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Contents:
Great fun, coming to direct here, but isn't it hot? Someone should have warned me - I would have brought my shorts! On my first day I got off to a bad start: I issued a Procedural Penalty and then found it was the Chairman I had penalised! Next I tried the exploding sandwiches: I took one bite, and all the top of the sandwich flew off onto the floor!
Torsten Åstrand took me to dinner one evening, and I met his car. It is just like my bridge partner: it thinks then does the wrong thing! When he started it, it thought before finally rising up on its hydraulics. We reached the town, and should have gone left, so the car went right. We got back eventually, and when we should have turned into the centre the car went straight on. I am amazed we managed to eat at all.
I liked being interviewed by the Bulletin´s reporter Noomi Hebert, until I read what she wrote in the Bulletin: I certainly never said that I do not shout at my wife! On a more serious note, what I meant about Zero Tolerance is that it is merely an attempt to make players and Directors aware of powers that Directors already have under the Laws.
I am pleased to come here and make new friends: it is fine tournament. I just hope Göran Sallstedt has another bottle of whisky: I helped him finish his first one!
I thought the beer fountain was great. If you did not see it, there was a "Whoosh", and beer was flying three metres in the air. Everyone cheered! Stefan said it was not his fault, but he was there, and I wonder ....
I like Essie, who runs the catering. But when I ask for tea, she gives me a pint - I have never drunk tea in pints before! Poor Essie was soaked in beer, I am afraid, by the beer fountain. I tried very hard not to laugh ....
I was introduced to one of the caddies, Lotta. She seemed charming, intelligent and beautiful: I was very pleased to meet her.
I hope to keep in contact with all my new friends. Feel free to email me or look at my web site. It has general bridge articles, articles on the Laws, and much else.
I feel like the man in the fairy-tale who has something written on a piece of paper which no-one will read to him! In yesterday's bulletin there is a story about me, with fingertips and backgammon mentioned, but it is in Swedish, and no-one will read it to me in English. I do not know what it says!
Another fairy-tale is about Rapunzel, a beautiful girl who was kept away from her lover, the king's son, and she was locked in a tower. So she let her hair grow, and eventually she let it hang outside the window, and her lover climbed up her hair to be with her. I am reminded of this when I stand beneath the scoring balcony, and Jenny, the scorer with beautiful long hair looks over. Maybe next year we tie the score- slips to her hair instead of using the basket!
Did you like my little story about Lotta? She showed it to her mother: "How true," said her mother! In general the caddies here are very good, and they are keen. However, Erik does occasionally cause trouble: he had a whole stack of boards, and he dropped them on me!
I have always disliked the Word Processor program Word. It has ideas of its own, a very annoying little paper clip for Help, and it changes the text. Now it is telling me I have misspelt everything if it is not good Swedish. But I am writing in English!! Word reminds me a little of Lotta ....
Good caddies make life much easier for Directors, and all the caddies here are good, and one or two very good. I wanted to buy small presents for them but I have no spare time, so Essie will buy them for me. I want to thank all the staff, the Directors, the board-preparers, the scorers, the Laws Committee, the catering, the people on the desk, the bulletin editors, the caddies, the players and everyone else. This is a wonderful tournament and I hope to visit you again.
We lost a pair on Saturday! Very strange. It was thirty minutes before the meal break so we believe they were very very hungry! Their opponents were a bit surprised at getting very easy 60%s. One of them told me it was their best round of the week!
I wrote a delicate article for my good friend Micke Melander on Adjusted Scores. I was careful to be tactful: I was trying to upset no- one, but to express some new ideas. And what did my friend do? Micke decided it was too tactful, so he wrote a tactless headline (in Swedish). Now people saw it and thought I was tactless. Micke is not my friend today!!
Soon I shall be on my way home. Tonight I stay in Stockholm with a friend of a friend if he remembers - I hope he does not leave me behind in Skövde! Tomorrow I shall return to England with many memories of a friendly tournament and wonderful people.
Comment by Bulletin Editor:
Editor's note:
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