Bridge | 05 February 2022

I’ve been friends with the England player Mike Bell for many years; as top bridge professionals go, I’d say he has fewer eccentricities than most. But there’s one thing I can never get used to: in the depths of winter, he refuses to wear anything but a T-shirt. He doesn’t even own a jumper, let alone a coat. Last Sunday, it was an unusually cold evening, and as we strolled out of the Young Chelsea bridge club in Hammersmith — along with his wife Sarah Bell and Ollie Burgess — I made the mistake of telling him he was crazy not to put on something warm. His response was to whip off his T-shirt and walk bare-chested down the street.

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As it happens, it was Mike’s second strip of the day. The four of us had teamed up to play in a London teams event (which was very enjoyable, especially as we won).