Touchdown ~ Seniors B

Most of the players arrived today. The daily British Airways flight from London lands at 03:30 – not a nice time to arrive anywhere. And certainly not nice for those who live under the flight path. Chennai changed its name from Madras in 1996 but IATA doesn't recognise such rebranding, and the airport code is still MAA (Madrid got MAD). Similarly with Mumbai (BOM), Beijing (PEK), St Petersburg (LED) and a few others.

We are all staying in the Grand Chola Hotel. It is enormous – 600 rooms and very large public spaces. Luckily they give you a big ball of string so that you can find your way back to reception.



The really good news is that all the bridge takes place in the hotel, so we won’t have to travel outside in the heat (33
degrees today) or the monsoon rain (forecast for a few days' time).

More facts about Chennai: It is known as 'the Detroit of India' (because of its car-building) but prefers to call itself 'the cultural capital of India'. At 6 km, Chennai's Marina Beach is the second longest urban beach in the world.

And the answers to yesterday’s questions are:

(A) Guadeloupe is representing the Central American & Caribbean Bridge Federation in all three events. Surprisingly, Guadeloupe is not the competitor with the smallest number of registered bridge players. The country/countries with fewer will be revealed over the coming days. (Now there’s an incentive to read the blogs every day!)

(B): Yes, the Rugby World Cup is being shown on one of their six sports channels.

Today's Senior motivational quote is:

"It's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years."

Who said it? Unless your curiosity overcomes you and you google it, the answer will be revealed tomorrow. And it isn't Mae West.