Saturday 25 November 2023 - Joy in Repetition

A bit of a short blog this week, but beyond the betting I have very little to report, other than a surprise visit from the late American singer, songwriter, musician, record producer and actor, Prince, who had bought a drum machine I was selling on Facebook Marketplace. This is where I usually disclose part of our conversation, plagiarised from a song lyric associated with the person I am purportedly talking to, but he was so softly spoken I could barely hear him. Hopefully I will have better luck next week when I bump into the late English singer-songwriter, Nick Drake.
If this is your first visit to my blog I can only apologise.

My winning streak continues. Last week’s managerial uncertainty surrounding Notts County (now resolved - phew!) certainly did me a favour, in that my intended double on County and Wrexham would have been a loser (ironically not because of the Magpies, who won 4-2, but because of Wrexham, who lost 0-2). Instead I doubled up on League Two’s (current) finest, Mansfield Town and Stockport County, who both won 2-0. I have now tipped more winning bets than losers, a fact not many betting blogs can boast, with my “hypothetical” £20 on each returning a profit of £85.61. I am therefore tantalisingly close to breaking the three-figure profit barrier with what will hopefully be my ninth winning double out of sixteen. Slowly slowly catchy profit.

After an early season hiccup, Bolton Wanderers (11/20) are back in the groove having won their last six league games. The Trotters currently sit third in League One, seventeen places above Exeter City, who make the five hundred mile round trip to the Toughsheet Community Stadium where, hopefully, it will be “Toughsheet” on them for doing so. It should be anyway.

Stockport County (8/13) have got to lose eventually - hopefully to Notts County on 22 December - but I doubt the team to do it will be Newport County who lost 2-0 to Mansfield Town last Saturday. Although Newport have home advantage, Stockport are surely too good for the Newts - if that’s not their nickname, it should be - and will not want to concede any ground to their League Two rivals in what is turning out to be a vintage season for the old fourth division. Both games kick off at three pm on Saturday.

My “hypothetical” £20 win double on Bolton Wanderers and Stockport County currently returns £50.08 with Sky Bet at combined odds of 1.5/1 for a profit of £30.08 after deduction of stake. You never know.

I hope to see you next week.

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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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