The Balance Sheets and other stories

 How much Christmas telly am I really missing for having the Virgin box fail on the night before Christmas Eve. Not much. I see Talking Pictures have had the film of Please, Sir with the well-intentioned John Alderton struggling to deal with 5B, the star of which, as he was wherever he appeared, must have been Deryck Guyler as the caretaker. It might have been as re-assuring as ever to see that the great and good aren't as clever as you thought on Christmas University Challenge but one can do without it and so the loss was the documentary on Maria Callas and having to watch the racing on Paddy Power dot com.

It's true I would have watched the news channels late at night or joined in for the final chase of any of the many available episodes of The Chase but that's not a bad habit to get out of. I could spend more time with my Solzhenitsyn and the balance sheet of the telly not being available doesn't show much of a loss.

Somehow, and I don't know how, there's been a huge plus. 

There was a time I had a car. It was until 1994 or 95. I had no idea how it worked but used it quite a lot. It seems dreadful now but, yes, I was the driver of a motor vehicle. But at least I could get to the races without only having the option of going when my mates are going. But, in having to pass an MOT, one's car had to satisfy a garage qualified to say it did. If the man said you needed new filuminators on your waffle-sprangers and it was going to cost £200 then that's what you had. I am free of such torments these last 25 years and glad of it but now beholden instead to the computer.

Not only had the telly gone but something somewhere was making the computer slow. I tried various things from my limited knowledge of possible things to do and felt like George Best trying to 'get off with' Dusty Springfield and not in a position to know why I was not in a position to know why I couldn't do it. But, coming back to it, seeing myself the thwarted victim of the gadgets I'd allowed myself to depend, suddenly the internet worked like a dream, reacting immediately to every click and I played chess without regard to winning, particularly, but for the joy of the computer's instant reaction.

I have no idea if that miracle - because, of course, we are all devout in our belief in a benevolent God despite his negligence during times of plague - had anything to do with eight calls from people claiming to be Virgin Media who wanted to fix my internet speed that I regarded as scam calls, any of the things I did myself, an act of God or something that was always going to correct itself. Their likeliness is not necssarily in that order. But I'll take a few days of tellylessness in exchange for perfect internet all day long and that is how craven and grateful one can become when one depends on something too much.

 

I'll hide the Racetrack Wiseguy bit down here because nobody in their right mind will have got this far.

How many times has Frodon defied the odds, coming from a run of summer wins a few years ago into the big league, jumping and forever trying his best for the wonderful Bryony, and who wouldn't, improving all the time until winning the King George at 20/1 and, of course he did. All you have to do is 'be any good' and if nobody else has yet (I'm sure somebody will have), I'll say he's the new Desert Orchid. He is asked for more and he comes up with it. Partly because the others weren't as good as they thought they were but how many times has that happened up against an opponent that means it.

But my own 2020 effectively comes to a crunch on the 27th Dec. If I don't collect then the year will go down in the minus column but nowhere near as badly as it might have. After a bad day today when I thought it might be and didn't spend much, I am due and am hoping to do it with-

Mr. Glass (Wetherby 3.20). They are backing the other one but one has to keep the faith.

Heross du Seuil (Kempton, 12.45), which I was reluctant about at first but will now go in with because it's getting to be almost now or never.

And the double at Chepstow, Houx Gris (1.40), which, if it's any good might not have much to worry about, with Farrants Way (2.15), a 3m chaser, trained by Venetia Williams in deep ground at Chepstow at 5/2, which sounds better than all the Christmas presents you could have wished for.

Something might come of it but it's not eventually about the cash, although it sometimes looks as if it might be. It is about 'sport', whatever that is, for better or worse.

We might be over Christmas records by now and so, relieved of all such opportunism, can return to the sublime,