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Saturday 6 September 2025 - AI Slop

Welcome back.  I did say I would see you in September, I just forgot to say which year.



It’s been so long in fact, I no longer have to rip off actual people for my illustrations.  If I want to open the blog with a picture of a racehorse balancing a football on its nose, I just ask ChatGPT and hey presto!  We are living in the future, people.  On the downside, it’s not a great time to be an artist trying to earn a humble crust, but that’s a small price to pay for a racehorse balancing a football on its nose, I’m sure we’d all agree.


Last time, I ended the 2023/2024 football season £162.87 up.  I had placed 27 bets of £20, a total investment of £540.  Of these, 13 had won returning £702.87 for that profit of £162.87.  That’s an ROI of 30.16%.  Donald Trump would sell his family for that kind of return.


This time, I don’t want to beat my 2023/2024 profit, I want to smash it.  To quote Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky, “To live without hope is to cease to live.”  My modus operandi will once again be accumulator betting, chiefly a “hypothetical” £20 win double on the outcome of two weekend football matches.  However, to spice things up, I may also throw in the odd “mega” accumulator - megaccumulator? - from time to time.  To quote Russian novelist Ivan Turgenev, “You never know.”


* * *


Early on Sunday afternoon I had the house to myself, a rare treat and a nice end to my summer holiday.  The phone rang.  It was my nonagenarian (google it) mother, who has taken to living out of a hospital bed in her front room following a recent health scare.  She said her stomach was off and that she needed to see a doctor urgently.  I thought she was exaggerating - she probably needed the toilet - and I told her so.  Click!  Five minutes later, I received a call informing me that she had activated her personal alarm and an ambulance had been dispatched.  I got home from the hospital at 9.30 pm, my day of relaxation irrevocably lost.  To cut a very frustrating story short, she had needed the toilet.


Thanks to the ambulance, MRI scan and other sundry procedures, that must have been the country's most expensive poo on the day.


* * *


After playing three games, the Premier League takes a well-earned break this weekend as the latest round of World Cup qualifying decimates the domestic fixture list.  However, the lower leagues plough on regardless, and my first acca of the 2025/2026 season appears to be a double-your-money no-brainer.  Hopefully.


Huddersfield Town (1/2) are currently sixth in League One and will be smarting after a 3-1 away defeat to local (and promotion) rivals Barnsley.  Huddersfield were down to ten men for over half that game and have since battered Newcastle’s Under 21 side 6-2 in the EFL Trophy.  On Saturday, the Terriers welcome Peterborough United to the Accu Stadium, who are bottom of the league with only one point to their name from six games.  I do not envisage the Posh turning this around any time soon.


Rochdale (2/5) are second in the National League and on Saturday the teams immediately above and below them (Forest Green Rovers and Hartlepool Town) meet in a classic “six-pointer.”  The Dale will no doubt be hoping their rivals cancel each other out, allowing them to prosper at the expense of sixteenth-placed Braintree Town who have only won one of their last six games (a 1-0 home win to strugglers Yeovil Town).


Both games kick off at the traditional time of 3 pm and my “hypothetical” £20 win double currently returns £42 at combined odds of 1.1/1 with Sky Bet for a profit of £22 after deduction of stake. You never know.

I hope to see you next week.


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