But, never fear, if All Things Must Pass then some things metamorphose. I don't know whether to embark on an Autumn replacement for the old Saturday Nap feature with Racetrack Wiseguy, if only to indulge in the recreation of being the racing journalist I never was. But if I'm going to do that, I might also go and work voluntarily in the library once full-time paid employment is called to a halt because librarian (hilariously) is what I once thought I was going to be.
And, on current form, the last advice anybody ought to be reading on horse racing is mine. I do stupid things and can hardly live with myself when they inevitably go wrong but I remain ahead as a result of some judicious earler work and Oct-Jan is my time, so we will see.
I won't want to come across like Brough Scott who ITV wheel out on big occasions for his dewy-eyed memories of bygone days but that's what I felt like on Saturday when most of the spritely, young presenters had to admit they didn't remember Grundy-Bustino in the 1975 King George. But that is what Enable and Crystal Ocean served up.
The difference is that Grundy got weight from the year older Bustino in 1975 whereas Crystal Ocean was giving weight to Enable this year because he's a boy and she's a girl. The 2019 King George seved to establish the official ratings, that put Crystal Ocean 2lb ahead of Enable, as right.
Without wanting to suffer the slings and arrows of being John McCririck, one race is decided by ageism and another by sexism. I adored Grundy and was glad he won but now have reservations. I suppose I also wanted Enable's sequence to continue but perhaps not under the suspicion that Crystal Ocean is the better horse and won't go down in history, or memory, as such.
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One of the several compensations of ageing is now being able to afford the things one wanted but couldn't when one was a kid. It's reassuring how many of them still apply although it is mostly pop records. I remember one acquaintaince, aged about 40, who drank lemonade from a pint glass, making up for all the times in childhood when he'd been offered fizzy pop and given only a small glass.
One thing my generation can't grow out of (or me, anyway) is having to own the record. We prized our records then in a way that generations since won't appreciate. Although I can't listen to Double Barrel on the internet whenever I want, that isn't good enough. I want to be someone who has the record, i.e. someone.
You Tube will suffice for further Lou Reed titles, though. Reading the 2017 biography by Anthony De Curtis, I am tempted by Coney Island Baby and other titles but I count up that I have 7 titles by Lou or The Velvet Underground and they don't get played very often in the face of such comptetion as there is on the shelves so I surely don't need any more.
Lou has long been some kind of idol as the founder of the Velvets, which is plenty, notwithstanding a very respectable subsequent career. Well, not exactly respectable. I have read a previous biography but must have forgotten, or it didn't make so much of, Lou's behaviour. While accepting that some creative artists can be self-regarding and ill-mannnered, Lou made a career out of it that meant his music needed to be good in order to justify it. It often was, but maybe not always, and then he slags it off himself. Being difficult or downright impossible might seem like fun but eventually, in such cases, sympathy begins to wane.
