"This is a problem for Persuasive Pete!"

I'd been feeling low for a while and, with nothing better to do with my time since Deadfast had been keeping himself busy, I'd been spending my time with the chef (who had found his way out of the maze) in the kitchen, learning how to cook.

All was going well until, one late night, bonding over some pastry, Chef invited me to play some poker with him and some of this friends.
Well, I thought, Deadfast is busy with whatever it is he is doing, so I may as well make some new friends. So, I took him up on the offer.

I now owe his "friend" Baseball Paul £15,000.

"Why do they call him Baseball Paul?" Deadfast asked me this morning, over breakfast.
"If you annoy him..."
"By, for example, not paying him money you owe him?" Deadfast chipped in.
"Yes, if you annoy him he will batter you to death with a baseball bat."
"I see."
"I've tried reasoning with him, I have..." I started to explain how it had all got out of hand when Chef had told me that Baseball Paul was rubbish at poker, and how he said he liked to make big-money bets and always lost, but could afford it because he was "... into everything, if you know what I mean!". I had tried to bluff him, and it had failed. Big time.
"You need to tell him that it was just a bit of a laugh, and you can't be expected to pay that much money... you don't HAVE that much money, do you?"
"No."
"Right then... this is a problem for Persuasive Pete!"
"Erm... who?"

Deadfast went on to tell me about a man he knew who could persaude anyone to do anything (he has a cousin called Convincing John, by the way!).

"He is the guy who persuaded Victoria Beckham that she could sing!"
"Bloody hell, he IS good!" I gasped.

So, this weekend Deadfast is taking me to see this man, Persuasive Pete.

Wish me well!