'Pool'ing around
I remember myself only working/drinking or lazing at home from my last trip to Gibraltar. Weekdays were full of work till late nights and weekends were reserved for sleep, beyond anything. This time around, I came in with a firm mindset to change all that, I have been more or less (not more of a less) successful at being active. Now a days, weekdays and weekends are also about activities other than work. I work out. He he! I know it doesn't make a great deal of difference to my figure but, it's a better way to be, rather than just killing time idling around. I read, I blog, I go on long walks, I go out for a drink and I play pool. My friend Seshadri, Sesh for short, got me introduced to the game. Sesh is good company for me when it comes to playing pool. He is more than a beginner and has a few tricks to teach me, a beginner.

Today we went to a bar called 'The Anchor' which is a small place built on a quaint, sailor's bar kind of theme that starts from the old Anchor at the door step and runs through out the place, from the crossed paddles on the door to the fishing nets and the mini life saver doughnuts on the doorways. Mike, an elderly gentleman with a good sense of humour, owns the place. He is quite popular with the local crowd. Pool tournaments are held in Gibraltar every Thursday and Mike is a helmsman for one of the teams. By the time me and Sesh finished 2 frames we were joined by 2 other guys, Chris and Robert, who wanted to play against us. After the introductions and the pleasantries we set the frame for a game paid for by Chris and company. The next game was to be on us. Football fever is on and with England playing today, no wonder they both were dressed in the English league Ts. Robert decided to settle down for a drink while Chris teamed up with Mike against us novices. We played, as expected, we lost both the frames. Meanwhile, two other regulars, Charlie (wonderfully bald, by choice) and Mr. X (dunno his name) teamed up against Chris and Mike. People are allowed to fill their own drinks at Mike's bar. It was intersting to watch them play, trying to block the pockets for the opponent team and all. Almost towards the fag end, Mike missed the black ball and Mr. X jumped in, to pot it. While celebrating his victory, little did he realize that the cue ball was slowly finding it's way to the adjacent pocket. I pointed it out and Mike and Chris went 'Hip Hip Hurray!' while Charlie and Mr. X were not too happy about it :D. Let me describe this Chris fellow for you. This bloke is lean, quite atheletic and looks like border line Keanu Reeves. Chris and Robert hang out a lot and an enumeration of the adventures of a drunken and elated Chris was the bar's attraction of the evening. Mr. Chris man having celebrated the German victory in the opening match of the world cup went up to a Blue eyed Blonde and told her that she was the woman of Matrix (the movie) and that he was Keanu Reeves :). "You should have seen the look on her face", he says. They also told us of the time when Chris tried to imitate James Bond by jumping into a glass pane at a friend's bar and how Robert had to temporarily repair it for the night by nailing a plank of plywood on the window sill while everybody else was enjoying football. The event was followed by a standup comedy by the man himself. He shared a lot of local and global jokes with us, some of them adult and racist in nature, yet, very funny. As we were about to leave after a gut busting string of laughs, Chris proudly proclaimed that his mind was like a computer which held more jokes than intelligency. He He! yup, you read it right, he said 'intelligency'. You should have seen his friends pull his leg about his 'intelligency'. :)

Ok! moral of this whole Chris starrer is that Gibraltarians are nice, friendly and responsive people and the fact that I got to know some of them better, over a friendly game of pool was exciting for me. I intend to try more stuff like poker and squash and socialize a bit more this time around in Gibraltar.

Cheers!

/PhaKuDi