{"id":1712,"date":"2015-12-10T08:52:10","date_gmt":"2015-12-10T08:52:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thisisbanter.com\/?p=1712"},"modified":"2015-12-10T08:52:10","modified_gmt":"2015-12-10T08:52:10","slug":"banter-meets-willie-thorne-126-jan-2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/banter.test\/banter-meets-willie-thorne-126-jan-2016\/","title":{"rendered":"Banter meets Willie Thorne (126, Jan 2016)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>For the third year in a row, Banter will be starting the new year in the company of\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/firstfortnight.ie\/\">First Fortnight<\/a>. Our events at the mental health creative arts festival have always been about sports and 2016 focuses on one sportsman in particular.<\/p>\n<p>During snooker\u2019s heyday in the 1980s,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/IamWillieThorne\">Willie Thorne<\/a>\u00a0was one of the game\u2019s best known and well-liked players. He won 14 major titles and made a record 190 maximum 147 breaks, earning himself the nickname Mr Maximum. But behind the happy-go-lucky smile lurked a dark secret: Thorne was a gambling addict and, by the end of his career, he\u2019d blown \u00a31.5 million at betting shops and casinos. As the money from snooker dried up, Thorne\u2019s destructive addiction showed no sign of abating and his life spiralled out of control. Desperation and depression took hold of him, culminating in a suicide attempt when he came close to ending it all.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/thisisbanter.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/p036hyxb.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1713\" src=\"http:\/\/thisisbanter.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/p036hyxb.jpg\" alt=\"p036hyxb\" width=\"976\" height=\"549\" srcset=\"https:\/\/banter.test\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/p036hyxb.jpg 976w, https:\/\/banter.test\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/p036hyxb-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/banter.test\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/p036hyxb-500x281.jpg 500w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 767px) 89vw, (max-width: 1000px) 54vw, (max-width: 1071px) 543px, 580px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Banter\u2019s conversation with Willie Thorne takes place at Dublin\u2019s Sugar Club on Saturday January 9 at 4.30pm. Tickets are now available\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/firstfortnight.ticketsolve.com\/#\/shows\/873543862\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Check out the full First Fortnight programme\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/firstfortnight.ticketsolve.com\/#\/shows?page=2\">here<\/a>\u00a0including the\u00a0<strong>Therapy Sessions<\/strong>with<a href=\"http:\/\/www.jenniferevans.ie\/\">\u00a0Jenneifer Evans<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.saintsisterband.com\/\">Saint Sister<\/a>\u00a0and others, a screening of the excellent Brian Wilson flick\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0903657\">Love &amp; Mercy<\/a>, a discussion around mental health and sports with\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/kenegan30\">Kenneth Egan<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/soberpaddy.com\/\">John Leonard<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.pedaltheplanet.tv\/\">Breifne Earley<\/a>\u00a0and a public debate chaired by\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/John_Bowman_(broadcaster)\">John Bowman<\/a>\u00a0on where political parties stand on mental health.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For the third year in a row, Banter will be starting the new year in the company of\u00a0First Fortnight. Our events at the mental health creative arts festival have always been about sports and 2016 focuses on one sportsman in particular. During snooker\u2019s heyday in the 1980s,\u00a0Willie Thorne\u00a0was one of the game\u2019s best known and &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/banter.test\/banter-meets-willie-thorne-126-jan-2016\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Banter meets Willie Thorne (126, Jan 2016)&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","filesize_raw":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/banter.test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1712"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/banter.test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/banter.test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/banter.test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/banter.test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1712"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/banter.test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1712\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1714,"href":"https:\/\/banter.test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1712\/revisions\/1714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/banter.test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/banter.test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/banter.test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}