There was a strange noise that came out of me to see such an outcome but that must have been nothing compared to the gasp of 64000 people at the track. But that's racing. And Mullins won the race anyway because Glen's Melody, second favourite at 6/1, was trained by him and held on for what would otherwise have been a close-run second place.
It would have been an awful week for me had I got involved but I decided to see how the ante-post investments got on and had very few further bets, preferring to maintain my big 'plus' situation for 2015 so far. And so, despite my lowly position in the Paddy Power tipster competition, I can go into Friday still with chances, those chances being Peace & Co and Beltor in the Triumph Hurdle and the 8/1 I so enthusiastically advised before Christmas about Silviniaco Conti for the Gold Cup. So let's hope for some rain.
Reading books has been far more productive this week. I began Vic Reeves' Me Moir but at first found the surrealist narrative a bit unconvincing so switched to Vicky Coren's For Richer, For Poorer. Despite the unedifying subject matter of her rise and rise in poker tournaments, Vicky's story is highly readable and although I haven't played poker for 25 years or more, by the end of it I felt as if I was starting to understand Holdem. However, nothing would make me want to take belated part in the boom of this 'sport' with its desolate machismo and dreary obsessiveness. Many thousands of pounds, or dollars, depend on whether the next card to be dealt 'on the river' is a Jack or a nine. I can't get interested in that.
Of course, like many things, it has gone from a disreputable seediness that even I couldn't see as glamorous to a corporate industry studied by maths graduates. But any subject can be made interesting by a good writer and Vicky Coren is certainly that. She is intelligent and compassionate while modest enough about her tremendous success in a grimly masculine world.And so by the time I returned to the early years of Vic Reeves in Darlington, I was in a much better mood and that was helped by reaching the years of the young Roderick Moir's interest in pop music. He is a similar age to me but the chronology of his references don't line up quite with mine. He has a much bigger gap between Monkey Spanner and The Faust Tapes. But I was gladdened when Meet me on the Corner got a special mention. I was also fascinated to read that it was possible to practice bass guitar without an amplifier by pushing the machine head up against a suitable sounding box which in his case was a wardrobe.
But much of the territory was easily recognisable as the divide between 'hairies' and Northern Soul became apparent and then everything punk became essential, seeming to wipe away all that went before it except, yes, in private (even, I think, the Slits) were still listening to old stuff but never said so in public.
I devoured those two books with great enjoyment in less than two days each.
And now, on perhaps a slightly more exalted level, it is on to Daniel Deronda. And what a wonderful writer George Eliot is. This is gloriously mature, insightful and chic. Whoever else has been heralded as the epitome of that dubious, shifting, ultimately meaningless accolade of 'cool', and I suggest Miles Davis and Lou Reed are two major candidates, then George Eliot is the real A.P. McCoy.
At an early encounter, Gwendolen (who fancies herself to bits) hears from the detached, aloof Grandcourt, apparently the only man on the planet reserved, dry and sophisticated enough to pique her interest, his assertion that he has 'left off shooting', and replies with,
Oh, then, you are a formidable person. People who have done things once and left them off make one feel very contemptible, as if one were using cast-off fashions. I hope you have not left off all follies, because I practise a great many.
Isn't that wonderful. I dare say that this relationship is due to be problematic because the novel is 700 pages long and the two of them are highly self-regarding and far too superior for their own good. And while they might not be aware of anyone else worthy of their attention, Eliot has already planted some likely distractions. But this looks like being a sensational book and I'm glad I nominated George Eliot in that Top 5 last week.
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Whereas the Collected William Empson is a stilted, desiccated, unwholesomely academic enterprise and a massive disappointment.
I expected so much because what I knew of Empson, and I thought I knew enough, I thought I liked. As a model for the Movement's downbeat, unheroic, empirical poetry, determined to eschew grand gestures and undermine the wordy, allegedly incoherent Dylan Thomas, Empson provided a rigorous template and backed it up with some high-minded theoretical tracts but unless I find the secret to this dull, arcane verse very soon it will be consigned to the shelves with gratitude only for its brevity, Empson's Collected being one of the few such shorter than my own would be.
And a similar fate might soon befall Jules Laforgue, whose poems were such an important precursor to T.S. Eliot's. It might be better if I had them in a translation not by Peter Dale, whose ingenuity in rhyming his versions of Villon seemed to detract from the original. The same seems to be happening here and so I might have to see what I make of the French ahead of Dale's unintended 'reductio ad doggerel' but in translation at least, Baudelaire looks like the preferred option ahead of Laforgue, which is a shame.
Perhaps I need the Sean O'Brien edition. It is, of course, a big part of the advertisement for Laforgue that Prof. O'Brien is a devotee. But, never mind, with The Beautiful Librarians by Sean on its way, the cavalry can be seen coming over the horizon, coming to save poetry just in time.
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And as our Election Watch leads up to the campaign proper, I wonder if any debate will take place once it gets underway. So far, it has already become far too personal but the choice seems to be between Ed Miliband's promise to pass a law about televised debates and David Cameron's belief that Jeremy Clarkson is talented.
I'm sure General Elections were once fought on more important issues than those.
