It’s got to be the most bizarre news story of the year: last week, no fewer than 50 Thai police officers burst into a bridge club in Pattaya — a city rife with crime and prostitution — and arrested 32 elderly players, many of them British ex-pats. Gambling is strictly forbidden in Thailand, and the police were acting on a false tip-off that they were playing for money. But even once it was clear that they weren’t, the bridge enthusiasts — who included an 84-year-old Dutch woman on a walking stick — were carted off to the police station and charged with breaking a 1935 law prohibiting card players from possessing more than 120 cards at any given time. They were released at 4 a.m., after being fined 5,000 baht each (around £100).
Well, I can’t say anything so exciting has ever happened to me at the bridge table — though I’m sure many of my partners would have loved to see me arrested on the spot.
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