121 Come on, Dover! Move yer bloomin' arse!

I have an online betting account that I opened two years ago when I discovered that we live five miles from the nearest betting shop and I wanted to back a “sure thing” that I had been tipped in the Grand National.  I put £5 each-way on ‘Pineau De Re’ and it won at 25/1.  That was nice!

I left my winnings from that race in the account and I have only dipped into it once or twice since.  My winnings have just sat there being slowly eroded by inflation.

On Grand National Saturday two weeks ago, my daughter and her family were staying with us on a visit from Yorkshire.  They invited friends from London to come up with their three children to spend a day with us in the country.  I cooked lunch.

After lunch was finished and cleared away, they all decided to go for a walk but I wasn’t going to go and I told them why:

“It’s the Grand National this afternoon and a friend of mine has given me a few horses that may have a chance,” I explained.  “I’m going to place a couple of bets and watch the race on television.”

Suddenly, their walk was cancelled.  A gambling fever hit the five of them.  Caroline wasn’t going to miss an opportunity to win money rather than relief from a household chore which is all she gets nowadays when she wins a bet. (Click to see, "You Betcha")

They had a great time choosing what horses to back.  I’m not sure of the criteria they used but Lucy, my daughter who is a teacher, chose ‘Morning Assembly’ while David, her husband, selected ‘Rocky Creek’.  I think that was because they have a dog called Rocky but David denied it vehemently.

Caroline assured me emphatically that her choice of ‘Gallant Oscar’ was certainly not because we have a nephew called Oscar but because she had very carefully studied his past form. 

I suggested to my daughter’s friend, Amber, that perhaps her selection of ‘Onenightinvienna’ was not based on any deep thought at all, because only an hour earlier she had been telling us about the weekend she had recently spent in Vienna.  She refuted that and insisted that it was a selection based on a mixture of perception, judgement and intuition.

Ten minutes before the “off” I asked if they were all done.  “No,” said Caroline “Five pounds each-way on ‘Ucello Conti’.  I’ve got a feeling”.  After a little light pressure from me, she finally admitted that her feeling was because of the ventriloquist Nina Conti whom Caroline thinks is very funny.

I acted as their bookmaker and placed their bets on my online account. I put more than £200 on 11 different horses, some of which were backed by more than one person.  The shortest price was 8-1 and the longest was 50-1.  I told Amber that if Le Reve won at 50-1, she’d have to wait for her winnings because I didn’t have three hundred pounds in cash.

Then I started to collect their money.  “Sixty pounds please Tim.”

“No, that’s not right,” he said.  “I just backed three horses.”

“Yes,” I said, “and you put ten pounds each-way on all three.”

“Three tens are thirty,” said Tim.

“Yes, but three twenties are sixty and so that’s sixty pounds please.”

Then I had to explain once again that ten pounds each-way means ten pounds on the win and ten pounds on the place.  That means twenty pounds in total for the ten pounds each-way bet. 

Amber wasn’t happy.  “I told you a pound maximum,” she grumbled at Tim.

“Don’t worry,” I said, trying to reassure her, “two of the three horses that Tim has picked are horses I was tipped by my friend and he really does know what he’s talking about.  One of them is the favourite and I reckon that at least one of them will finish in the first five so even if you do lose, you won’t lose all the sixty pounds.”

“You can’t be sure though can you?”

“No, of course I can’t be sure but you will be very unlucky indeed if all three of them fail,” I said.

Things started badly.  In fact, it couldn’t have been much worse as ‘Hadrian’s Approach’ unseated its rider at the first fence and at the second fence, both ‘First Lieutenant’ and ‘Holywell’ fell. 

The Grand National takes about 10 minutes to run and you usually get to hear your selection called by the commentator at least once.  However, our horses never seemed to get a mention.  The first time that ‘Gallant Oscar’ was mentioned was when it was pulled up at the 18^th fence. 

An air of gloomy disbelief pervaded the room as ‘Druids Nephew’ was pulled up at the 21^st and then ‘Onenightinvienna’ unseated its rider at 22^nd.

The eventual outcome was a statistical phenomenon.

Not one of our 11 selections was placed!  Only four of our eleven horses completed the course.  Ucello Conti was the most “successful” finishing sixth.  The other three were eighth, eleventh and sixteenth.

The probability of any one of 11 randomly selected horses finishing in the first 5 places in a 39 horse race is just over 75%.  Probability of 100% means that an event is certain to happen.  A probability of 0% means that it can never happen and so a 75% probability means that it is much more likely to happen than not.

We would have done better if we had been blindfolded and had chosen the horses with a pin – probably! 

We certainly couldn’t have done worse.

120. Number 10

This is becoming silly.  I keep meeting strange women.  Nutter (click to see) & Brief Encounter (click to see) .  I met another two weeks ago but it wasn’t the first time I’ve seen her and on my scale of relationships she is a 2. 

Incidentally, I am a little surprised and disappointed that Wilton's Scale of Relationships, (click to see)  the system I devised for describing the level and intensity of the relationships that we have with each other, hasn’t caught on as I had expected.  I posted it in February 2010 and I anticipated that by now it would have fallen into common vernacular. 

I thought that people would be saying things like,

“Oh him?  He’s a Wilton six to me.  I’ve known him since I moved here and he’s really nice,” or,

“I don’t really know her.  She’s just a three on the Wilton scale.” 

I thought that people would know of me in the same way they know about Beaufort, Richter and Mohs, but they don’t.  I can't understand it because my scale has everyday function.  Theirs don't.  It's not windy every day; earthquakes are very rare and when did you last need to know the relative hardness of a mineral?

What is wrong with people?

I met this strange woman two weeks ago.  I was sitting on a bench at the edge of the lake in the grounds of the estate where we live.  The huge carp in the lake had seen me and six of them were at the surface, close to the edge with their huge mouths gaping open waiting for some fish food.  Unfortunately for them, I hadn’t brought any. 

I heard the noise of a snuffling dog and became aware that somebody was standing behind me.  I turned my head and said, “Hello.” 

It was a neighbour and over the past three years I have seen her several times but I had never spoken to her before.  She is probably in her sixties and, holding the lead of a black Labrador, she was looking out over the lake.

“Have you got a computer at home?” she asked, still staring past me.

“Yes,” I answered, thinking that it was a strange way to start a conversation with a stranger.

“Look at the Internet,” she said.  “I think you’ll find it interesting” and having said that and only that, she turned and walked away.

“What?” I shouted after her.  “What should I look for?”

She didn’t stop or turn her head but carried on walking towards the apartment-block some 70 yards away.  I called after her again but she didn't hear me or more likely, she ignored me.

“Another nutter,” I thought to myself.  “What is it about me?”

As I was driving home on Easter Monday morning, I saw her again.  She was walking with her dog on the long drive from the main road to the houses.  I pulled up alongside her and wound down the window.

“Hello again,” I said.

She stopped walking and looked blankly at me for a few seconds.  I realised that she didn’t remember or recognise me.

“We met by the lake last week,” I reminded her.  “I was sitting on the bench.  Remember?”

“Oh, yes,” she said vacantly, gazing over the roof of the car at the adjacent field where there were about fifty ewes, all of them with lambs prancing about in the bright spring sunshine.

“You told me that I should look on the Internet but you didn’t tell me what I should be looking for.  Do you remember what it was?”

She thought for a couple of seconds.  “No.  I don’t.”

“Are you sure?  It seemed very important to you at the time.”

She didn’t say anything but lifted her head and looked up at the trees for several seconds.

“Was it about potatoes?” she asked.

“I don't know.  All you said was that if I looked at the Internet, I'd find something interesting.”

A lamb had come close to the fence at the side of the drive and it bleated loudly.  The woman turned to look at it and smiled.  I waited patiently while she said the sort of things to the lamb that women of her age usually only say to small babies.

“Oh yes, I remember now,” she said at last, nodding her head and tugging on the dog’s lead to pull it up from the ‘sit’ position it had assumed.

I waited for her to tell me what it was she remembered but she said nothing.  She started to walk on down the drive towards the houses.   I caught her up but she didn't stop and just carried on walking.

“Aren’t you going to tell me?” I asked in exasperation as I drove slowly alongside her.

She seemed to be thinking about whether to tell me or not.  “Yes, it’s number ten,” she said eventually, pointing towards the Coach Houses.

“Do you mean house number ten?” I asked, trying not to sound irritable but probably failing.

“Yes.”

“What about house number ten?” I asked, staying very calm.

"Didn't you look on the Internet?"

"No, of course I didn't.  I didn't know what to look for."

“It’s for sale,” she said.

“Really? Is that all?”

“Yes.  They must be moving.”

And that was it.  She walked on and I doubt I will ever speak to her again.  I’ve mentioned before the differences between living here and living in London.  I realise now that there is another:

The level of gossip here is appallingly low.