Richard 'Beau' Nash

CASINO GAMBLING RETURNS TO BATH

Bath has been buzzing the last few days. The Prime Minister's committee on gambling has awarded Bath with one of its 8 small casinos. Small meaning no more than 80 slot machines. The religious community in Bath had approached the situation from what we thought was a progressive angle. We didn't moralise about the 'evils' of gambling, we simply asked what the city fathers and mothers were going to do deal with the most vulnerable who would be affected by a bank of slot machines right in the city centre.

In 1705, Richard 'Beau' Nash arrived in Bath from London. A gambler and womaniser who had been unsuccessful at everything else he'd turned his hand to, Nash discovered that his wit, manners and skill at the card table made him ideal for the job of Bath's Master of Ceremonies. With great zeal and style he set about cleaning up the streets and enforcing a code of manners for Bath's burgeoning social scene (as opposed to its anti-social scene, which was still dominated by the cudgel, the gin bottle and the brothel). from the Naked Guide to Bath by Gideon Kibblewhite

Well, we still have a brothel or two (or so I've heard), on weekend evenings the city centre is filled with binge drinking university students, and we still have our share of pickpockets who prey upon our tourists but don't use cudgels. I'm wondering if I should apply for the twenty-first century position of Master of Ceremonies. My refined manners and dignified bearing might finally be put to good use.