Saturday 7 October 2023

Saturday 7 October 2023 - Tempus Fugit

Time flies. Don’t believe me? I began this blog at the height of summer and I am writing it now with the lights on at six pm. It’s later than you think.

To date I have recommended eight football bets, all win doubles, at a total stake of £160 - eek. I have won £172.33 for a profit of £12.33 - phew. The fact that I am both in profit and disappointed is encouraging.

I need a challenge to focus my mind and I have come up with a financial one: to make £100 profit from my recommended win doubles in October. To achieve this I will have to do better than last weekend’s double, although judging by the 3-3 scoreline Wrexham would likely have edged it had they not had a player sent off in the first half. My other selection Cardiff cruised to victory over Rotherham 2-0.

I am writing this on 5 October and already Leicester City (8/15) are odds on to win the Championship. They have also won nine out of ten league games with only Ipswich Town standing toe to toe with them. On Saturday afternoon at three pm they play Stoke City who have lost six of their ten league games and will not be relishing the additional pressure of playing the league leaders at home. It is a selection that picks itself really. Later on Saturday at five pm Juventus (4/5) meet Torino in Serie A. Now I know what you’re thinking, this is a derby game and look how well Bolton against Wigan turned out. But I have struggled to come up with a second leg for this weekend’s double so I have gone with a team that rarely lets me down, especially when playing at home. Juventus are also undefeated in their last eighteen Turin derbies winning fourteen in the process. Just don't expect a goal fest. My “hypothetical” £20 win double currently returns £55.20 for a profit of £35.20 at combined odds of 1.76/1 with Sky Bet.

You never know. I hope to see you next week.

P.S. Sorry for the short blog, but it’s been a busy week by my languorous standards. Hopefully I’ll do better next time.

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Saturday 13 September 2025 - Off The Wall

At times this week, it has felt like I’ve been carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders. In desperation, I reached out on my socials for a bit of love and the late American singer, songwriter and dancer Michael Jackson got in touch. He suggested that I should straighten up my act and boogie down. I was in Tesco the next time things began to get on top of me, halfway through the weekly shop, but people just thought I was mental when I pushed my trolley to one side and started doing the Moonwalk down the biscuit aisle. With advice like that, no wonder they called him Wacko Jacko. It makes me wonder what other crazy stuff he got up to. Before I turn to matters of financial speculation, for this week’s AI slop I asked ChatGPT to give the moonwalking man a Notts County shirt and it found an unintentionally funny way of doing this, presumably for reasons of copyright. In addition to being "The Oldest (professional) Team" in the world, last Saturday’...

Saturday 20 September 2025 - More AI Slop

As part of the day job, I had to scan a photo that included Nottingham Castle into ChatGPT. Don't ask. If you are familiar with Nottingham Castle, you will agree it looks nothing like a castle. It's almost a case for Trading Standards. There was a proper castle on the site, with turrets and everything, but this was razed to the ground in 1651. The current building is a Stuart Restoration-era ducal mansion which has been disappointing visitors to the city since 1679. However, ChatGPT knows what a castle looks like, and, without prompting, did this to the photo. Amusing as this was, I just wanted the original photo, so I asked ChatGPT not to alter it in any way. I asked ChatGPT why it was doing this. "I am genuinely mortified," was the touching response. You know the world is screwed when you want to put your arm around an AI and tell it everything's going to be okay. *** On Tuesday, an e-mail informed me that a work colleague had died....

Saturday 27 September 2025 - Tomorrow's World

In last week's blog I made two mistakes. The first was saying that the Barnsley game kicked off at 3 pm. The second was thinking that Barnsley would actually win the Barnsley game. The Tykes’ trip to Blackpool was a lunchtime kick off and, unaware of this, I checked Sky Bet at 3.15 pm to see how they were winning by, only to discover my betting fate had already been sealed. The game was effectively a repeat of the West Brom dabacle from the weekend before, with Barnsley monopolising the game to no avail and Blackpool sneaking a goal late on. My other selection Gillingham won like the good team they are. It’s early days. The last two losing weekends could just be down to variance, but going forward it may pay to avoid betting on top versus bottom clashes where the bottom side is playing at home. Terrible teams seldom become great teams over the course of a season, but they do get better at defending and are more likely to park the bus in the hope of ...

I, Punter

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