View from the Boundary

Look, it's March already. How does a routine make the weeks go by. I can, of course, explain why time appears to go quicker. It is because at age 50, a year represents only 2% of one's experience of time whereas at 5 it represented 20%, and there is also the equivalent of the income tax threshold at the base of this, about three years for many of us, of which one remembers little, and so the effect is further exaggerated. But it's going by so fast now that I wonder if it's more than that, if the work of Stephen Hawking and Einstein needs revising in the light of our empirical evidence of it. If time isn't speeding up then perhaps the things it measures are getting smaller.
And so, it is nearly time for Cheltenham and a week off to watch it. I might not be immediately piling in with more much ready cash over and above seeing how my ante-post investments go. If Qewy overturns the Irish banker in the first race then we could be on for a good week. But having napped Peace & Co in the Triumph Hurdle next Friday, I then heard about quite a gamble on Beltor, which his win on that Saturday endorsed, he came down from 33/1 to 8/1 and is still shortening up. So, I have taken out some insurance on him and can only pass on the news. But it looks as if the secret's not a secret anymore.
But, it is a dangerous game. I usually survive intact but the background to the gambling industry presented in Nick Townsend's book The Sure Thing, the story of the indomitable trainer/gambler, Barney Curley, was a timely reminder of what a heavily one-sided game it is between punter and bookmaker. And so I'm happy to stay ahead and relish the situation for as long as I can rather than go in vainglorious pursuit of more. 'I play my enemies like a game of chess', it says on The Score by The Fugees but I don't even see Paddy Power as an enemy, which is, no doubt part of his trick.
But what a much more preferable read that book was to Prof. Crawford's book on Eliot. I don't like to be overly critical here and it's a worthy biography but it was just so joyless, which is surely due to Eliot rather than Crawford. There is no reason to assume that great poetry comes from great people but Crawford's book's had enough in it to again raise the question of to what extent Eliot was a poet and how much made a scrapbook of extracts to reflect his own frail mental state. Eliot's reputation has always been enormous, has sometimes wavered a bit with me without ever denying his colossal significance but now I'm wondering all over again.
But it is time to think about what to read next and the name of Zwingli came hurtling back recently, someone I hadn't thought about for some decades. Looking at Amazon, it is profoundly to be regretted how few books are available on him. He wrote a poem, Pestlied, in which he said,

mich nüt befilt.

(nothing can be too severe for me)

and held talks with Martin Luther at the Marburg Colloquy in which they agreed on most things apart from the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist (I'm using Wikipedia for this in-depth research). It must have been a thrilling chat. But he seems like a candidate for some light holiday reading. Otherwise, there are plenty of copies of the biography of controversial jockey, Graham Bradley, going cheap so it might be illuminating to read his version of what it says in the Barney Curley book.
Another candidate could be Me: Moir, the memoir of Jim Moir, Vic Reeves, whose masterpiece, House of Fools, reached new heights last week. And I didn't even mind that it wasn't on this week because I have also so far enjoyed Let's Play Darts for Comic Relief which a cast of highly likeable Pro-Celeb players including Bob Mortimer, Bobby George, Deta Hedman, Richard Osman and Lisa Tarbuck. It's certainly more fun watching Lisa play darts than seeing Tarby Snr. playing golf with Brucie and Ronnie Corbett.
And if you know of any magazine that is looking for a columnist who can mention Einstein, Stephen Hawking, Zwingli, Barney Curley, Graham Bradley, The Fugees, Vic Reeves, Bobby George, T.S. Eliot and Bruce Forsyth in such a lucidly concatenated piece, then please put me in touch with them. I could ideally do with a few more years of paid employment different to that I have now.