noun [uncountable] British. an activity in which a group of people locate a private swimming pool and arrange to swim there without permission when the owner is absent.

Mr William Botibol is the main character of the short story “Dip in the Pool” by Roald Dahl. He is an American passenger aboard a British cruise ship in the Atlantic. He is married to a woman named Ethel.

After some hasty reasoning and planning, Botibol decides to throw himself overboard.

On board a cruise ship Mr. Botibol decides to take part in the ship’s auction, which is a bet about how far the ship will go the next day. He talks to the purser, who tells him that the pool is up to $7,000, with numbers selling for $300 – $400.

Jack Weston
Nevertheless, when these two stories were adapted for television’s Tales of the Unexpected, the same actor, Jack Weston, played “Botibol” in both episodes.

THEME. This story takes place in the 1950’s. This is hinted in the line “Wouldn’t that really be something, to see Ethel’s face when he glided up to the door in a brand-new pale-green Lincoln convertible!” (Dahl 105-106). The location is in a boat out in sea.

Plot summary On a British cruise ship, there is a betting pool wherein passengers try to correctly guess the number of miles the ship will travel that day, within ten miles above (“high field”) or below (“low field”) the captain’s own guess. This way, the ship will have to stop and turn around to rescue him.

to swim
English Language Learners Definition of skinny-dip : to swim without wearing any clothes.

informal + impolite. : to pass solid waste from the body.

Luck and Fate. One of the main themes of the short story “Dip in the Pool” by Roald Dahl is the theme of luck. Botibol believes that by being sneaky and gaining inside information from the purser about when and how the captain made his estimate, he can have better odds of winning the auction.