Paddy Power e-mailed last night to say that their 'Best Price Guarantee', by which you are paid at SP if that's better than the price you take, would henceforth only apply after 8 a.m. on the day of the race.
Well, that's not good enough. I can take my business elsewhere to a firm that will apply it from when they price up the races the night before.
It is the first step back from bookmakers all trying to match each other's competitive offers in a crowded market place. I hadn't quite seen it coming but had noticed Paddy becoming more guarded in committing himself to early prices, waiting to see what the opposition chalked up and which way the wind was blowing. A case in point was the first at Cheltenham last Thursday in which he wasn't prepared to go 13/8 Indefatiguable like some were.
But it's a strange relationship with a bookmaker, deserting them when it is one's very raison d'etre to be jousting with them rather than doing business with them from which they profit. The six or seven years I've had my PP account has cost him and paid me so he won't be sorry to see me go.
Thanks for having me, Paddy. I enjoyed it very much. I won.
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Sweet Caress by William Boyd, irresitible at 75p in a charity shop recently, proved worth its while in the end. Seemingly a little bit routine in its first half, it was never going to be abandoned, and developed into something quite moving in its later stages, a view of the C20th, from Fascism to Vietnam and the hippy community through the adventurous life of a lady photographer. One wondered if the model for Amory Clay could have been Marie Colvin or if William Boyd just imagined someone who was very like someone equally remarkable who had really existed but if Boyd is more storyteller than literati, it does him no harm.
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BorderIncident at Chess24 has again arrived at base camp from which to make a daring bid for new heights.
A winning streak has taken my rating for 15 minute games to 1858, potentially three or four wins from the 1910 I've left my 10 minute game rating preserved at. As soon as (if ever) I can get beyond that, I'll play 10 minute games again. I think I might have been 1922 once, before I devised this strategy, but 1740 probably reflects my ability more accurately. One tries to punch above one's weight but it becomes a matter of declining games you think you might not win, being lucky and not playing casually when tired or distracted. The top-rated players on there are around 3000, where one begins at 1500.
It would appear that having learnt something about the art of garnering results for results' sake, I might get by in Division 2 of a local league, which has generally been my limit at most sports.
I expect I'll be back down at 1660 soon enough.
It's only sport. There isn't even any money on it and so it can't possibly matter.
If Radio 5 could accept the idea that sport doesn't actually matter, that would be one obstacle out of our way.
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And, finally, I haven't read any reaction to what we saw of the standing ovation that occured at Lyra McKee's funeral but Arlene Foster didn't look as if she took part willingly and the BBC didn't show her joining in the applause.
It must have been the BBC's biased coverage.