Stowaway Taken For A Ride

One thing is for sure and that is this world is never going to stop. Christmas seems only minutes ago but we are already well on the way into 2011.

So far I haven’t broken any of my New Year resolutions, but I didn’t make many because when I reflect on 2010, it was an absolutely fantastic year for me.
The highlight, without a shadow of a doubt, had to be my week’s work on a Mediterranean cruise. I actually got paid for organising a poker tournament on board a luxurious ship which took us to some absolutely beautiful places.

But what I want to tell you about this month has to be the very best story I heard in 2010. The story will live with me forever and it was told to me in a workingmen’s club in Stoke-on-Trent ⎯ Baddeley Green WMC to be precise.

Me, Spiva, and my youngest son, Jak, run a poker tournament every couple of months at the club, which is one of the friendliest venues around. The last one we did was on December 19 ⎯ a week before Christmas and also the night of the BBC Sports Personality of the Year awards.

AP McCoy won it at odds of 3/1 on and, incidentally, I had £500 on him at even money a couple of weeks beforehand to top up my festive spending money. Of course Mr. Stoke himself, Phil “The Power” Taylor, came second, which I thought was an astonishing achievement. Twenty years ago you could have named your own odds against a darts player getting anywhere near a title like that, so what a fantastic honour for Phil.

Anyway, back to the story which is about a very famous female poker player, who will remain nameless for reasons which will become clear later. If there is a magic in poker it is the magic of fighting battles which are almost beyond endurance. It is the magic of risking everything that only the poker player can see.

The female poker player had won a package for the main event of the World Series of Poker (WSOP), but there was a little bit of a problem ⎯ she had a terrible fear of flying.

Not to be deterred, she sought advice from some of her friends and one suggestion was to take a cruise liner from Liverpool to New York, then catch a Greyhound bus from New York to Vegas, along the infamous Route 66 ⎯ a 3,000-mile journey of a lifetime across America.

Unfortunately, the cruise was out of her budget and it was impossible to raise the cash in such a short space of time. Then someone told her he knew a couple of scallies who worked in the dockyard at Liverpool and they could sneak her aboard for a small fee.

She was told the voyage would take just less than three weeks and it would mean sleeping rough in a lifeboat, but the female poker player was still well up for it.
The transaction was done at Liverpool docks and low and behold she was smuggled aboard as a stowaway and on her way to America.

The adrenalin flow was brilliant ⎯ an incredible adventure was underway and she thought she would certainly have something to tell her grandchildren about in years to come, however she did in the tournament.

But there was a hiccup ⎯ after two weeks at sea she was discovered and taken to the captain’s quarters where she was interrogated.

To the horror of the captain she explained to him the reason why she became a stowaway and how she was originally discovered the first night aboard by the second mate, who had provided her with adequate meals, cigarettes, and the occasional bottle of beer.

He also allowed her to use his bathroom with top of the range toiletries, as well as washing her laundry, and supplying her with fresh clothes every day.
But the biggest shock was still to come for the captain when she told him she had slept in the second mate’s bed!

At this the captain demanded to know, “Did the second mate ever abuse you?” After a long pause, the female poker player replied, “Just a little bit.”

The captain burst into a hard voice saying, “He abused you just a little bit my dear woman. I’m afraid you have been taken for a ride ⎯ this is the Liverpool to Dublin Ferry you have been on for the last two weeks!”