. As a chronic procrastinator, I have put it off, as it's a mammoth task.

So I won't attempt to cover the whole topic now, but will instead start to outline some of my feelings about the current US president. It might surprise many of you to know that I was totally against him ever getting the job in the first place! My oh my how that has changed!

I fully expected to hate George W. Bush.

I didn't like the idea of the son of a former president becoming president himself (it's happened before. John Quincy Adams, the 6th president, was the son of John Adams, the 2nd president), as it seemed somehow bad for democracy. He also seemed like a lightweight with little clear idea of why he wanted the job. I was fully convinced that he would lose the Republican party's nomination, as his opponent, John McCain, seemed far more mature and had been a veteran of the Vietnam War, something that marked him in stark contrast to both Clinton and Gore.

When Bush won his party's nomination, I thought that the Republicans had shot themselves in the foot. Sure, he was younger, but he was much less well informed. In a famous ambush interview he was asked for the names of key foreign political leaders and was completely stuck for an answer. When the election campaign started I fully expected him to lose and if I had had any money at all then, I would have bet the lot on Gore. It's a lucky thing I was skint at the time :) .

He was neck and neck with Gore in the polls prior to the televised debates and this made me sure that he would lose, as Gore's greater knowledge of the issues would surely soundly thrash him. I was stunned when polls said that he was holding his own after they were over. Still I figured he would get beaten. Just days before the election, it was revealed that he had concealed a drink-driving conviction and this seemed sure to bury him. I felt so relieved.

I so wanted him to lose. I am firmly atheist and I didn't want a born-again Christian inside the Oval Office (Gore's choice of running mate didn't excite me either to be fair). The big issue for me was abortion. Bush opposes it and I think it must be available. Also, his father had made what I considered to be the huge blunder of leaving Saddam Hussein in power and I thought that the son would be similarly isolationist and weak minded about confronting Saddam. I was crushed when Gore failed to clinch it on election night and I clung on for days in the hope that he would still be declared the winner. So it was an unpleasant shock when Bush got the job and like many people I suspect, I carried on thinking of Clinton as the real incumbent of the job and blanked Bush out of my mind.

So what has changed? The change for me started when I saw a documentary about North Korea on TV one night. I always knew that the country was poor and that it was founded on a personality cult, but I had no idea just how awful things were. The economy was so bad that millions were suffering malnutrition. Many would die. The state's control of individual's lives was so intense that people could be sent to labour camps for being the relative of someone who had complained against the regime. Children were being born in these camps and would spend their whole lives as prisoners. Camp guards routinely tortured, raped and murdered inmates.

I was so horrified that I recalled thinking that the country's starvation was, in a strange way, its only hope for salvation. If it got so bad that the army was not fed, then there was a chance of a revolt that could end the regime. It was the turning of the army that ended the rule of the Czars in the Russian Revolution. The one thing that must not happen was for outsiders to give aid to the country. That would be like feeding Nazi camp guards in the hope that this would improve conditions for the Holocaust victims. I learned that Clinton had agreed to supply aid in 1994 and it was being reported by aid agencies all the time, that the aid wasn't being distributed where it was needed most. I didn't want the same mistakes repeated again by the new president.

So I was pleased when it became clear that Bush was not going to follow down this route and that he was going to adopt a more belligerent tone. Of course, by refusing to be generous with aid, North Korea would be provoked into making threats of attacks in Asia, but that was to be expected and it was vital, I thought, that we square up to the bluster and refuse to budge. The solution to the country's food problem is a simple case of `swords into ploughshares'. The huge and unnecessary army must be slimmed down and most of its resources and manpower diverted to agriculture. If the army doesn't want to help feed the people, why should we?

That was the starting point of my reappraisal of Bush. The next thing was his alleged abandonment of the Kyoto Treaty. It has gone down in history that Bush killed Kyoto, but all he really did was get caught with the body, like the hapless victim of circumstances in a Hitchcock film. Nobody remembers it now, but the Treaty was destroyed by the refusal of France to accept the entirely reasonable US argument, that while the US emitted industrial gases, it also had large forests that absorb carbon dioxide and that the country as a whole was a net consumer of the gas! The same cannot be said for European nations, which were keen not to see the effect of `carbon sinks' factored into the equation.

No less than John Prescott made it quite clear who was to blame. Click here!

The whole story is covered well here.

It was when Bush looked down at the dead body and decided that it was past the point of no return that his image in Europe nose-dived. He was portrayed in all manner of vicious ways for merely accepting the obvious. After a long period of growth, the US was starting to enter recession. Imposing limits on industry would not please those whose jobs were on the line. He had the courage to be honest and admit that he was not going to go ahead with enforcing Kyoto. He was right.

When tragedy struck on September 11th 2001, Bush visited Arab coffee shops to prevent arabs from being attacked in the aftermath. He even went as far as to publicly declare `Islam is peace', which is certainly something I couldn't have done. Rather than immediately lashing out, the US waited a full 26 days before taking military action in Afghanistan. While the No.1 target, Osama bin Laden, was never found, it's likely that he was killed. Taking the war to Al-Qaeda was necessary. The kind of religious extremists who are attracted to its murderous philosophy see any weakness by the US as a sign that god is on their side, while conversely, military defeat of Al-Qaeda makes them question whether god really does support their vision of Islamic fascism.

In Africa, Bush has earmarked $15bn for use in the fight against AIDS. Praise for this has come from Bono! I think it's optimistic to think that the money will be spent wisely, but Bush has shown that he's an optimist about the best in human nature and values life enough to give the money.

So slowly, I've found myself agreeing with him on most foreign policy matters. The situation in Iraq was a running sore for all concerned. The US was committed to continually policing a no-fly zone, while UN sanctions were applied to the ultimate effect of making life miserable for the ordinary people, while not quite miserable enough to stop Saddam building new palaces. Iraq acted for all the world like it was developing nuclear weapons and it certainly had a track record of using poison gas.

I won't go into detail about the full plan for the war. I shall leave that for later. But for now I shall conclude that while I still fear that he might make abortion unavailable and dislike his practice of having prayer sessions in the White House, I strongly feel that he has shown immense wisdom in international affairs.

He's a terribly poor public speaker, but when decisions have to be made on the world's most troublesome regions, he gets them right much more often than wrong. He has stated that it's his aim to have a Palestinian state by 2005 and while there is much that can go wrong in the implementation of the `road map', I believe that he is sincere in wishing it to come about.

How did he know?
I'm intrigued by a story that appears on Ananova.

It can be reached here.

The story can be summed up by its first line:

'An estate agent is in trouble with police in Brazil after he was caught with a naked transvestite in a customer's house'

A security guard in the property contacted the owner who is quoted as saying: 'I almost got a heart attack when I saw a huge naked blond transvestite coming out of the wardrobe on the second floor'.

It's the phrase 'naked transvestite' that gets me. If the man was naked, how would you know that he was a transvestite? I suppose that there could have been earings or other accessories, but these are not mentioned in the article so I can't let it go.

A card room publishes a rulebook - applause for Brighton
Brighton's Rendezvous Casino is to be applauded for publishing a rulebook for its card room. Copies are given to all that want them. This is a big step forward. The book itself consists of three photocopied pages of A4 printed on both sides, folded up as a pamphlet.

The first thing I like about it is the title `Players Rules and Responsibilities'. The mention of responsibilities on the cover is a good start! They are the subject of the first page and include such things as `All players are expected to win or lose with good grace and exhibit sporting behaviour at all times' and `Players must not abuse the dealer or any player seated at the table or engage in any conduct at the tables which may distract or annoy players.'

The next section is titled `General Rulings - Applicable to all games' and covers misdeals, betting, blinds, the all-in rule, `cards speak' and so on. The `show one, show all' rule is explained. Hopefully this will clarify the fact that it means that if you show your cards to one person, you must show them to the whole table, NOT that if you show one card, you must show all the cards, which is still what some people think. There are some more specific rules that relate to flop games and then some that relate to 7-card stud.

Time will tell whether it makes life easier in Brighton. I don't suppose I would make a lot of friends if I pulled it out and quoted it chapter and verse, but if players did do this, it would spare the floor manager from having to make elementary rulings. It won't rule out controversy because some things are left vague.

For example 'Cards thrown into the muck may be ruled dead. However, a hand that is clearly identifiable may be retrieved at management's discretion if doing so is in the best interests of the game. We will make an extra effort to rule a hand retrievable if it was folded as a result of false information given to the player' clearly relies on players having faith in the management's fairness to all players.

Surprisingly I don't see any mention of `moody comments', nor any time limit on bets, calls or raises. I feel sure that popular demand will require coverage of these points in any revised edition. At present such matters reside in the grey area of good conduct.

The rulebook is a great start towards greater transparency in the handling of difficult situations. It is a bit `rough and ready' and would require revision before being suitable for publication to a wider audience, but again I congratulate the Rendezvous on making a good first start on something that is to the benefit of all honest players.

You won't see me in Wimbledon
The first week of Wimbledon has already passed and I have not watched a single game. I'm on strike. Since the introduction of increasingly powerful rackets, the men's game has become more and more based on power. The result is fewer long rallies and more aces. It bores me now.

So I have said for the last three years that I won't watch it unless they either abolish the second serve or bring back wooden rackets. That isn't going to happen while there are still thousands turning up to see the games and while people cheer when someone serves an ace. Cheer? They should be booing!

One thing might might make me sit down and watch this week: rain. If the heavens open and rain stops play, I can put the kettle on and look forward to some archive footage of Connors, McEnroe and Borg battling it out in the early 1980s back when the game was interesting.

Does anyone else think that the Championship's most interesting years are behind it?

Men's Rights
I can't resist an argument, so when I found a feminist website that demands the closure of lap-dance clubs in London, I naturally had to get involved. The site in question was www.campaignwomen.co.uk and its introductory page carries the banner 'STRIP CLUBS are Considered under the SAME licensing terms as a PUB! Don't You think they should be PROPERLY REGULATED?'

In a way, I am shocked that the regulations are the same. I can't help thinking that it should be much harder to sell a liquid that destroys brain and liver cells and is addictive for a few people, than it is to allow a woman to dance naked on a stage.

So I dived straight in by writing to the site:

Dear Campaignwomen,

I discovered your site. I am delighted to read that you seek to redress the inequalities between the genders.

I am male and would love to become equal, but society's attitudes need changing.

To which end:

Money:

As I am on a low income I would love it if you could arrange it for poor men to have the same chance of marrying a rich woman as a poor woman has of marrying a rich man? Victoria Adams (now Beckham's) union with one of the only men in the UK more rich and famous then herself is not encouraging.

Height:

As I am only 5ft 6, could you do the same for my chances of marrying a taller woman?

Body attitudes:

Can you also change female attitudes to the male body so that in the event that I need a quick and ready source of income, I can turn my hand to stripping?

Genital sensitivity:

One of the last women I dated told me that the clitoris has 4,000 nerve endings, while the penis has only 2,500 (her source: The Vagina Monologues). Girls are 8-3 in front!! Can you change that? I would also love to have multiple orgasms. Any progress likely on that front?

In conclusion:

Look forward to hearing about these matters. In the meantime, if you wish to campaign to help women trapped by domestic violence, don't drive away male supporters by attacking strip clubs. You don't have the male sex drive, so you don't understand!

Regards,

David

I got a reply within two days. I don't have time to correct all the spelling, punctuation and grammar mistakes, so I shall report it raw:

Dear David

We at Campaign Women were deeply concerned to hear of your multiple dilemas genital and otherwise

We all agreed - unanimously - height, size and nerve endings are irrelevant it is what you do with them that matters - as I am sure you have heard countless times before (and we're all wondering what exactly this 'multiple orgasm' is that you mentioned)

Society's attitude that it is only female 'totty' that brings in the dough is not going to change whilst we have the likes of strip joints etc etc, showing that all women are - and need ever be - is afore mentioned totty . And anyone who really wants this to change should just stop buying into the whole strip joint, 'lad land Britannia', newspaper porn blah blah blah culture (run of course by global corporate giants) .. until we do, young female 'fluff' will always be with rich older males

Plus your chances of women feeling liberated enough to fully appreciate your full 5'6'' are currently severly limited ... Scientific research has shown women are at least as turned on by the male body as men by the female body (and by gadgets and 'cool design' by the way - a major potential boon for the sex toy industry!) ... social pressure stifles this randiness and instead constantly tells women that their looks - and increasingly willingness to display these at every opportunity - is the only (or most important) thing in their lives

Ps sex drive? But you don't have the female sex drive (nor, apparently, the nerve endings) so could it be that you who do not understand ?... (a visit to the vag monos could be .. er .. enlightening) .. i do understand that this 'overwhelming' male sex drive is in part again cultivated by our society and has unfortunately always been seen as a very good excuse for forced sex and general sexual bigotry

... and, also on a serious note ... domestic violence - many women in refuges (as all the groups running such shelters will tell you) see strip joints and the type of attitude and culture they perpetuate as directly feeding in to the attitudes of the men who have violated them.. everything is of course linked, which is what your email really points out .. many men who feel strongly about domestic violence see the link between our culture of high street strip joints with sexual (and other anti-female) crime and attitudes (after all lets be honest , with your insight into the male sex drive, what do you think punters do after a trip to a strip joint - go back home for a nice cup of cocoa? or, with sex drives now in 5th gear, are they off to the nearest prostitute or to 'persuade' their female partner at home into sex?)

We appreciate you, and a large number of men in particular, have very different views on these matters - hardly surprising given the way we are almost told what to think by the media and society at large .

We simply try to provide an alternate view point and highlight the attitudes of the few who 'dare speak out' against the current trend, alongside research into the very negative impact of our current culture on our society and us all as individuals .. including the unfairness and lack of opportunity experienced by yourself!

So thank you for contacting us and good luck with your nerve ratios

...........................
Campaign Women
PO Box 22972
London N10 1ZQ

no@campaignwomen.co.uk
http://www.campaignwomen.co.uk
.......... Stamp Out Sexism ..

I clearly had nothing better to do that week, as I swiftly fired back with:

To Campaignwomen,

Thanks for your response.

I think that you have demonised strip clubs and porn. I have seen a few of the former and a lot of the latter. Result? I am a lot more relaxed than I would be otherwise. You can't appreciate how relaxing it is to see someone of the opposite sex undress, who would never be interested in you otherwise. What about men who are poor, disabled, ugly or socially disadvantaged? Why should they be denied the chance to have 30 minutes of happiness? What hope have they?

I don't get the correlation with crimes against women either. I know that I don't attack women if I am aroused or under any circumstances. I know that some men get aggressive under alcohol but that is completely unconnected. In order to explain why you believe that these things cause harm you have to explain why a country where porn is illegal is the one where rape is the HIGHEST in the world - I refer to South Africa. Not sure what the law is like there now, but it was the most anti-porn country in the world for ages, while rape was commonplace, especially in the townships. I think it still has the highest rape rate in the world. The contrast between there and Britain, where there is much porn and rapes are fewer is stark. This fact blows your argument out of the water. Please find another theory and test it. Your current one won't do.

What did I do after visiting strip clubs? Well nearly always I went home and forgot all about it. Have you ever been to one of these places? I don't think the women are too miserable. Most of them tell me to cheer up! I overheard one telling a customer that she was close to buying a yacht! If that's a victim of oppression, can I be oppressed too please? I have my heart set on a 1979 Lamborghini Countach.

I also think you have to stop blaming global corporations for all the image problems. Women were having ribs extracted to satisfy ludicrous notions of narrow waistlines, long before 'globalisation' started.

The future that you offer me is bleak. I am to be totally dependent on some woman finding me interesting for my sexual gratification. If I feel lonely, that's it. No sexual gratification for me then. I don't have the money or looks so I might as well drop dead. Thanks a bunch. No chance of 30 minutes happiness in the east end. Just the relenting drudgery of getting older and missing out on life's greatest pleasure, while women still place ads in Lonely Hearts columns asking for a 'solvent' man. Have a look at some of these columns if you want real insight. Try to find one ad where a man states that he wants a 'solvent' woman. You won't. We don't think that women owe us money, while the women's ads basically make it clear that they want a wallet (or 'investment portfolio' in New York) and the penis is optional. It's great to be appreciated!

You write: 'I do understand that this 'overwhelming' male sex drive is in part again cultivated by our society and has unfortunately always been seen as a very good excuse for forced sex and general sexual bigotry', but it's daft to suggest that my sex drive is directed by society. I recall seeing porn when a child (say 11) and feeling the excitement. It wasn't exciting because society told me to want it. It was exciting because blood was moving inside my body for totally natural reasons. What's to hate about that?

If the female sex drive is so high, where are the women in newsagents, shiftily waiting for the right moment to grab a top-shelf mag for a few hours of fantasy and masturbation? I know that some women admit to liking porn, but overall women don't seem randy enough to make porn for girls a viable proposition. I sometimes play poker with Victoria Coren. What a breath of fresh air she is! She has some confidence and goes out and gets what she wants and admits to liking porn in her national newspaper columns, but there are too few like her.

David


After a couple of days, I heard back:

Rape is appalling in s africa - and indeed domestic violence, as it is in many other countries (such as india, china) etc where porn is taboo .. but this has next to nothing to do with the supposed openess about sex provided by porn shops!. Obviously we cannot compare and make simplistic extrapolations between cultures that are so massively different from our own and where communities are decades behind us, many due to poverty. it is obviously highly complex, but essentially based firmly in the extreme male dominance - rape is absoutely culturally acceptable (especially in marriage), in s africa poverty is endemic and so is the accompanying crime, including rape .. why do you think aids is epidemic in africa - women quite literally cannot say no even to a known carrier .. .. those that operate under islamic Sharia law state a women's word is worth '1/4 of that of a man's', men may have more than one wife, in Swaziland the Chief's first wife is still of less worth than any man .. in china female foetuses are aborted & baby girls killed ... in sudan 90% of women have had their genitals mutilated ... the list goes on and on and on ... in such countries to be born woman is to be nothing

You think, under such circumstances, introducing sexual 'openess' in the form of strip joints and porn in children's sweet shops would bring these crimes down ?!! No. it would aggravate the entire culture of abuse as it would make acceptable yet another means of demeaning, stereotyping and undermining and indeed hating women.

Indeed that is exactly what porn has done and continues to do here, where even mainstream porn mags like penthouse used to maker jokes about rape (and indeed sex with underage girls). Its underlying message is women are a bit of fluff, fluff that you can buy and that is all women are, no respect required .. there is a lot more to it than mere fantasy - even if you think that is the only message you get from it. do you really think that is how other men feel - the lads strutting around with their copy of the sun open at page 3? (and as mentioned below bookloads of research based evidence have been written about the negative effect of porn on male - and female- attitudes)

And back here in lad land brittannia? Here in our supposedly highly advanced, equalitarian society 1 in 4 women experience rape/attempted rape and 1 in 4 experience domestic violence .. i in 4 .. its not, as you would expect, some minute fraction of that of these other countries .. it is comparable

so there is something very sick here as well... unfortunately it may suggest that the basic attitude of many men towards women is one of inequality, and certainly not respect ... in the extreme this appears to result in abuse and various forms of denigration. If this is the basic male instinct regarding women then as an evolved, civilised society (supposedly) shouldn't we be doing everything we can to change this ... instead we bend over backwards (women as well as men) to cater to it ..

Noone is saying that porn, strip joints and the general culture of sexualising (always young - and made to look even younger with shaved pubes) women at every opportunity - even through newspapers - in itself causes this. Obviously. It is a complex issue - but as i said in my last email, there is ample evidence that porn feeds directly into the abuse ... but do you honestly believe it can't possibly be contributing to it? Especially when you know the general level of agressive machismo of most men.

'They're not doing so badly' - you're believing what you believe in the papers again (always with their hidden agenda) This is all hype. yes the 'top' strippers, lap dancers, etc. may be earning lots of money(and will always look cheerful as it is part of the job), maybe they are not coercered (except by the prevailing culture that shows women from the youngest age that their sex appeal is all that matters)

.. but this is a very small percentage of women involved in porn. (and this is not speculation i can show you the research if you don;t believe the obvious!) the vast majority will be living in poverty, hooked on drugs, and being controlled by a pimp. why do you think there is such a large market in bringing in eastern european women into this country and 'enslaving' them as prostitutes. it's too easy to hide behind the ones in flashy establishments earning lots of money, but you're fooling yourself. you need to be thinking about the bigger picture to see what is really happening - and you, unlike most males who shove tenners into g strings seem more than capable of doing that.

Don't you think it almost becomes impossible for many men to see women as much more than sexual objects when they are bombarded with this message where ever they go and from the youngest age .. i mean you apparently cannot even read a tabloid without it being smeared in tit .. isn't that kind of insulting to men, apart from anything else!? what about the increasing use of sex (ie naked female bodies) in TV adverts, constant use of naked or semi-naked women in films and magazines. the next time you walk into a petrol station or newsagents just glance over at the magazine racks - not the porn - but looks like it! All the so-called lads-mags have semi-clad women on them. are men really so pathetic that a naked female on the front of a magazine will make them buy it? don't you think the media has been allowed to manipulate men's attitudes far too much?

And altho strip joints and porn may not encourage you to commit crime (or, you may feel, even view women in a derogatory fashion) it unfortunately does have exactly that effect on far too many men. There is ample research from rape survivors, men who perpetuate it and boys exposed to porn - especially certain forms - that this feeds directly into their crime. Rape fantasy videos, for instance, which you may or may not view, have been shown countless times to trivialise the offence, suggest that rape is somehow sexually liberating to the victim and even secretly desired and that the perpetuator will get away with it (depressingly close to the truth given the current rape conviction stats). And just as depressing is the fact that porn seems to be the main sex 'educator' of boys - which actually tells them nothing about good sex, about how to satisfy women, deal with emotions or ever have anything that resembles a relationship. Infact its puropose is to take emotion out of the thing and reduce it to the purely physical, a 'faceless' pair of tits - fine that's great, sometimes - but when young men are constantly bombarded about this it must be impossible for them to ever have a relationship - and certainly any respect

Apart from anything else a lot of women find it pretty offensive and demeaning - especially when purely gratuitious and uncalled for ie in a newspaper, sold to kids in our sweet shops ... of course if the whole thing were reversed, porn would be banned tomorrow ! So why shouldn't women's opinion of this - and their reasons for this opinion - count for something to men who claim they respect females and aren't sexist ? As a woman i can tell you, the fact that everything is now smothered in tit and arse gives me a very poor opinion of the men who buy this stuff - and by extension men generally.

The root of the whole problem is perhaps the nature of porn - if it were 'equal'- equal emphasis on male and female bodies and genuine pleasure (not women being satisfied by being masturbated in for a quick 5 minutes!) it would be bought into far more by women and perhaps would not even be offensive and degrading. But it almost invariably is not - of course even porn aimed at women is produced by men, who do not have a clue ... apart from anything else even the softest stuff is full of 'teenage sluts' and it gets progressively worse as you go up the scale ... sex vids where women are nothing more than hole providers often for 2/4 or 6 men at the same time .. as an obviously intelligent, thoughtful and sensitive man you don't honestly believe having two huge penises in your anus or crotch isn't painful (believe me it is)! ? whatever the video is trying to pretend ... it is nothing more than a form of abuse and, most dangerously is being shown as a form of normalised pleasure.

Sorry i dont; know of victoria coren (perhaps a 'women against censorship' gal - funded by the porn industry .. but if she is so very liberated then why does she want to see (yet more) piccies of girls in the papers , surely she should want hunky young men .. or is she gay?)

I'm not saying the 'male sex drive' is some social invention - but by god it sure has been 'done to death', putting yet more pressure on men to think they have to be 'getting it' all the time ! After all are visits to strip jionts and sex shops really that satisfactory .. you're still pi**ed by the lonely hearts ads and say you're lonely - wouldn't it be more helpful to join a club with people of like minded interest (whether that's rambling or bungee jumping) as one of the best ways of finding women with common interests to yourself - or even take the plunge and join a proper dating agency .. lonely hearts ads - especially in the likes of the sun are of course going to be full of patheticness - papers like that are only interested in tack and in preserving the 'women are good looking money grabbing bimbo' image (that is after all an underlying message of the whole paper!)

And you just don't need to look good as a guy .. there is no pressure on you whatsoever .. you aren't bombarded with billboard ads and magazine front covers of gorgeous hunky tight arsed young men in various states of undress .. the important things matter like personality etc .. and isn't it kind of patronising to say disabled men 'can't get any' ? Do you really want women to be interested in you only coz you have money ? (well in going to strip joints you probably going to the right kind of place!) .. again it's the media (including those stupid ads) that gives the impression that money is so important to females ... you ask most average women - not nubile young strippers and they aren't so bothered .. and hopefully as women can make more money themselves (via routes other than stripping and porn) it will become even less important. If it really bothers you, you should be advocating equal pay and all sorts of other measures to make sure women as finanically independent as men .. then we might start to see some real progress!

no-one said finding the right partner is easy. sex for the sake of it is really not fulfilling - especially by the time you hit your'e 20's! it is totally different with someone you love - and you love them for who they are, not what they look like or how much money they have. how can it really be 30 mins of happiness when you know that these women are just doing it to get your money out of your pocket and that you are buying them a lump of meat?

.. of course global corporates and the whole organised porn industry isn't what has made women concerned about their looks and, increasingly their sex appeal. 'Nice looking nothings' is all women have been allowed to be by almost all societies, throughout history - of course we're all still hung up on that notion! Unfortunately, as women are supposedly becoming more equal and gaining more power (more MPs, more lawyers, more business people etc) the backlash trying to push us back into what we were before and ensure we never have an equal society (which would be better for men as well as women) has become overwhelming and so obvious and 'in your face' it isn't true! it's a shame an apparently sensitive and intelligent individual such as yourself is going along with it too, along with all the macho lads who act like you're hormonal if you point out the hypocrisy in not at least admitting that the sun, sport and lad mags covers are pornography

it is however a huge relieve to have a man who disagrees/questions us writing in without a torrent of abuse .. but trying to put forward his point of view and explaining to us why he doesn't accept ours!

usually such men just string together a serious of 4 letter words - yeah a really good way of arguing your case - and one that makes the point better than anything else.. they have no respect for women - at least any woman (or indeed man) who would dare stand up against the current 'censorship of the media' and its overwhelming sexualisation of young girls

Its hard to say all this in writing - i try to understand your arguments and put mine in the wider context .. which goes into a state of overkill! but there is a lot going on here and at all levels, it is not a simple issue, altho it may seem it on the face of it according to the porn dominated media

anyway i don;t know if any of this is stuff you will think about, i hope so - its important ... and for an apparently sensitive and intelligent person as you seem to be is at least interesting if nothing else!

.....................

no@campaignwomen.co.uk
http://www.campaignwomen.co.uk

PO Box 22972
London N10 1ZQ

............against sexism .....

Still desperate to get some logic in to the argument, I fired back with:

Hello again.

My interest in all of this is to use logic to help causes and arguments. You wish to improve the quality of women's lives. I can't argue against that aim, but I can argue against something that would reduce MY quality of life without improving that of women. And this is what your site is advocating.

I wrote to you because I chanced on your site by accident and thought I should write to you because I detected a logical fallacy.

You may notice a connection between porn\strip clubs and sex crime. I don't have the data on this, but the lack of porn in Saudi Arabia and South Africa, coupled with the fact that women's lives there can be awful, does make me think that it's not as clear cut as you think.

Even if there were a proven link, it would mean nothing, because (logical fallacy exposed here) connection does not equal causality. To say that sex criminals like porn, so therefore porn causes crime is the same as saying that people who steal cars also buy magazines about cars, therefore banning car magazines (with their provocative cover pictures of Ferraris and Rolls-Royces) would reduce car crime.

Or what about this? Have you noticed the link between smoking and lung cancer? Obviously people with a genetic pre-disposition to lung cancer are more likely to start smoking! Lung cancer causes people to smoke.

Stated like that, it sounds ridiculous, but it's no more ridiculous than saying that some rapists go to strip clubs, therefore strip clubs 'cause' rape. I would be surprised if someone with a sexual problem didn't visit such clubs, but it proves nothing if they do. If they didn't go to such establishments ... well that would really be interesting.

The remark I stated about the stripper who was close to buying a boat wasn't a media myth, it was something I heard with my own ears. I haven't been to a strip clubs for about two years now, but I don't suppose the economics have changed. I can only envy the ease with which the women earn their money.

It's funny that your site also vilifies another person I have played poker with: David Simones of Sophisicats. He doesn't run the club anymore and I haven't seen him for ages, but what many people don't know about him is that his first business venture was a group of men who danced naked for the enjoyment of women. This hardly qualifies him for the women-hater of the millennium award!

And here's why you don't get any sympathy from me or any other man. We can't empathise with your complaint. If I heard that my sister or female friend was off to see some troupe of naked dancing men, I could not be outraged. I just couldn't be offended. I accept that people have a sexual component to their character.

I am pleased that you have the clarity of thought to say that some other cultures are decades behind ours. A long while ago, when the internet was in its infancy, I visited an internet cafe in central London called Cyberia. I didn't know it then, but it was owned and managed by a feminist. One day when I was there, looking at hotels in Las Vegas, there was a gathering of women in the room talking about some feminist conference that had just taken place in China (I think it was in Beijing). The talk soon reached the subject of 'female circumcision', which is a disgusting way of mutilating women's bodies. Some of the women there were tiptoeing on egg shells to avoid saying that the cultures of the countries where this goes on were backward. 'We mustn't appear to be trying to impose our values on them', some cried, while I was sat at my screen thinking 'yes we fucking well should!' So well done for not falling into the trap of moral relativism.

But I digress.

To answer some specific questions:

You ask: 'why do you think aids is epidemic in africa?'

Answer: Because medecine is worse and many people have untreated genital warts and cuts. While aids can be spread by both blood and semen, my suspicion is that it is more easily spread by blood than semen or other bodily fluids. This would also explain the fact that anal sex is considered higher risk, as there is a greater risk of cuts, leading to blood transfusion. It's a timely question, as there are stories in the news this very week, suggesting that aids in Africa is prevelant because of incorrect use of needles in hospitals, rather than sex. This would concur with my 'blood is riskier than semen\vaginal fluids' theory.

See: http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_752279.html

You also say, in the context of South Africa: 'You think, under such circumstances, introducing sexual 'openess' in the form of strip joints and porn in children's sweet shops would bring these crimes down ?!!'

To which I reply: 'No. I would expect it to have exactly no effect in either direction. It's a complete irrelevance.'

You say that porn and strip clubs 'would aggravate the entire culture of abuse as it would make acceptable yet another means of demeaning, stereotyping and undermining and indeed hating women. Indeed that is exactly what porn has done and continues to do here, where even mainstream porn mags like penthouse used to maker jokes about rape (and indeed sex with underage girls). Its underlying message is women are a bit of fluff,'

Your faith in the power of the written word is astonishing. By reading porn I am made to think that women are mere sex objects. Wow! If only it were that simple to convince people of something by words on a page. How come I can't remember 80 per cent of what I read at school!

What comes over again and again in your writing is fear. You fear that men don't take women seriously when they are aroused. You fear that naked dancing women somehow suggest that women are just body parts. I know that they aren't. Are you so sure?

I am aware that there is more to a woman than her body. And I can still desire the body. I am aware that the world's highest IQ belongs to a woman (Marilyn vos Savant) and I have bought one of her books. I would also not object to seeing her naked. There is no contradiction here. I make no apologies for my desires.

You say: 'If this is the basic male instinct regarding women then as an evolved, civilised society (supposedly) shouldn't we be doing everything we can to change this ... instead we bend over backwards (women as well as men) to cater to it ..'

Er.. interesting choice of phrase 'bending over backwards'. But there I go again. Don't be afraid of male desires. It may outrage you that men have such predatory sex drives, but ask yourself how many people would exist on this planet if it were any other way? Any minute now an asteroid could hit the earth and kill 40 per cent of the earth's population. A fairly massive urge is required to rebuild the humman race. That is what nature has equipped us with. That's why the world has 6bn people in it. If sexuality were governed by the Virago Press, then the world's population would amount to about ten people sitting in a mud hut talking about their feelings.

I'm surprised that you have't heard of Victoria Coren. She's a freelance journalist. She's in the Observer most weekends. Like me, her big interest is gambling, but she's also got a big thing for porn. Her personal fantasy is to see two naked men touching each other up. I like her a lot, but this for me falls into the category of 'I'd do anything for love, but I won't do that!'.

Here is an example of her work.

http://www.observer.co.uk/review/story/0,6903,687773,00.html

This shows you her attitudes. She likes real porn, but hates seeing half-dressed people in adverts and the like. It's an interesting position. She wrote a book about the time she directed a porn film. The book's called 'Once more with feeling'.

You write: 'as an obviously intelligent, thoughtful and sensitive man you don't honestly believe having two huge penises in your anus or crotch isn't painful (believe me it is)!'

I really wouldn't know.

But let's get to what unites us. I don't like the idea of violence, sexual or otherwise. I still can't understand why it's considered funny to suggest that male inmates of prisons get raped. Did you see the Virgin Mobile advert in which Wycliffe Jean deliberates whether to pick up a bar of soap in a prison shower? I can't find the insinuation of male rape funny, but I haven't heard of anyone complaining about the ad.

Anyway: To summarise - I still feel that strip clubs \ porn do no harm. I feel that sex crime has to be taken seriously. The two are not connected. You have already shown that societies that oppose porn often do nothing against those who harm women. Personally I am suspicious of any society that promotes 'chivalry' and 'virute' (just as I am suspicious of people who are 'charming'). I prefer the honesty of societies that allow men to enjoy looking at profession undressers, because err.. it's enjoyable.

And now back to www.freegyno.com

David


And I never heard back from them. I would love to think that it was because I had made them realise the folly of their cause, but the campaign still goes on.

Regime change is needed ... in the UN!
I continue to be amazed at the high regard in which the United Nations is held by the general public. Many people seem to regard it as a worthy body that aims to bring about peace and prosperity for all, by restraining the 'bad guys'. Nothing could be further from the truth, however. Large numbers of the delegates are from countries with no democracy or from very corrupt governments. It is a theme to which I will return.

Since the end of the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, many voices have called for the UN to take over the administration of the country. I can think of no more cruel punishment of the Iraqi people, short of bringing back Saddam himself.

Given that one of the main complaints following the stunning victory of US forces (capturing the entire city of Baghdad with a fraction of the loss of life inflicted by the Russian special forces when they ended the theatre siege in Moscow) was the problem of looting, it seems strange to me that anyone should think that the UN could improve matters.

I should like to explain why. Earlier this year, the cafeteria workers in the UN's HQ building in New York went on strike. That left the food and drink unguarded. Of course, given that the UN delegates are upstanding members of society and trusted with the wellbeing of millions, one would expect them to pay for anything that they needed to eat or drink by leaving the change on the counter.

Well that isn't quite what happened, as this article makes clear:

Click here!

If the UN delegates themselves are prepared to take everything they can get their hands on when there is nobody to stop them, then I sincerely hope that the organisation is never allowed near Iraq or any other country in need.

Wise Guys?
I suspect that many of you have seen the film 'Goodfellas'. Its central character is Henry Hill and it tells the true story of how Hill joined the mafia at an early age and later turned state's evidence to help prosecute key figures of the crime world, while protecting himself from further prosecution. He has been a marked man ever since.

He has his own website now (www.goodfellahenry.com) and from it I learn that he intends to tour the UK giving after-dinner speeches later this year. In fact he can be booked using the contact details given on his site! Quite how a man under Federal Witness Protection feels safe to do this is a mystery to me.

I'm not sure what would attract me to go to such an event. It's likely to be interesting, but I can't help feeling that whatever he said or did would take second stage to the real drama - the thought that at any moment, the doors could burst open and a bunch of Armani-suited men with machine guns and two-tone shoes could open fire.

Can anyone quote me a spread on how many of these engagements he survives? It's rather like the extraordinary career of Evel Knievel. When he said that he would jump over 14 buses, how many people were paying to see him jump 13?

Separately, while I'm on the subject of websites run by people who were featured in true-story gangster movies directed by Martin Scorcese, it might interest you to know that the central character of 'Casino' (Sam Rothstein) has his own site.

Actually, there never was anyone of that name. The person it was based on was Frank 'Lefty' Rosenthal, but the story is the same. You can contact him at www.frankrosenthal.com. You can ask him questions about Vegas in the old days or about sports betting.

His writing style can be confusing. I have read his story of the 'Poker Lords' of Las Vegas about five times and still can't work out what it is that they are supposed to have done wrong. Please read it and let me know if you are any wiser afterwards:

Frank writes about the Poker Lords. Click here!

Playing with Queens
I am indebted to Keith `the camel' Hawkins for drawing my attention to the following `trip report' from Pokerfaces.com. It concerns the progress in the WSOP $10,000 championship event of the five `faces' themselves: Gary Bush, Jac Arama, Simon Trumper, Lucy Rokach and Carlo Citrone.

"The Whacker didn't play. Jacattack overslept. Aces is out - he got unlucky early on when the pot was raised in first position to 150,(blinds were 25,50), he flat called with QQ in big blind,flop was 5 6 8,check,bet, aces called. Turn card was a Jack,check,bet call,river 3 check bet call,no flush he shows down 7 9!! Lucky Lucy got unlucky and went out early on Sly Citrone - still in."

Clearly, you would need to have a heart of stone not to laugh, especially at the idea of a professional big-ticket tournament player oversleeping the night before poker's biggest tournament. But the part that is stuck in my mind is the account of a hand played by Simon Trumper. To recap: in the first round of the event, when the blinds were only 25\50, a player under the gun raised to 150. Simon found himself with two queens and decided to flat call rather than re-raise. The flop came low: 5,6,8 and Simon called on the flop, turn and river, as no overcards appeared. Such a strategy works well against a bluffing opponent who has missed the flop, but in this case, Simon discovered that his enemy had raised with 7\9 and had flopped the nut straight.

With the benefit of hindsight, it's clear that the best strategy would have been a pre-flop re-raise to something like 900 `to find out where you are' and to try to win it there and then. It's impossible to know what would have happened.

The reason I am thinking much at all about this is that a very similar hand was discussed on another forum about six months ago. In this other hand, a player was dealt QQ in the early stages of the ?3,000 No Limit Hold'em event in Amsterdam. Without going into detail, there was a discussion about whether a big raise with the hand was appropriate while the blinds were small. It's certainly the case that the hand loses much of its value when blinds are small, as although it's likely to be winning pre-flop, it is difficult for it to improve to a bigger hand later on in the coup, when the bets will be larger.

I was surprised to see many people responding to say that they would try to keep the pot small at this stage. I say I was surprised, as I consider myself to be a tight and relatively passive competition player and yet I advised re-raising. I wrote a post about it, in which I decided to present an alternative to the `play for survival' advice that others were giving. Several months have passed since I wrote it, so it's interesting for me to read it again now. I shall present what I wrote with some comments in brackets:

I wrote:

Further down this page, there is a question that essentially concerns how to play an overpair in a large competition with a slow blind structure. I have not been overly successful in such comps, in fact I have only twice played a competition with a one-hour blind structure in the 7 years that I have played the game. This is mainly because they are so damned expensive now!

However, I can't resist stating my belief, which is that with the very large fields that even the biggest competitions are fetching now, you have to accumulate a vast amount of chips and I don't see how pussyfooting around for survival achieves this.

Take for example the main event of the WSOP. It used to have about 300 runners and lasted four days. It now has over 600 runners and lasts for five days [oops! It's up to 839 now]. So in the last five years, the duration of the event has increased 25 per cent but the field has risen 100 per cent. I don't think that the people who used to win all those years ago can win it now. Survival isn't good enough. [Oops again. One of the people I had in mind was the 1995 World Champion, Dan Harrington. He came third in 2003!]

What happens when you have 'crash-bang-wallop' merchants like Henry Nowakowski and Jac Arama involved? They embrace confrontations that you and I would run a mile from and build their stacks up. The result is that while I might patiently nurture my stack up from 10k to 18k over the course of the 1st day and a half, one or two of such players are up to 120k! How on earth do you catch up with that? You won't do it by nicking antes!!

The people who get to the finals have won major confrontations [Here I refer to things that happened in the 2002 WSOP]. John Shipley won his huge stack when he flopped a pair of aces against someone who had trips. All the chips went in and JS caught two running aces to make quads! Julian Gardener got lucky when another player misread the size of his stack and folded an overpair to what was actually a very small raise. Robert Varkonyi had the famous coup where he raised with Q\10 suited, got re-raised by Phil Hellmuth's A\K suited and Varkonyi re-raised. Hellmuth called and Varkonyi got lucky. If Phil's hand had held up he probably would have won his second championship title.

Something has to explain why the tight and solid players are rarely winning the major events nowadays. On the solid side there has been Ross Boatman and Alan Vinson who have had big wins at the Vic. But there have been countless victories by less solid players: David Barnes (twice!), Tom Sambrook, David Holmes, Graham Hiew and this year's LIDO winner Angelo Yu Chou Ping, whom I had never heard of before. The Hendon Mob \ Betfair's book on the event was highly instructive. The 'field' (i.e. none of the 99 named players) was declared the winner when the final table was SEVEN handed! That's right. None of the 99 named players made the top seven in an event with 198 runners! The highest placed UK finalist was a dealer from Russell Square, who can't play in UK casinos!

Like the dinosaurs had to do when the ice age came, we have to adapt to survive.

David Young


In Summary

There can be little doubt that QQ is the hardest hand to play in no-limit hold'em, but that should not blind us, I think, to the fact that it's the 3rd highest pre-flop hand in the game. It must surely be worth a re-raise to 9 per cent of your chips. If you can't put a bet of slightly less than 10 per cent of your stack with the game's third best hand, I'd love to get dealt the cards you're waiting for!

Was I proved right or wrong in what I wrote? Well, a bit of both really. I was surprised to see Harrington make it to the last three, but it was also noteworthy that it was another `field' player who won this year and the final table was all field apart from Harrington.

Was I lied to about Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq?
Maybe I'm too idealistic, but I expect politicians to tell the truth, though I accept that this only works if the public is prepared to accept it and not to shoot the messenger when bad news must be delivered.

Still, with no WMDs yet found, I must start to wonder whether the faith I placed in the following was misplaced:

"What is at stake is how to answer the potential threat Iraq represents with the risk of proliferation of WMD. Baghdad's regime did use such weapons in the past. Today, a number of evidences may lead to think that, over the past four years, in the absence of international inspectors, this country has continued armament programs." -- Jacques Chirac, October 16, 2002

"Iraq does pose a serious threat to the stability of the Persian Gulf and we should organize an international coalition to eliminate his access to weapons of mass destruction. Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to completely deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power." -- Al Gore, 2002

"We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction." -- Ted Kennedy, September 27, 2002

"In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program.

He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including Al Qaeda members, though there is apparently no evidence of his involvement in the terrible events of September 11, 2001. It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons. Should he succeed in that endeavor, he could alter the political and security landscape of the Middle East, which as we know all too well affects American security." -- Hillary Clinton, October 10, 2002