Voy Por Ustedes

The whole collapsing of Yugoslavia is a complex puzzle to put back together. I shall use poor grammar and punctuation in this blog symbolic of it's complexity. How did it occur people? How? Sunny holiday resort to Nottingham after hours in only a few years. I'm quite sure Germany were ultimately responsible for the war, or at least guilty of starting it. Radovan Karadzic, who at the height of his cleansing campaigns looked like Father Ted and eventually transformed into Rowan Williams - there's some irony here - ought really to have just been shot. There's something rather poxy about the Hague, more irony here that it rhymes with vague. It's Kangaroo nature makes one almost side with the defendant. Almost. It did a great job of making Slobodan Milosevic look like the victim of fit up and he was possibly one of the top five most evilest men in modern history. I'm quite sure the Croatians and the Bosnian Muslim weren't delivered from this war unstained, but there's not an awful lot of clamor to round their mentalist dudes up. Not that I'm siding with the Serbs, I know not enough about their 'differences' to take sides, plus Eduardo plays for Croatia and he's clearly awesome. Just saying is all; what about the rest of 'em please? Not enough assassinations these days, that's the problem. I'm in favour of one in this case and Milosevic's. A wee slug between Mugabee's temples I don't think would be worst thing that could happen to Zimbabwe. either. Happy days. Of course, when I say assassinations, I don't include that of Arch Duke Ferdinand, shot by a Serb and the catylst for the first world war. Or do I? You decide.

I was out by a few miles and a few notches on the Richter scale, but it's early days yet

Wasn't the weather horrible yesterday? Hot, humid - 94% humidity they say - that must be how it feels to be a pair of Fern Britton's knickers. Today is much nicer and once again my natural fragrance is abundant.

So anyway, I've abandoned my research on the Mr Men temporarily as I have far more pressing concerns to attend to. I've finally began writing my novel for real. It's taken me longer than I care to divulge to actually reach this point.

I've been fannying about with ideas and half-hearted attempts at planning the thing for yonks, but as of today I'm getting well serious. Three months I reckon, and it'll be sorted. I should be a millionaire within a year.


Next week it's my birthday I'll have you know. My plan is to have some cake and then whizz over to Luton for to take part in the GUKPT fessie. Not the main event of course, but certainly one of the £100 freeze-outs. I shall probably drink quite heavily if I'm honest.



Finally, it's the third test tomorrow between England and the most evil race of people on gah's clean earth. They're putting Andre Nel in the side on this occastion I'm hearing, who to be fair to him, is the biggest nob in world sport.

I'll lay 3/1 he's burst a blood vessel in his neck by the end of the first session - probably shouting at one Alistair Cook for no apparent reason.

My blogs may be few and far between for a while because of my dedication to my booker prize winning novel, but don't cry, I've very rarely got anything important to say.

My favourite Mr Men book was Mr Fussy, it's only just occurred to me how much he looks like Adolf Hitler. Was that on purpose?


If that isn't a thinly veiled reference to the death camps I don't know what is. I'll now have to do some research to see which other dictators and despots are caricatured in these books.

I'm sorry but I fear this will only end in tears. I respect Richard Branson's sense of adventure, but when he tried to cross the Atlantic in a speed boat the first time it sank and every time he's tried to circumnavigate the globe in a hot air balloon he's ended up crashing or running out of Pop tarts.

Fair enough if he wants to give this space thing a bash, but don't take your family Rich...a parachute is no good to you at 250,000 ft. Look at it, it's a ridiculous looking thing. The space ships in the original Star Trek looked more realistic. First flight in 18 months he reckons. It's not long to try and get to know the guy and guarantee a place in his will, but I'll give it all I've got.

My life's biggest regret is that I never made an attempt when I was a cub to achieve the gold arrow award. The bronze and silver ones were a piece of piss - you just had to have tied some knots and boiled an egg and maybe taken a photograph of something. I think you also had to be able to undo a bra with one hand, but maybe not in fact.

Rudimentary badges like those were just dished out at the end of the evening followed by a hand-shake, a salute and dob-a-dob-rub thing, or whatever it was. If you think that sounds sordid, please do get a grip, this was the cubs not the Catholic church. All our leader dudes were dudettes anyway.

But anyways, the Gold Arrow, that was something special. Guard of honour stuff. They even made you a cake. There were a couple of guys in our pack who had them. My next door neighbour was one. He was just naturally the kind of guy who had those sorts of things. He also made five gold runs in a row on Blockbusters and was kind to strangers.

Great at all sports he was too, probably never had acne either. Bastard..he's an evangelist now - no word of a lie. I find solace in the fact that he's probably still a virgin. Had the bra thing been a real task in getting the gold arrow he'd have never made it.

So anyway yes..I never had the level of commitment required to see the tasks through. I'd have had to swim too far, camp for too long, do things out of the goodness of my own heart and to be fair it just wasn't me. I'm not even sure why I was the cubs in the first place. I was a heartless c*nt even when I was 8. I certainly had no intention of doing anything for the elderly - they made me feel sick. I've never looked good in shorts either.

My time in the cubs came to an end shortly after one of those jamboree things. I'm not sure if the following incident was the catalyst for my exit from the cubs, or merely hastened my departure, but the former seems likely.

There was obviously many other packs of cubs at this thing and there was some rivalries developing. I was very very small and wheezy at that age, and while those that knew me were well aware of how viscous and completely lacking in remorse I was which made up for my lack of size and deterred the bullies, new kids who encountered me were caught unawares.

I was targeted by a fat boy almost immediately upon my arrival. I had him pegged as a standard bully so was not too concerned. I did a few simple equations and felt my best opportunity to put some hurt and retribution on the kid was at lunch time...a standard play against a fat kid.

It was hot, it seemed that we had proper summers back then. He was eating and obviously a fat kid eating has no peripheral awareness so I was able to take advantage of his lack of focus on his surroundings and place a significant lump of jam from one of my sandwiches on his back.

The wasps were all over him in minutes.

His screams are delivered to my conscience even now in moments of reflection. I'm a different man you see these days, but back then I had no pity. To me it was all routine. Anyway I was observed planting the jam and although the memories are hazy I think I was encouraged to leave. All's I can remember is seeing this kid flailing about as if he were engulfed in invisible flames making squealing noises just barely audible to humans. Bats were falling out of trees though by the dozen. They do hurt to be fair to him, those wasp stings.

So yes...one of my few regrets is that - the Gold arrow thing not the wasp torture.

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I don't like 20-20 cricket. I don't. What's the point of it? The one day game is an abbreviated enough version of test cricket in my book. I can appreciate that people enjoy seeing sixes hit and bowlers being smacked all over the place, but a whole game revolving around that is just not cricket.

Cricket where wicket taking is essentially irrelevant is not a good idea. It's like those home-run derbies they have at the All-Star game in Baseball...it's fun to watch, but not to be taken seriously. They don't have competitions in the US of States of home run hitting as far as I'm aware.

If our attention spans are so short now that even cricket smiths can't tolerate 50 overs, I fear for us. Cricket doesn't do itself any favours by having five day test matches that end in draws - something most Americans won't believe when you tell them - but I don't think we need 20-20 cricket as an antidote; it'll give new fans' unrealistic expectations of test cricket and before we know it there is no test cricket.

Twenty-20 becomes 10-10, then just 1-1 and then just one ball each and finally a toss of a coin, called TOSS by the marketing folk, which is what they should call 20-20. I may be wrong of course but in retrospect I think the cricket purists will see the 20-20 vision as being rather short sighted and you can quote me.

In order to give our transient little lives meaning we can often be found pursuing stuff. Careers, ambitions, goals, dreams and so on. So when our time is up we can feel content that our time wasn't wasted, we lived a worthwhile and constructive life and the world generally was a better place for us being in it and so say all of us.

Cursed is the man then, who's lifetime dream, ambition and career happen to be the same thing and when this raison d'être is realised it ultimately makes his life not worth living. Sooth this mans woes with our sympathies we should, for he has become no more necessary and wanted than a verruca and tis only to be left for him to be chiseled off the feet of life and left in the dirt for all eternity.

Unless of course it's Gordon Brown whose lifetime ambition ostensibly, is just to interfere with shit that's none of his fucking business and generally just fuck every one's life up without even having a license to do it. I just can't find it anywhere in me to feel sympathy for the man as the realisation of his shattered dream slowly but surely erodes his very being. Clearly his denial is wavering, it's in his eyes; he's slowly but surely accepting that his whole life has been a waste of time, not just his time either, every one's.

He's made himself and his party completely unelectable in such a short space of time he's actually managed to validate Iain Duncan Smith's effort as Conservative Party leader. Everything he touches turns to granite and just as he thought he'd have some respite as the summer break begins, he's about to receive one final kick in the bollocks as Barack Obama - the most charismatic man in the world at the moment - is to fly into London today and make Gordon Brown look even more depressing and miserably pointless. Painful stuff.

It's an intriguing juxtaposing of statesman that photo-opportunity. However Barack Obama may appear to invigorate all he meets, Gordon will fancy he's the better statesman, and the better politician. Which is exactly why everyone hates him and is inspired by Barack Obama.


One thing socialist/commy jock Gordon never seemed to appreciate or care to appreciate, is people don't want to be told what to do. People don't want their lives interfered with. It was never his place to take everything we owned and then give it back as and when he felt it was appropriate. People generally don't need instruction on what is good and bad, right and wrong, moral and shameful. People know already and if they don't, they never will.

Barack Obama is criticised because he has no politics behind his inspiring speeches and posturing. If there's ever been a more ignorant and oxymoronic opinion outside of anything Steve MacClaren used to say during his time as England coach, then I'd like to hear it, I could do with a laugh.

Politics and inspiration do not go together. Barack is so well received because of the lack of politics, because there's a blank canvas. People don't need to be shown the way, they just need to know there is a way. The fun is finding your way on your own no? There's nothing more likely to fuck your sex life up than a video showing you how to make love. People don't need a path laid out for them, just the tools to cut their own oui?

In times of strife we look to our leader for help though. For security and stability. What do you want to hear? I'm getting on with the job? Or the audacity of hope? Neither is going to bring down the price of a loaf of warburtons any time soon, but I know what I'd rather hear. While Barack Obama wants to change history, Gordon Brown hopes to take 1p of fuel duty.

If Gordon Brown is allowed to get on with the job for much longer we'll be a third world country and when the lights go out I don't want to hear how he's getting on with the job until morning, I want to be given a fucking torch. I think you know what I'm trying to say.

So now, after an appalling re-buy period in last nights £20 re-buy PLO game in which I re-bought twice as many times as I had made allowance for, I rallied after the break and swept to victory.

I say swept, but crept is really a more appropriate verb as my cunning strategy involves sitting back and letting people knock themselves out and hopefully hitting some cards every now and then to keep my head above water - the odd flopped full house, nut flush and nut straight for example.

This is the first time ever in history I or perhaps anyone has ever completed the Pigeons/Fox double on consecutive nights. An even more elusive brace than the League and Cup double I'll wager. Will it ever be done again? Probably not in our lifetime. Legendary stuff. Legendary.

OH MY GOD!! I've just seen the latest BT advert. He's moved to Cornwall! He's got a new job and assume he'll be home only at weekends. Fool, fool!

Every bollock jockey in the village will be over his house looking to take his wife over the jumps. The marriage will never last. They've only been together a few months. Such a shame. They made a lovely couple. It's the kids I feel sorry for.

Speaking of kids, I usually don't care for them. They're noisy, inconsiderate and well, childish. I encountered an exception today - the exception that proves the rule probably, but an exception none the less - in the Post-Office of all places.

His mother was looking to send a parcel to Lincolnshire and while she was weighing her parcel her little boy was in the corner practising his karate moves. He was quite serious about it too. making all the appropriate noises. HIIIIIIYAH - HOOOOOO - HEEEEEE and so on. He noticed me watching him and began showing me his full repertoire of moves; punches, kicks, blocks, it was very impressive stuff.

I would love to be that age again, to have license to behave in what ever fashion you felt like wherever you were, with no obligation to social skills and no repurcussions. Awesome! I have to be drunk before I feel how that lad feels all the time. The best was yet to come however..

After paying for her postage, his Mum announced they were leaving and he let fly one more kick, turned to me, put his hands together and bowed at me. He bowed at me! Ha, brilliant, God bless him..deadly serious he was too. I bowed back and off he trotted.

It was a beautiful moment. Possibly the most awesomest display of childhood innocence I've encountered to date. I assumed I was completely bereft of paternal instincts, but I confess they surfaced briefly at that moment. Wax on my little man, wax on.

I won't lie to you, I've been shitting garden peas by the dozen this morning.

That's never happened to me before; sweetcorn yes, but never peas. But anyway, that's not, you'll be pleased to know, what I'd like to discuss at this time.

It looks to me like they're fixing to take down the Iron Bridge in Carterton very soon. This saddens me. It has certain nostalgic value to me does that rusting structure. Every morning from the ages of about 5 to 10 I would walk over that bridge to my primary school.

These were the days when it was safe for children to wander about on their own. I've had occasion to hark back to those bygone days often in recent times, every time they announce on the news a new dude has been stabbed somewhere or a wee one has been abducted and what not.

This poor bridge corroding and disappearing is almost a physical manifestation of these heinous contempory times. I can only hope that some well meaning dozy yank has bought it like that silly bugger who bought London Bridge and shipped it brick by brick to Lake Havasu in Arizona thinking he'd bought Tower Bridge, and will maintain it somewhere forever more. I fear my memories of a more innocent time however will now be lost forever. Let us take a moment now to reflect. Please bow your heads.


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This reminds me of those stories you hear from A&E doctors about people who show up with light bulbs up their arses and hoover nozzles attached to their twadgers. "oh I erm..I was doing some house work in the nude and I fell onto my hoover cock first."

Clearly this woman was engaged in a threesome with these beasts and became overwhelmed. Her son being close by is equally suspicious and sordid.

* * *

I fancied myself a game of cards yesterday, but procrastinate I did, and by the time I was motivated enough to put on some coordinated evening wear on, it was too late to head north for Dusk Till Dawn £50 freeze-out, so I headed west to the Broadway Casino for the £30 double-chance effort.

I had never been there before and found the place to be very pleasant, although I was intimidated by the atmosphere of the underground car-park. It was eerie and I'll not be surprised if they filmed an episode of the Equalizer down there. The idea of wandering through it in the wee small hours with a wad of monies in my pocket relaxed my bowels considerably.

The idea I had in my noggin' was just for a casual game of poker. A few hours, one or two beers and then home. I assumed there would only be 30-40 runners. By kick-off we had 88, which was good news from the prize-pool point of view with £1,000 for the winner, but bad news from the point of view of getting home before dawn.

As things progressed I was able to filter out the shrieking brummie twangs bouncing off the walls and focus on my game and I was amongst the chip leaders for most of the tourny. I was able to pull off an audacious bluff at one point which would have had Jessie May mixing his metaphors to such an extent he may have swallowed his own tongue.

However, with the bubble approaching and with a combination of a lack of concentration and raw cowardice, I pulled off an equally bad manouever which cost me my bullying license and essentially reduced me to eeking status.

No way was I leaving there without being paid something. With about 13 left and the final table of 10 being paid, I reluctantly decided to eek my way to the final table and go from there. I finished 8th for a measely £80, which seems a meagre return for about 6 hours work, but in real terms it was a better investment of my time than watching telly.

On my return to the car park things were all quiet to my relief. But I was to have serious issues with the little machine that controlled the exit gate. Consistently throughout my life I've had troubles exiting car-parks. I like to think that rather than just a spasticated inability to work simple machines, there's a universal conspiracy by my present location, wherever it may be, at any given time, to keep me in it's company. I sleep better this way.

I was getting annoyed though, but when I pushed the little assistence button my irritation turned to hilarity because whoever owned the brummi voice on the end of the intercom was pissed as a fart. It's an accent that's hard to understand at the best of times, let alone through an intercom, but when the person is three sheets to the wind, it's just noise, not unlike a whale giving birth. I eventually worked it out myself and was back in civilised country within the hour.

I'm an advocate of performance enhancing drugs. In fact, I've searched high and low in this 'ere noggin' o' mine and I cain't think of a single reason to ban anything in the way of medication that makes one feel and perform better. Surely in this god forsaken world anything which brings success and joy to your life should be available free on the NHS?

Rules is rules though and I feel no sympathy for Mr Chambers' failed attempts to add his name to the Great Britain team list for the Beijing Olympics. What confuses me is why he's bothered to go to such lengths to win his inclusion in the team just so he can get over there and then finish about 6th in his event.

He's got no chance of winning. He reminds me of that Scottish skier who took speed prior to the Winter Olympics in Utah a few years ago and still only managed to finish second. Even our drugs cheats are crap.

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One of the quiz questions the other night was something along the lines of which animal has the largest eye. In fact, that was the question exactly. I suggested Blue Whale, the answer was in fact an 'orse. Or horse.

Had I only stumbled upon this passage from Moby Dick a few days sooner we might have got that question correct:

Not sure what the New Yorker was playing at with this front cover. They claimed it was meant to satirise the redneck ring wing stereotyping of Barack Obama as some sort of muslim extremist, but Americans don't do satire or sarcasm or irony very well.

Much like those in this here country who took Alf Garnet literally - never realising you were meant to laugh at him rather than with him; this lampooning of those millions of cretins who really do think Barack Obama is one of Osama Bin Laden's kissing cousins, will past swiftly over their heads. The cartoon will be taken literally and only enhance their prejudices.

Obviously Barack Obama can't complain about this cartoon though. I sure he finds it unhelpful at best and offensive at worst, but because the only people who get all uppity and enraged by this sort of thing are real muslim extremists, so it's mum's the word. Of course if he stays silent, this also arouses suspicion amongst the stoopid. An intriguing dilemma.

Quite frankly I'm getting concerned now about some of the stuff I'm churning out in my dreams. Stanley Kubrick and Andrew Kevin Walker would cross the street if they saw me coming had they been privy to the kind of the stuff that's had me waking up screaming these last few erm..years.

Why can't I dream of teaching home economics to a class of female Sky Sports presenters? It's not too much to ask. The nearest I've got to that so far is being chased up a hill by Richard Keys. I woke up panting, but it's not the same.

So last night I had occasion to pickaxe my way into an old hospital. I had to use a pickaxe to get in because some years previous, the health ministry had decided to brick up all the entrances and windows cause it had been riddled with a deadly plague, a deadly plague I tells ya..and instead of making attempts to cure the hospitals infected, they decided to sacrifice them all and save the wider community by just bricking the place up. Patricia Hewitts idea I suspect.
So anyway I hack my way into the place and to my immediate left is the little hospital gift shop and all the silver hellium 'get well soon' balloons are still inflated - a tragic irony. The place is very very eerie and smells a lot like Banbury. People are decomposing in the corridors. My mission it seems was to delivery a birthday cake to someone.

So I'm in the co-op this afternoon and it's been months since my last visit. Every thing's in a different place except the sausages and fruit. I'm a man, so I had a list. I'm in no mood to just float about buying stuff that looks appealing. I'm looking for the canned goods section and quite frankly, after five minutes of searching I was fixing to dump my trolley and go home. I certainly wasn't going to ask someone where they were. That's what they want you to do. I rounded a corner and there they were. Lucky. Is there a lesson here for us all? No, probably not.

I'm fascinated by nerds, I always have been. A dorkologist will be able to give you the exact total of nerd species so far recorded, but I'm quite certain they're second in diversity only to beetles.

In direct contrast to beetles - the lady bird being the only species of which I find appealing; I'm agreeable to all species of nerds with the exception of nauseosus dorkus interrogarius - the quiz nerd. I forget what the collective noun is for quiz nerds, I think it's an 'arrogance,' but you'll excuse me if I'm mistaken.

But anywho, in the beer garden of the Three Pigeons last night for the summer quiz, the Witney (inc. Carterton) Mob did lock horns with an Arrogance of quiz nerds, easily recognisable by the presence of fold away chairs brought from home - and much as it pains me to concede, these nimrods handed us our asses. They didn't even offer us some of their fucking chocolate. I hope they have spots this morning.

The gauntlet has been laid down though. I vow never again to lose to such an appalling gathering of 'own chairers.' It was close you see. Ooooh so close. With just one round of 12 questions remaining we were within a gnats fanny hair of their total. Two points! Just one question separated us! By Gah! The final round of "In what year" questions were our Achilles heel though.

It's only the true quiz nerd that can stow away such unnecessary data. I for example, know what caused the Iranian embassy siege, I know how it ended and I know the SAS's intervention was called, ironically, operation Nimrod; I cannot, unfortunately, recall the year; the least significant fact of the whole encounter. I guessed at 1982. It was 1980. A quizzer will tell you the when and the what, but never the how and the why. The male of the species almost certainly remains a virgin deep into his twenty's and sometimes thirties too.

The next quiz is in September, if I must become one of the them to beat them, then so be it. I shall henceforth get my learn on. I will be reborn a nerd, a quizzing Greek hidden in the arse of a gift horse, they won't suspect a thing. My own Operation Nimrod. Beware of Geeks baring gifts you chocolate eating cunts. And of course if there's one thing more beautiful than the birth of a nerd it's the agonising death throes of a defeated quiz nerd.

Today then after having some tea I sat down and got my subscribe on. I thought I'd give Poker VT a bash. Daniel Negreanu's poker training website. I felt my previous criticism's of the man were harsh and I owed him some of my money by way of an apology. Also one of the pro's on the site is little Annette Obrestad, who, despite looking a little bit like one of those fawns who live in trees in bible bashing C.S. Lewis's Narnia books, is still able to stir something deep within me, groinally speaking.

I'm not submissive by nature, but I do like a woman with spirit. I do, I do! She's very good to be fair to her. I like her style. I'm amused by how she can so matter of factly ridicule some of the top professionals in the game. Mark Goodwin for example, who proudly sports the ridiculous nickname of "Mr Cool."

A nickname I assumed was ironic, but appalling and laughably, I was to discover was literal. He is to cool what Biloxi, Mississippi is to cultural diversity - and little Annette tears his game to pieces. I was left both impressed and sexually aroused. I'm down to no more than a quarter of a bucket in fact.

So anyway yes, I shall give this little learning tool a bash for the next few months and see I'm able to absorb any of the information. I think my dreams will improve even if my poker doesn't.

I almost bought some sushi today. Fortunately at the last minute I was able to not bother. I bought a sammich instead and thank the lord I did. I don't know what possessed me to even consider such a purchase.

The day I eat food of which is the staple diet of another species is the day Satan's willy goes all small cause of how cold it's gotten in hell, that's what I always say.

In other news, I won the Fox game last night. It was a final table for the ages, almost legendary stuff. So close but yet so far to a come back of Jack Strauss proportions from Jimbo. It would have been worth making plans to have grand children just to tell them about it had he won.

With about 5 players left I Tiny Tim'ed Jimbo when I flopped a straight. So crippled was he that just 200 in chips were his lot. Two wee black chips. I was sitting with somewhere in the region of 47,000. Yet six double throughs and a couple of triple throughs later and the heads-up battle between Jimbo and I began!

Astonishing stuff. From 200 chips, I believe Jimbo actually had the chip lead when the heads-up began. On the way, aces were cracked, hopes were dashed. A dizzying fog of disbelief and incredulity shrouded the hopes of the once chip leader John of Salmon who was eventually lost to us just a few hands after Pete of Spedding, both succumbing to Lazarus's unrelenting resurgence.

At once it was left to me to destroy the blue shirted leviathan in the 5 seat. Herman Melville's Captain Ahab or Peter Benchley's Chief Brody? Fate my friends, would decide my role, oh yes. The ensuing battle following in the white watered wake of the previous frenzied attacks, were by contrast the glass sheeted calm waters of a slow strangulated murder death killing of the unrelenting Jimbo beast. The goddess of fortune had turned the tides.

Helped in someway in true Jaws style by Jimbo's boat not being big enough against my own full-house and coupled with my hitting approximately 80% of flops - ultimately it was a little one sided and quite anticlimactic. But did I really win? Did I? After such a revival is it possible to die? Is it people? Is it, when the memory lives on? These are questions only for the Gods. The Gods and Nick Berry. C'est la vie.

I'm in a mood at the moment people. I'm 3 parts ennui to 4 parts woe. I get like this every now and then. You read the wrong books, watch the wrong news channels, eat too much sausage and suddenly you've got the Samaritans on speed dial and a bottle of hemlock on ice.

I shall attempt to break free from the jaws of despair this day with some audacious wagers and a drive through Bampton to remind myself there's always someone worse off than myself. I hate it when people say that don't you? Don't you, cause I do. It's always some fat bitch too with hairy moles.

Don't worry about all your family having died in a car crash and you being diagnosed with anus cancer and your 7 fold accumulator not coming in because of a 94th minute penalty - there's always someone worse of than yourself. Oh well fucking great - the world is so shit my current circumstances are trivial. I feel so much better.

Schadenfreude like most things German is not healthy, that's what I always say.

So anyway, my audacious wagers will involve a combination of the following: Venus Williams to win the bitch's Wimbledon singles; Mount Nelson to win the Coral Eclipse; Alejandro Valverde to win the Tour de France; Rafael Nadal to win the chaps Wimbledon singles and finally Ljungskile to beat Orebro half-time/full-time in the Swdish nogger.

I've been playing poker like a soppy c**t recently; wet enough to seal an envelope as they say. So I'm gonna see if I can't win some money vicariously through the main event field of the WSOP which starts tomorrow.

I've had me a last longer bet with Paul - I've gone for Paul Wasicka who I have also had a few shillings on at 150/1 to make the final table. I believe young Paul has gone for Phil Ivey who won't even make it past the first level of course, but it's his money. Shuffle up and thingy.