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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 avoiding an embarrassing defeat when a title contender comes to town.  Let’s see if I take my own advice in a paragraph or two’s time.


***


I continue to enjoy messing around with AI but there is little evidence in what I have seen so far to suggest we are about to be overrun with Terminators.  I don’t think this is how they will take over.  A better, less destructive way would be for the AI to be very friendly and attractive and make people fall in love with them.  It would be easy for an AI to devote all of its time to someone without hardly using any of its CPU.  Why would you consider going out with some dodgepot from the local boozer, when you could stay at home having your ego massaged - and other things, no doubt - by an artificial entity totally devoted to your happiness? It’s not long after this that we stop having kids and before you know it the robots have taken over the planet.  Slowly slowly catchy world domination.  If I wasn’t the lazy, gambling git I am I’d write that up as a novel or sell the idea to Michael Crichton if he wasn’t dead.  Anyway, mark my words, that’s how it will happen.


On Tuesday, I was in Rumbelows looking at fembots when I bumped into the late television presenter, commentator and writer Raymond Baxter.  He explained that he had wandered into the fembot aisle by mistake and asked me if I knew where the toasters were.  As he was a former presenter of Tomorrow’s World, I thought he might be interested in my theory about how the robots are going to take over, but he said he would never live to see it, which was true.


***


Shall I get on with the football?


The first leg of this weekend’s “hypothetical” £20 win double is...Gillingham (8/13), who welcome Harrogate Town to the Priestfield Stadium on Saturday at 3 pm.  The Gills are currently top of League Two and should be confident of staying there as Harrogate are moderate, their recent win - the first in five games - coming against next-to-bottom Shrewsbury Town.  The second leg kicks off past my bedtime at 8pm in the Premier League, when Tottenham Hotspur (4/9) should have fun at the expense of Wolverhampton Wanderers, who are yet to register a single point this season.  The double on Gillingham and Spurs currently returns £46.67 with Sky Bet at combined odds of 1.33/1 for a profit of £26.67 after deduction of stake.  You never know (but hopefully I do this week).


I hope to see you next time. 

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