Saturday 14 March 2009

BACK TO THE BLOG, OPTIMISTICALLY

Kauto Star leaves them all for dead in the Gold Cup

One week off from the blog. Mostly due to Cheltenham races, but also a stretch of fine weather, which continues. Daffodils and things are flowering in the yard. We - Reb, that is - are installing a watering system out back in what is currently a desert . The chickens watch us with amazed clucks. We have also hung a spectacularly ugly fly screen made of plastic strips in the front doorway.

Well, the fences are jumped, the races are run and done, and a bit of my cash along with it. Not too satisfactory, due partly to technical difficulties.
The problem is, what with being in another country and with slow band width, whatever that is, and having a Mac instead of a PC, I had to listen to the races rather than watch them on the computer, and even that was be a bit unpredictable at times.
It took me back half a century to standing in smoke-filled betting shops (no sitting down allowed, then) full of undesirable gamblers like myself , listening (no TV allowed) to a deadpan commentary and cursing horribly as our dreams went up along with the Woodbine fumes and our pounds, shillings and pence went down the drain.
Many an afternoon was wasted with Jeff Bernard in some Soho hovel shoulder to shoulder with Cypriot waiters screaming "Fuckeeng Piggot - ´ee gone an´ done it again!" in my ear.
Still, it is amazing that I can do anything at all out here on the Meseta. We have come a long way all right.
And there is still the Kentucky Derby to come, and Dunkirk to bet.
There´s optimism, for you.

TODAY´S THOUGHTS
If you pretend to be good, the world takes you very seriously. If you pretend to be bad, it doesn't. Such is the astounding stupidity of optimism.
Oscar Wilde

Optimism is the madness of insisting that all is well when we are miserable.
Voltaire

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