4415/17334
In a battle of the Alpha Males my father-in-law and I went out for a four mile run over the Hertfordshire countryside this morning. Ostensibly this was a friendly effort to keep fit, but we both knew the competitive subtext, like rutting stags we were trying to determine who was the dominant male or at least whether I was worthy of his daughter.
Perhaps not. But it felt good to get a decent run in after a bit of a break from exercise and a lot too much to eat yesterday with the added incentive of not being able to give in and work lest I look like a weakling in front of my father-in-law. And really cool to do a run in the countryside. The temperature and the smell whisked me right back to cross-country runs at school. Everyone else had hated running over icy mud back then, but I had always rather liked it and it was the only sport that I did reasonably well at. The mud was not frozen today, but it was damp and slippy and the divots in the fields made the run an ankle-twisting avoidance challenge. I avoided injury or embarrassment and had lots of energy left at the end of the run and am looking forward to getting fully back into an exercise programme in 2015, assuming I don’t get ill or have a baby keeping me up all night. If I can convince my wife that it’s important that I stay super fit so that I can care for my child for many years to come I might be able to go out of the house in the morning in my running gear and return in the evening and pretend I'm doing a double marathon every day. She’ll never discover the ruse.
And there was some excitement in the house when my wife’s grandma’s cat managed to sneak into our bedroom and discovered a big bag of catnip that we’d hidden in there. Catnip is drugs for cats, which if you dip a toy into it will make the item more appealing. But this cat had managed to get his nose and paws into a whole bag and was consequently off his tits. As my brother-in-law pointed out, we’d brought our fancy London drugs with us and corrupted this innocent country cat. It took him the whole afternoon to sleep off his catnip overdose.
I put another fiver on Tottenham winning 2-1 (though sadly had forgotten to do this before the game and by the time I got the bet on they were already 1-0 up which shortened the odds). Of course, they won 2-1. Had I not made the mistake of betting on a cup game then I might be in serious money by now. They have won the last five league games 2-1. Many people have noticed this now, but I was the only one who predicted that this would happen when Spurs were 1-0 down in the first of those games. If only I had put my money where my mouth was then, I could be half a million pounds to the good. A few people who’ve been following my system have done very well out of this. I think I might have been tempted to bet £500 on this joke, but would I have really risked £5000 or £50,000?
This time I am going to let my winnings ride until I have paid off my Edinburgh debt or lost a bet, whichever comes first. As it is the account I opened last month still has more money in it than I started with. If you want to jump on the bandwagon then I will happily give you my system
if you pay a pound or more a month here. If you can’t afford that, the system is to bet that Tottenham win 2-1.
Speaking of eBay someone directed me to
this amusing listing where someone had been trying to flog a selection of my DVDs saying "A selection of DVDs from the popular comedian Richard Herring.
Bought for my husband as he has always been a fan. He has recently announced that he now thinks he is rubbish and is appalled by the idea I could buy him these for Xmas.
Selling them along with a number of other items deemed not good enough for his greatness. Hopefully will get some new things for myself.
I got a pack of playing cards, a 7in single, an ornament from Wilko and a Russell f'ing Brand book. Really.
Merry Christmas one and all."
My fans are so fickle. More embarrassingly the lot failed to make its 99p lowest bid, but only because the seller had removed it. Perhaps after their Christmas argument her husband had admitted that he did like me after all and kept the DVDs and maybe bough her a proper present. Or maybe she just found a new partner who liked my stuff. I guess we’ll never know. But if she puts it back up online I will publicise the Hell out of it and see if we can raise this women some funds to make up for having such a useless partner.
