50 Years Ago Today

 I am indebted to my longest-standing friend for a recording of a performance by the Local Yokels in a live performance in Gloucester on December 31, 1975. Like many bootlegs of the period, it is rough and might benefit from a couple of day's worth of Abbey Road studio time to re-master it so that the nuances of the vocal tour de force can be more fully appreciated.

The spirit of the occasion is authentically preserved, though, both in the glorious performance and riotous reception. A well-tuned ear can even detect that the song is Lindisfarne's anthem, Fog on the Tyne, with all of Alan Hull's inventive alliteration.

At the time I was as deeply impressed by my friend's self-taught capacity to play the guitar riff as I was by his songwriting and much that he has accomplished since. As the likes of Andrew Ridgeley, Mickey Finn and maybe even John Lennon would know, it's a good idea to associate oneself with genuine talent. Maybe that isn't the most technically demanding guitar part in the repertoire after all but to one whose virtuosity went no further than the kazoo, it sounded like Richard Thompson to me.

--

Reading through Eugene Onegin,

that finest thing of Russian verse,  

even only in translation,

somehow for better or for worse,

one finds oneself always thinking

in tetrametric, four beat lines.

All one's thoughts forever tinkling

in such rhythms and with such rhymes. 

--

Lon Chaney winning the 13.43 (!!!) at Uttoxeter today for the highly reliable Olly Murphy/Sean Bowen combination leaves the b/f figure in the turf account back to where it was this time last year with a modest profit having been taken for 2025.

That's got to be satisfactory given the desperado exploits throughout much of the year defending a parlous bottom line against going into the minus.

This year's success is mainly due to a windfall on one of the bookmakers' free-to-play games. It would be impolite to look such gift horses in the mouth and in due course, after plugging away with plausible guesswork for however long it takes, one is likely to land a worthwhile prize.

It's also due to such bread-and-butter providers of winners like Murphy/Bowen, Snowden/Sheehan, Fergal O'Brien and, once they are ready, Mr. Henderson and Nico de Boinville. Mostly in novice hurdle races and suchlike not always in televised races at glamorous courses. It's a gradual, percentage process, not an exciting instant bonanza. Those who go in search of the big bonanza correlate quite closely with those who go broke.

Some years ago, on the train to Ascot with the Professor, a number of loud Burberry-clad young men got on and were soon shouting the names of 16/1 shots too each other, full of hope and unsupported expectation and I let a lucrative business opportunity go by. I'd have gladly laid them odds on all their random fancies. None of them won but maybe those welcome customers of the horse racing industry had a good time, anyway, safe in the knowledge that they'd done a few hundred quid.

I don't mind losing at sport but I'm not convinced I want it to cost me money. It's not all that exciting backing 5/4 winners but I prefer it to coming nowhere at double-figure odds. One sticks to the plan with as much discipline as one can muster. And win in the end.

You could call it Philip Larkin-style betting, downbeat, unambitious, low-risk but well thought out and successful.

In lots of ways, it was a happy old year.

Happy New Year.