Yorky Pud

Hello there boys and girls and anything else in between, Pud here on another European Poker Tour stop, this time in the beautiful city of Prague in the Czech Republic. As was the idea in Barcelona I want to try and blog everyday about things that I've seen etc but knowing how hard we have to work I have cunningly called this Part 1 instead of Day 1 so I can get away with not updating! Mwah ha ha ha ha ha!

The preparation for travel was not the best as I thought it may be a good idea to drink a ton of Carling on Saturday night! I woke up fresh as a daisy but lager makes me fart and crap like there is no tomorrow but after excreting a few hundred meters cubed of methane, eating six sausages and drinking three coffees I was ready for the off.

As usual the drive down was deadly boring, although it went very quickly as I found The Beatles Anthology in my glovebox, well the second part of it anyway. I forgot how much I love these guys, I would give anything to be able to go back in time and go to one of their gigs. Anyway, when I got to the carpark, which was a bargain £17.99 for 8 days, some rather portly woman comes bounding over shouting something about a jump! I'm like, WTF fatty, jog on and get yourself a cake but it turns out her car wouldn't start and she wanted me to jump start it! Jump starting it didn't work so me and her chap tried to bump start it but all that did was pull my calf, get me massively out of breath and sweaty! I told them to phone the AA and did one.

It was the first time I had flown out of Terminal 3 at Manchester, a terminal that is obviously reserved for retards and people going to crap places. The "duty free" shops are minimal, the places to buy food and drink are cack and you get 30 minutes free wifi! Notice how I put "duty free" in inverted commas? Well that's because it doesn't exist really. Spiritis, **** etc are dead cheap if flying out of the EU but not if you're staying inside. Even pretending you don't know Prague is in the EU as it doesn't use the Euro doesn't cut it with the staff, although some extremely camp fella (think that knobhead who does the dancing from Pineapple Studios or whatever) rubbed my hand and tried selling me some perfume so all wasn't lost.

Eventually, after losing a buyin to the biggest fish heads up, my gate was opened, Gate 3D. I half expected some stupid frigging glasses to wear. Whilst walking around to the "gate," notice that is in inverted commas too more later, the only plane I could see was one with propellers! Seriously, WTF? Are they even legal anymore? We finally got to the "gate" which is basically a sliding door where you walk out onto the runway, to our plane, or cigar tube as it is now known.

I am not joking, it was tiny. Apparently Boeing 737 planes are big, well they must have shrunk the inside because I could hardly fit my arse in the seat! Yes I am carrying a bit of timber but Jesus. I had to do some weird body contortionist shizzle to get my bag under my seat. I actually laughed when they said familiarise yourself with the brace position as the only thing I would be able to do would be to bow my head slightly! Yeah that'll keep me safe when we crash into the ground at 500mph from 40,000 feet.

The flight itself went quick, despite some Czech kid, around 4 years old, screaming his knob off for the last half hour. Surely you should be allowed to punch children in the face when you are on a flight. I love kids, not in an Ian Huntley kind of way, but control the little sods when there are 200 of you sat on each others knee in some weird and kinky "all pile on" situation.

One of the reasons Prague is so popular is the cheap ale. I remember 16 of us drinking for several hours and it costing us bugger all. However, Pudding has an in-built sensor to get ripped off, problem is I don't sense it until the ripping ff has happened. I arranged to meet Dana, a fellow blogger, at the airport so we could share a taxi. After waiting for around an hour I decided to get a beer, just as she and Steve the PokerStars photographer came into arrivals. The bird behind the counter gave me a receipt that said 145 Czech Koruna which means feck all until you realise it is informing me my beer is costing me £5.37. I asked if I was paying for the entire bar but sarcasm from a Yorkshireman doesn't go down too well and she told me I was only paying for myself!

The hotel is very nice on the outside an in the fantastic lobby (will try snap some pics) but the rooms are nothing like what I had in Barcelona. Still 20x better than the Travel Lodge me and the Mrs would stay in. Internet is meant to be £13 a day with the PokerStars discount but I tried my best to get it for nothing, which didn't work. Then was informed that it is highly illegal for hotel staff to accept bribes when I tried to pay the woman on the phone £30 for the seven night's stay. However, I may have got the net for free by finding a hidden purchase option, though I need to check with reception what is showing on my account otherwise I may be paying a ton of cash and not knowing it, and they already have my bank card details!

Right, well I'll leave it there for now. Just run a bath so going to jump in it and wash my sweaty fat bits. Already ironed my clothes for the week like the little bitch that I am. All I have to do now is eat one of the Pot Noodles I brought with me. Karl Pilkington eat your heart out!

As always, thanks for reading and best of look at the tables!