Olympics punt

It's well known that I'm a fan of KickingBets (link to the right), and this is another bet I'm making which is inspired by Chris Trinder.

I have layed China to win the most medals in the Beijing Olumpics - full analysis is available on the KickingBets site.

Tell me...

... if this video doesn't make your eyes well up.

I'm exposing my softer side here but this is such a beautiful clip

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adYbFQFXG0U&eurl=http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article4407100.ece

Bournemouth

After enough dithering, I thought I'd try to write the entry for this blog which covers Bournemouth. Sometimes I think I force entries, and that results in the content being somewhere between mediocre and completely unreadable. It's a shame when that happens because I enjoy writing and often have some mildly entertaining things to say, so I thought I'd wait a bit until I was 'feeling it' before writing the next post. I'm just going to write some random snippets from what happened last weekend, and hopefully there'll be some alright stuff that comes out.

- In the car on the way down we suddenly pumped out One More Time by Daft Punk and it resulted in spirits surging through the roof and loud hand-clapping from the three of us (me, Alex and Chops), even from Al who was driving. When we came across the first roadsign for Bournemouth, a spontaneous chorus of 'BOURNEMOUTH, BOURNEMOUTH, BOURNEMOUTH' broke out (to the tune of 'Rooney, Rooney, Rooney'); a chorus that was to be much repeated over the weekend

- I managed to inadvertently rack up a 120 pound bill with a stripper (before you ask, no I didn't)

- On Saturday the others went to the beach for a bit but Chops and I opted to visit the pool and jacuzzi seeing as the sun wasn't out. At some point during that afternoon, the phrase 'let's get out of this shithole' was born [that definitely won't come across as funny in this blog, but I'll include it so I can look back on this and laugh]. We then went down to the pub for a bite to eat and hooked up again with the rest of the crowd in the park. They were playing mini golf, but Chops and I again decided to go our own way. The sun had come out, and we ended up walking around saying hello to as many girls/women as we could. Again, this will sound completely un-funny and pathetic, but at some points we were actually rolling around on the grass with laughter. Phrases which were particularly funny at the time were...
>>> 'Alright girls.....' [one of the girls looks round] '..... Are you alright?'
>>> 'Hello ladies' [the way Chops said it was classic]
>>> [Chops nearly stops a couple of girls by putting his hand in front of them, before saying in a really seedy voice....] 'Hi girls'
>>> The next day, Chops greeted another couple of girls in this way only for them to walk off and cry 'what a weirdo', ahahahaha!

- A waiter in the hotel, who wasn't English, brought out one too many beers at dinner. Nev subsequently said to him, 'if that's spare, I'll have it'. The waiter paused for a second and replied, 'no, this is Carling'. A roar of laughter erupted from our table and I have to say I felt sorry for the waiter. Nevertheless, it was funny to see Ian ordering pints of Spare for the rest of the trip.

- I went back to our room just before dinner on one of the evenings and had a bit of trouble with the lock. Nev was also with me. We entered, only to find Alex on the floor with his feet up on the bed, only wearing his boxers. It turned out that he thought it would only be me coming in, so he'd play one of our customary weird jokes. Chops said that when he saw Nev five minutes later, Nev was saying something about Alex being a 'strange one' or something like that, hahaahahah!

- Lawrence also had an interesting story about Nev entering the room when unexpected, but I can't really say any more than that.

I know this entry doesn't do justice to the trip, but at least it's something.

Thanks or reading, even if none of it is interesting to you!

-J

Sorry...

... for the lack of updates. A full post will be coming soon covering Bournemouth and what not.

Have to be up at 3.30am, so I better hit the sack!

-J

Four days of fun

I now have four days off and will be having a nice little sojourn away from work. Today I'm having a buffet curry for lunch with Alex and Chops followed by some darts practice at the Woodman, in preparation for the resumption of our Premier League darts tonight. I'm playing Covey, and I'm pretty apprehensive to be honest. I know the man likes to take his darts seriously, and I certainly won't hear the end of it for a while if I lose. I haven't played since I beat Chops a couple of weeks ago, so I need to get my eye in for a bit before.

The other day I had a tennis match for the sixth team, and it was just atrocious. I don't really want to talk about it, but I'll write a little just so I can look back on this in the future and laugh. My partner was an old guy who plays the 'just get it back' style of tennis. For the record, I hate this kind of tennis with a passion. I'd rather have a go at playing a decent shot and hit it into the top of the net rather than pitter-patter the ball back and forth with absolutely no ambition and win the point. 'Just getting it back' is a boring, pathetic way of playing and I get absolutely no enjoyment out of it whatsoever - this is all in addition to the fact that you will never improve as a tennis player if you play this way. So anyway, my partner was determined in playing like this and didn't go across for one volley all night - I mean it, not one. He left easy smashes and tapped high, floating balls into the net. This left me extremely frustrated from the word go, and my mental game was gone immediately, especially because the guy kept trying to give ME advice after every point. I was playing like a freak as well, but my God I got no help from my partner at all.

This sounds like the classic 'blame it on your partner' analysis which is common in amateur tennis, but seriously folks I was in a hideous mood by the end of the match, as those who watched would testify (thanks to Chops, Alex, Gary, my mum and sis for coming along)!

I'm off to Bournemouth tomorrow for the tennis tour, so bye for now!

PS. No gambling action to report; I was going to have a punt on the Open but thought better of it.

Up early, and up early again tomorrow

I had to get up this morning at 4.30, and tomorrow I'll have to be up at 3.30. I'm actually feeling pretty un-tired at the moment but that will probably change later. I'm even thinking of going to the tennis club for a bit to see Chops, Don and Alex (who's back from up North for a bit). That might be pushing it, but if I stay in I'm only going to get bored.

It will be interesting to see how well I hold up for my tennis match tomorrow evening - by the time the evening is over, I will have had seven hours of sleep in within three days. We shall see!

I'm also beginning to get excited now about Bournemouth. There's a section of road on the drive to work every day just before I get on the A40 which is sloped and lined with trees; and for some reason it really reminds me of a random bit of the drive to Bournemouth from a couple of years ago. Each day I pass it and get gradually more and more excited - only another two drives to go!

And finally, thanks to Shirley for commenting yesterday - it's nice to know I have a reader who I didn't know about previously!

-J

Short post

Only a short post today. I'm only writing because I'm ready to leave for work but it's ten minutes too early to leave. I'll probably get stuck in traffic now, knowing my luck.

It's sunny outside (yes, sunny) but obviously I'll be in the T5 greenhouse so will be unable to enjoy it. Come my days off it goes without saying that the weather will take a turn for the worse; that seems to be the trend this summer! It would be nice to get a bit of sun though, as I'm going away this weekend on the Lowlands tennis tour to Bournemouth. Alex and Chops are coming along as well so it's set up to be a good'un.

What else can I mention....

My Dad came in from a gig last night and let the dog out of the kitchen, despite a note being placed clearly on the door instructing him not to let the dog out. So my mum, sister and I were woken at stupid o'clock by the dog running around upstairs trying to find the cat's food bowl with my Dad running behind, yelling a mixture of... 'Henry, come here'; 'Henry, get over here', 'HENRY, get downstairs'. Those of you who know my Dad's accent will probably be able to guess the way in which he was saying it!

Ok, it's probably time to go now

-J

Looking back

I've just looked back on my blog posts from February. It was only a short while ago but my life is so different now! I'm also quite impressed with some of the posts; the blog was a hell of a lot more interesting back then than it is now!

Only a short post today as I have to leave for work soon.

Ta ta for now

-J

Trading and tennis

Reading my last post again, it was a little heavy so it's no surprise I haven't received any feedback for it. Rest assured this post will be more back to normal!

Yesterday afternoon I dabbled a bit in tennis trading and had a look at the Gasquet v Rosol match from Stuttgart. I was only using tiny units but made a good green, with no bad trades which was very encouraging. Looking back on it I was kind of 'in the zone' which is where every trader aspires to be. I was reading the game well and what I thought would happen ended up happening. Gasquet began at 1.1x, and I thought it was pretty obvious that he would trade higher than that at some point during the game, so I layed him. Sure enough he dropped the first set (despite being 6-1 up in the tiebreak!) and he went up to 1.5x. This struck me as the obvious time to back him, so I did so and all was good. If only all matches could be like that huh.

Talking of Gasquet, I have a little tennis anecdote which my friends will all know anyway but I'll outline it again here. Whilst I was on the tennis team at uni I had an away match in Leeds where I played some French guy who had (apparently) beaten Gasquet when they were both juniors. Needless to say I got beaten 6-1 6-1, but I am proud of those two games I got! The crux is this; if he beat Gasquet 6-0 6-0 or 6-0 6-1, then I am (theoretically) better than Richard Gasquet. So remember this, there is a chance that I am better than a former Wimbledon semi-finalist!

I have a tennis match tonight for the third team at Lowlands, but I have a bit of a cold at the moment and have a horrible feeling I'm going to get stuffed. If my serve goes alright and I have a decent partner then maybe it will be ok, but otherwise I don't feel up to much.

So what am I up to before tennis.... I had a brief look at the first England v South Africa Test, but I don't have a clue what to bet on. There's a strong possibility of a draw with all this crappy weather at the moment and I hate betting on cricket when such is the case. I'll probably leave that alone. I just played a bit of poker and it went pretty well, so I'll probably do a bit more of that.

From time to time I like looking back on my calendar from last year to see what I was up to. This time last year it looks like I had just gone on holiday to Gran Canaria with the boys - I cannot believe that was a whole year ago! It was a really influential holiday that has shaped our banter ever since and it really doesn't seem like that long since it happened. There are too many memories to look back on right now, but maybe I'll do a separate post reflecting on it!

That's all for now

-J

The Perceptual Filter

I know this blog has been mainly about my life away from gambling lately, so it's about time I did a gambling post. After all, this blog was started as an essentially gambling-orientated one so this is overdue I guess.

I've been reading some articles on trading stocks and shares recently and have taken many useful lessons from them. So many in fact that my head is buzzing with new trading concepts and I really don't know what to do. Yesterday I made a stupid trade on the Twenty20 that I had to take an immediate red on, but I still feel like I have a new focus.

Anyhow, this post will be about the 'perceptual filter', and idea raised in an interview between Jack Schwager and Charles Faulkner, two established American traders.

Over on The Gambler's blog (link to the right) there is some good discussion at the moment of various trading strategies to win money on the exchanges. Seasoned traders will have found their own ideal strategy (be it backing, laying, momentum trading, and so on) and will use it with confidence when conducting their trades. However, the concept of the perceptual filter implies that strategy itself is not important. It is known that backing and laying are both methods that appear to work in order to make money, provided the person knows the method thoroughly and follows it.

Obviously there are more complicated strategies than simply 'backing' and 'laying', but for simplicity I will just keep referring to these two. If you apply the analogy of different-coloured glasses to the situation, the 'perceptual filter' can be explained easily. A backer looks at prices through red glasses, and a layer looks at prices through blue glasses. Both traders will gain experience at examing price patterns, but from different perspectives. Meanwhile, other methods of trading (different-coloured glasses) are probably absolutely useless. It's simply that instead of looking at prices through clear glass, traders who use these methods are looking at prices through different-coloured tints. The method, or tint shade, is a matter of individual preference. To extend the analogy, you can compare the methods to non-prescription sunglasses: they change the view but don't necessarily improve the vision. The bottom line is that these methods seem to work only because the people who use them have developed some sort of intuitive experience about price.

This post was inspired by the book 'The New Market Wizards' by Jack D Schwager, and some of the text above I've lifted straight from the book, so please nobody sue me!

Hopefully some of that will make sense to my readers (if I've got any)

-J

Party tonight

So, my seven days at work are over and it's time for a well-deserved three days off. Tonight my sister and I are hosting our annual summer party, and I've spent pretty much all day sorting stuff out for it. I have a sore throat which is a shame, and I'm guessing it will probably be worse tomorrow, but you only live once eh?

Yesterday there was some absolutely atrocious weather, which resulted in 14 flights being cancelled from T5. I was in charge of making my way through an enormous queue at 8.45pm and telling passsengers that the ticket desk would be closing at 9 and that they could pick up their hotel vouchers from another bit of the departures level. It wasn't a pleasant task, though it amazes me how people can have such distorted and ignorant views.

Now I'm certainly no overly-motivated employee nor someone who particularly loves BA, but there were some things that people said which really annoyed me. Here are a few:

- 'This happens every time I fly with BA'...... What does? There's a thunderstorm and your flight gets cancelled? Bullshit.

- 'Screw this, I'm getting a flight with another carrier'.... Excuse me? The flights are cancelled due to the weather. This is nothing to do with BA - every other airline will have cancelled their flights. If you want to book with another carrier, fine, but there won't be any planes taking off from Heathrow you complete and utter dumbass.

- 'BA are going to go bankrupt soon'.... Two things. Firstly, why say this to me? Do you think this is going to affect me? That it's going to make me fear for my job or something? As if!Secondly, what a load of absolute bollocks. If rain was something that could bankrupt airlines, then commercial aviation would never have got off the ground! And also, BA is one of the only airlines that will never go bust, it is simply too big. If it ever gets anywhere near that stage, then a hell of a lot of other airlines will have gone down the pan beforehand. In which case, there would be more custom for BA, so it won't go bust.... there are just too many big stakeholders in the organisation looking after it. And look at the last year. Probably BA's worst year ever in terms of its reputation. 22,000 bags lost at the opening of T5 and confirmed as the biggest bag-loser in Europe. Yet it has recently announced record profits of 800 million pounds. Going bankrupt? Not yet you idiot.

- 'When is it going to stop raining?'... Are you kidding me?

- 'Oi, yeah over here, am I booked on the next flight?'... Oh yes it's you sir, the man I've never seen before in my life. Let me just check the database I have in my head of every single flight there is. Now, I don't know your name, I don't know where you're travelling to, but yeah you have a window seat in business class you STUPID BASTARD

Well you can probably see that yesterday was a bit stressful, and aplogies for the expletives! But the people who have this ignorance and hold these ridiculous beliefs are exactly the types that will get sucked in by all the over-reactions and BS in the media regarding the air industry.

Thanks for reading

-J

The Barbeque (and what a Wimbledon final!)

Above: Gary, Chops, me and Covey admiring the fantastic British weather at the BBQ. Not one bit of blue sky...

Just before I begin about the barbeque, I have to mention the Wimby final. What a game. Not just because of the truly incredible tennis, but also because that match will probably represent the end of the Federer era in tennis. The next few years are going to be very interesting, in particular next year's Wimbledon. I would love to see Fed come back and reclaim his title; that would be more enjoyable to watch than him winning seven straight championships. I'm already excited! It was also nice to book a win on the event with my lay of Roger.

Ok, the barbeque. I finished work at 3 and rushed to the tennis club as quickly as I could. The gang for the day (Daz, Covey, Chops and Gary) were already playing darts. We were going to play a Davis Cup of darts with a few singles and doubles matches between the LDC and the LDO (the two rival darts 'organisations' in the club... don't ask). I was leading Gary 2-1 in our singles game when our team was called up to play our first match in the petanque contest.

A quick bit of background; I have won the petanque contest so many times I have honestly lost count. Which put me under a great deal of pressure to perform, along with the rest of my team. Anyhow, in our first game we comfortably beat Pat Cava & co to get to the semi (we got a bye in the first round, probably due to my true legend status in the event).

Things got a bit hairy in the semi. Daz and I were behind all the way against this young couple, until we were 8-9 down and suddenly snatched a 3-pointer to win the leg. Over on the other court, Chops and Covey had been trailing massively (8-2 down at one point I believe) but took heart from our last-minute winner and came out on top to send us to the final. Their opponents were taking it very seriously and were visibly pissed off to lose, which made it even better for us, haha!

The final was interesting to say the least. I think it would be fair to say that everyone involved was absolutely plastered, and Kevin Tye was giving his trademark banter to go with it. We rolled with the punches though, and Chops and Covey finished off their opponents in quick time. When they announced that they had triumphed 11-3, Daz and I were already 6-3 up so we knew we had won the tournament before having finished our game. Upon realising this, Chops and Covey became particularly excited on the sidelines (from their position on the kids tennis court) and began singing etc. Covey shook the fence next to the tennis court, and in the process knocked over my pint which smashed all over the playing surface. All the players found this funny, but not the spectators who gave many disapproving glances. Steve Dunn also didn't like it and I bore the brunt of his bollocking, despite being nowhere near it and still playing the game!

So that was that; we won the championship.

During the afternoon we'd also played a game where we threw pound coins at the wall, and whoevers landed furthest away had to do a tequila. We were also watching some dreadful tennis that was being played in the 5.30 coaching session, and were gambling with each other on the outcome of various points being played. It's an incredibly fun pastime; you get really involved in the game even though the standard is just dire (and God knows what the players thought we were doing; screaming and shouting after each of their points from inside the hall behind the court).

We grabbed a bit of the barbeque (a few undercooked burgers and sausages, probably because the chefs were Charlie and Eric who were zonked on something that definitely wasn't drink) and made our way back inside to continue the drinking.

By the time the DJ started the disco, things were starting to get a bit hazy. I can remember doing lots of really loud hand-clapping to certain songs, which embarrassed Gary no-end. We asked the DJ for so many fundamental party tunes (Ghostbusters theme, MC Hammer, Just Jack) yet he had none. We had to settle for Shakira and Wyclef in the end, which was still fun. Those who know me will know that I'm no dancer, so it always spells trouble if I'm on a dancefloor. Well we were all up there making fools of ourselves, and it was great. Tony had to come over about ten times and tell us to get off the floor if we had glasses in our hands; each time resulting in us sitting down for five seconds and then going back.

Ian Crew made the announcement that we had won the petanque, and no one else in the club really cared. We had walked to the back of the bar as well in order to get maximum visibility as we walked up to the stage, but we just ended up looking like tits. The prize was a crate of beer, but I still would have preferred some silverware to go with my ever-growing collection at home.

Several drinks later, the night was over and I remember having some kind of argument with Kevin's mates afterwards but I have no idea what about. This morning I woke up with a baguette in my room (guess I must have nicked it from the leftover food) and a text from Covey saying: 'mate how much did we drink yday? i got a crate of beer by my bed i dnt remember bringing home and i've been chundering all morning! when u goin work?'

I think that about sums it all up!

My sister and I are having a party round our house on Tuesday night, which should be good as always!

Thanks for reading

-J

Wimbledon Final

It's meant to be Federer v Nadal in the final today (weather-permitting) and it's too close to call. I'll leave my lay of Federer alone and will just let it ride, I deserve a punt. I won't be able to watch the game as I'll be at work, but hopefully I'll be able to follow the text updates on the BBC website.

Yesterday it was the barbeque at the tennis club which was a good afternoon / evening. I won the annual petanque contest (again) with Daz as my partner and Chopper and Covey as the other pair in our team. We all had a hell of a lot to drink, with various funny stories arising during the day (glasses being smashed on the kids tennis court, arguments with wannabe petanque champions, ridiculous dancing) and somehow I've escaped a hangover today, but boy I look bad. Needless to say I have work soon and I'm anticipating a pretty lethargic day!

I might do a separate post in detail about the barbeque.

That's all for now.

-J

End of Summer?

After the scorchers a few days ago, the forecast is now pretty damn grim for the time being at least. I've heard that it's actually meant to be cold at the weekend, which is a shame seeing as it's the annual barbeque down at the tennis club. I suppose we should be grateful it's not rain. No need for rain-lovers to panic though, as it looks like it will be chucking it down from now until the weekend.

Why can't there just be some consistent sunshine? What's so wrong about having a sunny summer? Or are hot summers a thing of the past? I don't know who I'm moaning to but please, if there's anyone out there who can change the weather, throw us a bone for God's sake!

As for Daz's adventure in T5, I think he will be writing a proper post about it on his blog at some point (link to the right).

Good to see that Murray got spanked yesterday.

That's all for now.

-J

A weird day lies ahead

This is very, very random but Daz is coming to T5 with me today.... I know, it's also really weird but at least it will be something to look back on and laugh at! He's really bored at home with no one to hang out with so he said he has nothing better to do than come and see me work, hahaha! I can't wait to read about it on his blog later....

If I get a lot of queue-combing then I could well be with him all day, if not then he might be spending a fair few hours in the bar!

Expect another post about how the day went coming soon!

-J

Ugh, another seven-day stint

Today I start another seven-day marathon at work. I'm working the extra days now so I can get time off in September, so at least there's a long-term goal to look forward to.

Yesterday I played tennis for the 6th Team at Lowlands and played pretty well. I got the old serve motoring and it felt pretty good in front of a crowd. Talking of the crowd, the home supporters were particularly loud last night and created a bit of bad blood with the opponents. They were cheering and celebrating when the opposition missed shots or made unforced errors, which is a no-no in tennis etiquette. Still, it was nice to return to the tennis scene (it was my first Middlesex League match in 2 years).

As usual it's a scorching day today and I have work. Yesterday I managed to catch a few rays what with the tennis and all that, but also managed to get out during the day to explore the new Costa coffee in Eastcote with Daz and Chopper.

Ok, back to the grind it is. 7 days to go.

-J