I have come to the conclusion that London is not one of the easier places to do chipping. This may indicate a previous and breathtaking lack of knowledge concerning how the casinos operate there as well as the character of the British citizenry, yet I had high hopes when I planned my trip there.

I went for a week of business, which happened to encompass a weekend - lucky me! Having spent evenings on various websites, addressing and mapping all of the open casinos in London, I finally found time on Friday evening to start my mission. After dropping off my briefcase in my hotel room, I proceeded directly to the Golden Nugget Casino, just off Piccadilly Circus and in the heart of the theatre district on Shaftesbury Street. The gentleman at the desk was relatively accomodating - he had no £5 chips at the desk, and he would not have someone actually go into the casino to pick one up for me. He did, however, have a small assortment of fractionals sitting in his drawer, from several London casinos, that he offered to sell me at face. I took him up on the offer.

Emboldened by my semi-success at the G-N, I proceeded directly to the Ritz. Or, should I say, THE Ritz. It resides on Piccadilly adjacent to Green Park. Now, Green Park is the only of Her Majesty's parks where there are no flower beds. I'll spare you the "official" reason for this, but I later discovered that the real reason is that they don't dare grow there, for fear of comparisons to the hotel next door.

Having talked my way through a clutch of no less then four doormen (I was still wearing a suit and tie at the time, so there were no grounds to disallow admission based on caste), it was suggested that I speak to "the woman at the desk", with whom I had the following exchange, which I remember verbatim:

Me: "Hi, I am a collector of casino chips, and I was wondering if I might purchase a couple from you." (You know - when in Rome...)

Woman at the Desk: "I'm afraid not."

Me: "I don't want to go into the casino, I would just like to buy a couple of chips and then I'll be off."

WATD: "That's what I'm telling you - no."

Me: "You know, these chips probably cost the casino around 25 pence apiece, and I'm willing to buy £6 worth, which represents a profit of about £5½."

WATD: "Sorry, not interested."

Me: "I've been in hundreds of casinos and this is the very first time I've been refused."

WATD: "Well, then, there's a first time for everything, isn't there?"

Me: "Your mother must be very proud."

WATD: "Quite."

When I made it to the top of the staircase, one of the doormen said "Well, that was quick, wasn't it?"

"Not quick enough."

The next morning I woke up bright and early, only mildly discouraged by the events of the previous evening and hoping to go to the antique district and try my luck. I walked over to open the curtains to let a little light in, and then realized that they were, in fact, open. Here in Los Angeles, we call this type of event an eclipse. In London, they call it Saturday. It was indeed a day that would make Noah proud. So much for chipping. I wound up taking a double-decker bus tour for the day.

Now, it gets dark pretty late in London this time of year. You could tee of at 9:30 and still get that last hole in. The picture of the Tower Bridge below was taken at about 3:00 PM.

I had a little better luck in Berlin - I'll post on that in a while. I haven't figured out how to size images, so I apologize for the immensity of the pictures below.