Racetrack Wiseguy on the World Cup

 Horrific exploitation of readily-duped supporters who have been conditioned into a state of bad faith passionate engagement it clearly is but I'm torn between how much of a critic of the once-much-loved World Cup I'm prepared to be and how much a dissenter from the once-almost-unassailable orthodoxy of Marxist analysis. One wants to be both but the usual liberal dilemmas apply and it's a bit of each.

It's an absolute piece of cake, though, to re-invigorate the turf account. Not on the horse racing turf but on the football turf of the Americas in summer. I was on the lookout for an obvious group game win to pile into at odds on to generate some ammunition. I'm glad I did enough research into Brazil to find that Pele & Co have retired by now and it isn't proper Brazil anymore. While a few 'dead certs' went in, other good things did not and one wants to be risk averse when one false move puts one in the minus for the year and I'm not used to that.

But, working through the draw and how it all pans out after it began to look like some other old, much-vaunted old names weren't much good, it seemed that there wasn't a lot in Argentina's way to the final and only Spain were a danger to France. Patriotism, 'the last refuge of a scoundrel' according to Dr. Johnson, does one no favours and I'm glad I don't suffer from it. 

France to beat Argentina in the final paid 22/1 only a few days ago and the other way round it was 25/1. Nothing but the entirely expected has happened to either of them in the meantime but those prices have collapsed and I can already take a modest profit from having invested.

But you'd think there was more to be had, that we can wait until just before the semi-finals and then cash out one or both bets or maybe even field against Spain.

So far, it feels like taking candy from a baby but I haven't snatched it off them yet. I'm waiting for my moment. One mustn't leave it too late in case they suddenly swallow the lot but one doesn't want to go too soon because there could be odds of more than 20/1 to be landed.

It's not that that keeps me awake at night, it's other things and I don't mind being awake at night. I'm enjoying being in this advantageous position. I've just got to make sure I don't blow it.

Library Discovery

My reading of Henry James ground to a halt halfway through The Ambassadors. I felt I needed to borrow the rubber stamp Larkin had made that he used on unsolicited poems he was sent, 'Why should I care?'

Sitting in my upstairs room, the second half of the alphabet of prose fiction is on my right hand side. Closest to hand is Dylan Thomas, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog, very good to return to and maybe I approve of him more in prose fiction than in poems. But Treasure Island was worth picking up and I'm enjoying it very much. I knew how old it was but hadn't realized it was a Christmas present from 1967. It is inscribed to me from Aunty Joan and Uncle Andy, who do not appear on the family tree but were next door neighbours.

A 235 page novel is a big ask for an 8yo and I don't think I ever got further than its first two or three pages, which were a bit scary. I'd like to think Uncle Andy, and Joan who I don't remember now, would be glad to know I'm grateful, 59 years later. It's not my oldest possession but comes in not far behind my dog, Jock, who arrived at my first Christmas in 1959, and is roughly contemporaneous with my Astronomy books that tell me that Jupiter has 16 moons and Saturn 9. At least they were ahead of Galileo who thought Jupiter had 4.