As the new mob beds in at Westminster and a bunch of sads implode because Jose Esplanade is a brute and Jesus della Saucisson isn’t brute enough when it comes to training for a faux-dance competition, the entire question of good and bad behaviour is under the spotlight. It’s poor form to shoot at the…
COMMENT
Biden, Southgate, Archer and Prescott. You’d do business with that firm surely?
I watched the CNN presidential debate this morning, with some scenes that may haunt us over the next few months. It was not Presidential on anybody’s behalf. It was rambling, at times incoherent, and above all sad. There was a moment when I thought maybe this was the plan all the time. Run this debate…
None Of The Above
I had forgotten the possibility embraced by a surprising number of democracies or other systems such as that used in Russia: a ballot paper would have a box allowing you to clarify that the presented candidates or parties are simply unelectable in the voters’ opinion. It is based on the principle that the ability to…
Who’s a clever boy then? Not Farage apparently
I got through lunch with the former press baron, with only a tiny side-step into Brexit, which has marked me forever to 47½% of his lunch guests as an idiot, ogre, illiterate and fascist. Inevitably, it started when I tried to express some sympathy in purely factual terms with Farage’s current entanglement. As an aside,…
Everything has a value to someone
I have the unfortunate trait of saying out loud what is on my mind, which you will have gathered over time from these scribblings. The sort of situation where X says Willie Mullins should only have three runners at Cheltenham, and I tell X that not only is he wrong, but that he is an…
Racing’s Garden needs some professional work doing.
The Lambourn garden has just become an issue. Last week, we removed dead wood, cleared undergrowth, and installed a new boundary dog-proof fence, which has resulted in our having unfettered views of things we don’t want to see. The laws of unintentional consequences have just bitten us. We can see from the original planting that…
Punchestown Day 3
It’s a terribly busy week, so straight in and on. I have popped the dismal results under each post. I shall surely hit form soon! I had started to write about dinner last night, but it was so ghastly, and one or two of the crowd were so deeply sanctimonious, ill-informed and self-opinionated in the…
Farewell Gentle Coz.
It’s been a lousy week, made far worse today by the unexpected news that the 80-year-old widow of my late Coz was tragically killed yesterday in a freak accident in a pub car park. Do not smile… such things can happen to the Kneesup clan when they least expect it. I had known her since…
Content to be thought foolish and stupid.
I seem to spend more and more time confusing April Fools’ Day with the rest of the month and year. I must believe that some 30% of all the stories I read are fake. For example, surely this selection of today’s headlines, none of which I have gone to any lengths to find, cannot all…
I don’t know about Good – its certainly a very Busy Friday
I was blissfully unaware of the televised racing from my usual lenten posture, which I traditionally adopt at this time of year. Probably weak from 40 days of fasting, I could only see torrential rain and various other Godly visitations through the sackcloth, ashes and palm fronds. Among the plagues visited on us has been…
Cheltenham – for what it’s worth
SUMMARY Having unjustly gained a negative reputation for being part of the Pandemic problem, perhaps impacting local and regional community support, Cheltenham has managed to lose racing fans through a combination of poor event planning, weak and/or arrogant customer relations, aggressive price marketing, and a race schedule, which has managed to engineer an uncompetitive and,…
LAMBOURN – WHERE THE OSCARS ARE ACTUALLY DECIDED
It’s been a week when as much caught the ear as the eye. The Chancellor (how quickly we forget he once saw himself as The PM) said in his Jam Tomorrow and The Day After deceitful Budget speech: “We believe that in a free society the money you earn doesn’t belong to the government. It…
Green Space, White Space, Grey Lies, a black day.
I went with The Hon the other day to the funeral of Norman Thomas, a proper traditional country farmer. He was three times larger than life; he shot well, hunted hard, farmed profitably (largely thanks to land development), drank prodigiously, partied noisily, and loved horses and racing. (His daughter worked for us and was a…
Valentine’s Day and Ascot’s Common Dress Sense
This relentless outpouring of love and affection is doing my head in! My world is divided into 300 days of relative calm, sunny uplands where the green shoots etc etc… It is often a time of relative prosperity, if not in fact, then certainly in the impressions surrounding one. A day at Ascot, a trip…
There’s nothing like a £5 gift – and I mean nothing!
I thought it was just a bad dream – but then I realised it was probably more serious. Was it possible that I have a multiple personality disorder? Many of you had probably already considered it but, being kind souls, had shelved the idea. Yesterday, however, it came to light. I started growling at The Hon,…
Ryder, Arc and Cyprus – work, work, work
The Trustees of The Kneesup Foundation (World Peace through Gastronomy motto: Edere et bibere, et gaudeamus) have tasked me to fly to Cyprus to see if The Hon and I can help bring together this tiny, divided island through the simple act of redistributing the last few centimes left us by the crooks of this…
RWANDA IS BEGINNING TO LOOK LIKE AN ATTRACTIVE OPTION
I am ashamed by the POL-Fujitsu scandal. My shame stems mainly from thinking this is not how we do things in Blighty. I naively believed we – by which I mean our leaders – would not allow that to happen to people for eighteen months, let alone thirteen years. But my other emotion is of…
Not a clue as to what is happening – but changes still have to be made.
One of BoJo’s mates, Heracles, suggested that “There is nothing permanent except change”, and perhaps this site has been a bit slow in keeping up and worse, even slower in fixing its lack of forward motion. Luckily, via the website Fiverr, where you can find freelancers standing twenty deep to help fix, design, create, and…
GOD SAVE THE KING
Raceweb will not be published until after Her Majesty’s Funeral, as a mark of our respect. We give you thanks, O Lord, for the reign of your servant Elizabeth our Queen, and for the example of loving and faithful service which she has given to this nation throughout her life. Eternal rest grant unto her,…
Good Moaning all – A sad catch-up
My new laptop arrives, just in time to miss the tips for the last day of Glorious. Given that I managed to clear my Fitzdares account debt on Saturday, I fear you might think I have let you down. I should tell you that the other six betting accounts remain firmly in the red, and…
So farewell Cheltenham…
Just one more day of potentially impactful racing at the home of NH racing, for which I have just two tips. The purists amongst you will point out the May Hunters meeting, but in reality, that is a posh Point to Point, but with more expensive drink. I used to go to that meeting primarily…
The Cheltenham Question
I had a jolly Fish and Chip supper at a local pub last night with my old friend The FinTech Brain, and while inventing a new and delicious dessert (one scoop each of Blood Orange and Gin Sorbets covered in a shot of Cointreau), we cruised around the conversational islands of Paralympic Curling, Olympic 3-day…
Glorious Goodwood – creating work for Hepatologists everywhere.
If some deadly enemy had sent over tiny drones to film the British and Irish at summer play, they would have immense insight into our national stamina, fortitude and determination, by simply going to a racing festival, Their cameras, cunningly disguised perhaps as Wasps, might also have led them to ponder about the rather strange…
The Pharaoh of Galway’s Birthday – A sort of Celebration!
Peter O’Tool celebrates his 60th birthday today and his feast day has bought out the sun, at a time and temperature that made breakfasting on the Terraza or “Yard” as the Americans call it, an absolute must. The rest of this post was originally going to be about Peter, aka The Pharaoh of Galway, and…
Polly Dog: Feb 21st 2007 – 15th April 2021
Today we sadly lost Polly, a rescue Cocker, who was with us for 14 of her 16 years. She has gone to join Biggles and Windsor and Newbury and Patsy and it’s the end of what has been a very happy, loving relationship. For the first time in almost three decades, there is a total…
We should all give thanks. RIP HRH Prince Philip
Yesterday, part of the Oxfordshire internet went out and cut the Chateau d’If off from the rest of the world. By standing on the roof of a car, holding onto a branch, I regretfully managed to get the tips out, (sorry), and thus I heard the sad news. It was impossible to ignore the woeful…
AWT Championships? Hasn’t Jesus suffered enough on Good Friday?
Good Friday, and Europe is awash with Fiestas and Fetes celebrating Holy Week. It’s a time of year when I might reasonably consider that the seasons were changing and that I needn’t be in-country a moment longer. It’s a much-hackneyed phrase, but this year I really do get the feeling that “spring is in the…
Did Cheltenham week sound an alarm for you?
If I’m honest, the first couple of days of Cheltenham were spent in a state of bewilderment. Despite God and Government, we were alive although marooned, blamed, alone, vaccinated, yet still incapable of sharing a glass, and throughout it all, still watching some superb racing performances. Racing TV covered the races in a professional, engaging…
Kneesup goes a la mode.
This week I have started the heavy-lifting for the Cheltenham Festival. Just as I got my metaphorical crayons out I became involved in a question of fashion. Those of you with a strong disposition will know that I have trenchant views on the subject. These views primarily encompass the time-warp engulfing my wardrobe and the…
This week I ‘ave been mostly studying blockchains
Much like the Fast Show’s Jesse, he of the notorious diets and wardrobe of filthy muck-spreading clothes, I feel mentally dishevelled – and I blame it all on Bitcoin. Thanks to Elon’s actions this week, I realised that my knowledge was thin, that time had moved on and that I had better refresh the little…
A reader writes…
Pleasingly, the Raceweb church attracts a diverse congregation. One might even, in the context of this article, be tempted to suggest it is catholic. I recently mentioned in these pages the famous Irish priest and Festival racegoer, Fr Breen the other day, and no sooner had the electrons dried on the screen than Raceweb member,…
Statistically unlikely – yet Madame seems to be correct! Again!
Now and then one opens a door of enquiry, which one quickly regrets. In this case, I had chanced upon W.B Arthur’s 1994 essay in the American Economic Review and, within it, this insight: In interactive situations of complication, agents cannot rely upon the other agents they are dealing with to behave under perfect rationality,…
If it ain’t Christmas, it must be Altcar
If I see another headline telling me that X is the New Z, I shall scream. Today’s X was Christmas decorations and suggested that Y was a happier mental outlook. Another went further, by suggesting that the nation keeps them up until every person in the UK is vaccinated. The drip-feed that now passes for…
Chair the BHA – I’d rather eat glass.
Those of us cursed with the Lazy Gene, [CLICK HERE for some support of its existence], can instantly summon up a list of 1000 jobs one would never wish to do. Those of a more normal disposition, perhaps with a work-ethic that extends beyond 11:00 am, (the ideal time for a glass of The Old…
An acceleration of the inevitable
This post’s title was contained within an interesting article on the ecosystem in which pubs, clubs, restaurants, breweries and landlords all have to live. With around 30% of pubs and bars still shut, and with some experts suggesting 20% of pubs will not survive the next six months, the article suggested that the pubco ecosystem…
Whoops – but please don’t cancel me.
Now and then one steps out into the bright light of day and steps straight into a pile of the very worst sort of ordure – an innocent comment of a chum’s political statement, namely: Political Correctness is Fascism pretending to be manners. The disputed author was George Carlin, the American stand-up comedian, actor, social…
FICK FACK FOCK the declension of the Latin for stuffed
Some gremlin attacked the writing today and thus refused – unnoticed by me – to update the end product. This meant that the pair of you who read this stuff sadly missed out – probably – on backing one of our best days ever. Sounds like total tosh? Of course, it does – but please…
So much good news…
As various bundles of intelligence thump onto my desk, the headlines make for depressing reading. (I say headlines – I am from the BJ school of thought. If you want heavy lifting with an explanatory note, you need Cummings SPAD software v20.x!) Seven of the 19 Eurozone members will have debt higher than 100% of…
A Sunday Quiz – or questions that need answering
I am trying hard not to be grumpy, but I fear that I could easily become the younger cousin of that most despicable of all social stereotypes, The Sanctimoanious Suburbanite. Like the Remoaners before them, sufferers simply can’t stop telling anyone who’ll listen, why people in London are the real menace… oh and that Mrs…
If Sir Mark hasn’t worked this out by now, my name’s Dolores!
As Brighton, Carlisle, Nottingham and Worcester decide to keep the doors shut this summer, the BHA has published their fixture list and their future racing plans. You can have a look at the original press release by popping over to the DOWNLOADS Section, on the menu bar above. One key feature of these amendments is…
A healthy obsession with numbers, or the death of reason?
Almost every conversation in the last four months has inevitably contained a number, statistic or formula. Even the barely sentient will rush to tell you what the R number is, or why the death-rate in Bolton is so similar to that of Belize. We are surrounded by statisticians and number crunchers and most of them…
Three in and one out – the simple realities of rural life
A perfectly ordinary day to start. Brekker, a trip to the opticians to get new specs, as my eyes have been giving me grief since March, some work on the new project. For the Memsahib, a trip to her Pa with supplies, some 2MSD offspring cheer and a chance to walk our dog, Polly the…
Royal Ascot news! 120 races over two weeks!
Exciting news from HM Vineyards, where Her Majesty’s loyal advisers have produced an exciting programme of more. There are now six extra races, (Sorry about the Fake News headline) including consolation races for the Royal Hunt Cup and Wokingham. This year – and only this year – there will be three new races; the 14f …
Finally. A proper Sunday and a chance to catch up on some news.
Much like the Monkees 4th hit, “Pleasant Valley Sunday”, the Charcoal was burning everywhere last Sunday – not least at Raceweb Towers. Some delicious Lamb cutlets from a whole carcass purchased from my neighbours, butchered and wrapped sensibly at the local abattoir, some Tabbouleh, some homemade Treacle Tart, a bottle of delicious Antinori, and the…
Quizzing the future?
What Ho, tout le monde et Bienvenue to racing “in absentia” from Longchamp. Like a Shakespearian speech, the racing was sans crowds, sans le picnic, sans hacks (well there were five in fact, but that was the entire interested world’s press), sans alcool, even sans owners. Pretty well sans everything. That includes, in my case,…
Good eggs need your support.
Some years ago, I was introduced to Sam Hoskins who had just launched Hot to Trot, a racing syndicate which, in name at least, had all the potential of becoming a hotbed of syndicated lust. What actually transpired, was that a number of my chums secretly took up Sam’s offer to hotly trot and added…
What’s new and things to do
High Rise has posted two new book reviews, and I am thrilled to discover that I have actually read one of his recommendations! The reason I was so delighted to secure HR’s literary services, is that he is an intellectual giant, despite his penchant for a tasselled shoe, and I have always held him in the…
Keep right on to the end of the road….
Somewhere in a rat-infested cellar in Hamburg, will gather tonight a little group of Aryan thugs to celebrate the birth of Adolf Hitler. I can’t tell you the address or the names of the participants, but rest assured some will meet – because that menace has never gone away. Similarly, because we live in a…
A view of the news
It has been in recent days, increasingly clear from all the various sensory inputs, that we – the general public – are becoming tiresomely self-righteous. Our moral outrage is relentless, self-harming, corrosively dangerous, and ultimately self-destructive. There is an alarming rise in domestic violence as partners suddenly realise that their sense of smell has returned,…
The Corona Commonplace
Some of you may be familiar with our small Christmas booklet, a collection of little pieces that have caught our fancy, taken our imagination or which we simply thought might amuse you. There are two versions you can have, a flipbook and a straightforward PDF. To open the Flipbook on your computer, simply CLICK HERE…