I remember many years ago, at about this time of year, the team launching The Middleham Trainers Association and then the Middleham Open Day. The local MP, Marcus’ dad Roddy, Pat Haslam, James Bethell and countless others all turned out for the first Open Day on a Good Friday. Peter Walwyn, who ran Lambourn Open…
COMMENT
Get past the wheezing – inside I’m laughing
I am currently receiving some forty messages a day of various hues of kindness, love and in one or two cases, imagined promises. (I say – Ding Dong!) Work has started on The Corona Commonplace, a collection of stories, quizzes, observations and random thoughts, and I am assured that we will soon on Raceweb, step…
Even God can get the distance wrong sometimes
I have recently felt that God was perhaps attempting to make an early declaration on my behalf, over a distance, I consider way too short. While he carries the ubiquitous “Authority To Act”, I did feel the use of the word premature was apropos. Because we all have some spare time, and because some of…
Broadsword calling Danny Boy – Broadsword calling Danny Boy
There is now no doubt that we are at war. Our website today came under an attack from Panama with 249 attempted hacks in 10 minutes. Fortunately, our defences are strong, but quite what Signor Jorge was hoping to do is beyond me. Was he trying to discover the secrets of our Cheltenham – I…
Capt. Kneesup falls under the spell of CV19
As we are surrounded by war-time analogies delivered by people who have never served in HM vineyards, nor fired a shot in righteous anger, I shall swerve saying that tapping this out on the tablet was becoming increasingly reminiscent of an old exercise I took part in using badly-formed morse code. (As an aside, The…
Are we not nearly Good?
At a recent editorial meeting, the head of compliance suggested that in 2020 we should in some way hold ourselves accountable, so that the incurably stupid who blindly followed our tips, might at least get some pre-warning, and thus an opportunity to bag a decent pitch under the arches on the Embankment. O’Tool via his…
They’re Mighty Meaty Matey
Once upon a time, there was a company called Drings, that produced a widely-advertised sausage, under the slogan “They’re Mighty Meaty Matey”. I think there might even have been a bit about “…slap ’em on your platey”, but I could be imagining that bit. What I didn’t imagine was that extraordinarily slanted piece of gratuitous…
Traincrash, Disaster, Devastation, Mayhem, Sadness
Yesterday started brilliantly. I had done the form very early on Saturday morning and, despite slipping on ice and crashing to the ground at 1:00 am, I was none the worse for wear. The cataract operation, (done on Monday), is on course for the Outstanding Performance by the NHS award and four days later, I…
The weekend rolls on
I’m quite relieved to be socially unattached today. My TV and a roaring planet-destroyer are calling with Racing, EuroFooty, Grand Prix and maybe even a bit of left-over take-away Chinese washed down with beer and no glass … a real boys-at-home “Slack Order” day. Yesterday could have worked out better on the tipping front –…
Those magnificent men still happily at it
My monthly perusal of Drone Wars, while always entertaining, this time contained some proper Sit-Up-Straight-and-Pay-Attention news. It was, in summary, this little insight. Throughout the UK’s air campaign over Syria and Iraq, between October 2017 and September 2019, the RAF’s Tornados, Typhoons and Reaper drones attacked 499 ISIS targets. The cost of the ordinance detonated…
You asked – we answered
Crikey, I hear you say, I thought The Tissue had gone on holiday to Georgia for his annual Penguin Counting Festival, did his flight get cancelled? No, gentle reader, I have merely pulled the transport to the side of the island’s airport to provide The Judge’s precise and very correct answers. The first question came…
Syria 0 Turkey 0 – USA 0 Russia 0
It was once suggested that the US has never actually had a foreign policy per se, but rather it has simply destabilised any region thus occupying the perceived antagonists of the US, at any given moment in time. If that is true, it is perhaps the explanation of what is happening in Turkey and Syria…
Capt. Knees back in the fold
I am delighted to announce that I shall be taking my annual holiday on Georgia, counting the Penguins and ensuring that the ice in my Gin is as fresh as possible. Meanwhile, Capt. Kneesup has managed to pay off the debts he incurred after mortgaging the house, selling Lady Kneesup, and visiting Burly Betty, the…
All the news that’s fit to print
Having been off-air, (and some might rudely suggest, off-form), last week I thought it time that I bring you up to speed with various happenings. Luckily while visiting my chums, I left you in the hands of the Pharaoh of Galway, who produced a couple of double-digit winners, to the extent that backing him blind…
How The Pharoah of Galway got his name.
Before he went on his annual holiday, The Tissue had promised to tell you how the Pharoah of Galway came to be known as such. Perhaps he delayed relaying the tale because it isn’t so much an amusing tale of Irish shenanigans, but rather the story of how a good idea often needs more than…
Mea Maxima Culpa… it’s work (ed)
Darlings, I fear that unless you collectively glance at the pages without my sending you a reminder. you will miss both the opportunities our tips regularly present. The first alternative world is one where you recuperate from a busy lunchtime cocktail of Brasso and Red Rull, under the arches at Charing Cross, having invested in…
Thomas Cook – an unfortunate truth
I was slightly surprised that every Thomas Cook customer seen on TV, seemed “horrified”, “surprised”, “dazed”, and “bewildered”, leading me to assume that they had collectively failed to read a single newspaper report that suggested or even hinted at the fact that TC was on its uppers; and even if it wasn’t, it was so…
Hares and Rabbits? Not if William has the gun!
I was startled by The Archers omnibus this morning, when William Grundy, gamekeeper to the big estate, failed to shoot either his brother, his father or himself, in a small bedroom with a loaded 12-bore. Crikey, I thought. It’s probably fair to say that Borsetshire’s poachers can sleep easy in their beds at the beginning…
Raceweb Update
Firstly I’d like to formally welcome The Pharoah of Galway, Peter O’Tool, who will have an irregular column within the pages of Raceweb. Yesterday he sent me an email with a 14/1 winner four minutes before the off and opened by me 10 minutes after the finish. When I asked why he had made the…
THE BEGINNING OF THE END?
Prorogation, a few facts BACKGROUND Yesterday, August 28th, HM The Queen accepted a request from the government to suspend parliamentary sessions between September 9th and October 14th – to prorogue Parliament. To prorogue Parliament simply resets the session. Any legislation yet to become law is wiped clean – except for those that MPs vote to…
Caesar Salad – how difficult can it be?
At my working lunch in Farnham today, (mentioned elsewhere), I chose from The Castle Inn’s menu, a Chicken Caesar Salad. It was described as being a Classic Chicken Caesar salad: crispy cos lettuce, rustic garlic croutons, Parmesan, soft boiled egg, anchovies, Caesar dressing. I asked our waitress to remove the anchovies, which are a step…
The Diary
Only this time last week, I was recovering from being at Goodwood for four days and trying to find a winner on Saturday. Same-o same-o. The next day a drinks party, where I was told of a girl in Hungerford, who is a tailor. As I am in need, following the significant disruption to the…
A funny thing didn’t happen on the way to work today.
I recently saw a Chinese factory owner say to the TV camera that two years ago, he employed 3400 Chinese from the local town. He recently installed two robots, has now doubled output and employs 800 workers. He will have paid off the investment within 18 months. A little later, another Chinaman, sitting astride a…
Goodwood – The Facts
At lunchtime today, I met one of Raceweb’s subscribers, the ever fragrant Ms C. She suggested that – given my tips – I must have lost zillions. Thus for curiosity’s sake, (and to wipe out this foul slur), I wanted to evaluate Raceweb’s actual P&L after 35 races. Let’s face it, Goodwood provides more fun than…
As promised – a Courgette Salad to take up the bounty
I don’t seem to know anyone who doesn’t produce courgettes. You can quickly end up with a veg-basket of rotting marrow as you desperately try to find things to do with them. Even people in London seem to turn up with them, pickled, jammed, or just whole. So, what to do? I recently discovered Pul…
Favourites? No, not really
From my small selection yesterday, each carefully researched and selected, we achieved the following results. Apologies. Too many of them were perhaps affected by the heat. 14:50 Sandown Space Walk 3rd 11/8 – 16:15 Yarmouth Tone The Barone 2nd 11/8 – 19:05 Newbury Incredulous 2nd 5/2 – 19:55 Doncaster Lucky Number 3rd 15/8 – 20:10…
Scarred and demoralised
Sorry about Saturday. I wish I could say we came close, but we were undone by the heat, horses, tipster, jockeys, distance, weather, lack of lump wood charcoal and a very rickety email system that only appears to work intermittently. In brief, we suggested: FOX CHAIRMAN who won at Newbury at 8/13. I did say…
The Open already providing plenty of heartache.
The one thing we should have known, as sensible sporting people, was that Rory McIlroy could no more win The Open than Ayatollah Khamenei. The intense pressure of being an Ulsterman, on an Ulster Course, in a tournament that he and his fellow Ulstermen had worked hard to have held in Ulster was always going…
Dear Lord and Father of Mankind
It has all been said, and it has all been gone over, but for what it is worth, here is my tuppence-worth, on the most exceptional days sport ever witnessed. I had on Saturday decided to lose a packet on X-Court sets in the Ladies Final. Essentially I reasoned this was going to be close….
No more Big Mac and that’s a crying shame.
There is a tale told in Channel 4’s corridors of power, that the reason behind John McCririck’s removal from C4 racing, was that he had upset the “right-on”, liberal, feminist, wife of a senior C4 executive and that she had simply demanded that her husband, if he knew what was good for him, have him…
At last – Boeuf Bourguignon the way it should be
Raymond Blanc is a little French genius. He deserves to be made Duke of Burgundy although I suspect it would require the restoration of the House of Bourbon. He marked my card in a little video which can be found here…. ….and which has the worst transcription of any recipe ever made. However, carefully listening…
Well Done Ladies
Apart from being outplayed and out manoevred by an extraordinarily tough team, England Women played a blinder. OK they focused far too much on a narrow ten metre strip down the right wing. OK, England’s keeper was playing as though she had lost the use of her hands and seemed incapable of clearing a ball…