Confused

This week finds me a little confused. Lot's of things going on at university at the moment and it's all a bit baffling, I shant bore you with the details but fingers crossed it gets better soon. Football is also very odd, can anyone explain how the gooners can put in a performance like we did against United one week ago, followed up by our schoolboys giving an established premiership team a beating and then get completely dicked on by Villa yesterday? Tennis is barmy as well Andy Murray beats Federer wins his group easily and then gets thumped by Simon. As for my Davydenko bet, I was really pleased to see him go through the group and after a little discussion with J as to the possibility of laying a different amount other than £5 or £10 I decided that his chances of winning were slim so I intended to lay him so if he did end up winning I would get my £5 stake returned and if he lost I would win a very healthy £140, somehow (do not ask me how, as I have been kicking myself since) I cocked up the bet and managed to win £8.80 for him losing and lost £5 from him not winning. You can imagine my mood after cheering on Djokovic in the final and then finding out I actually wanted Davydenko to win after all. Not pleased, but at least I came away with a bit of money I suppose.

Weekend was reasonably good, although there is a lot of work on at the moment I gave up my Saturday and Sunday to help my friend move into his new house in Newcastle. This concluded in a night out in the toon. Previous visits to Newcastle have been somewhat disappointing, mainly due to not having a clue where to go and ending up in a 80s bar with lots of older women dressed very inappropriately, however this time we got a guided tour from a local on out course before he went home, followed by a second tour of all the local hotspots by a stripper who is also on our course, she had the added advantage of knowing all the bouncers of the local bars and wangled us in free everywhere, even telling the bouncers to remember us to let us in when she was no longer there. Seeing as I am pretty sure I only have about 2 readers and neither are women I can quite easily say they have it soooo easy. How does having big boobs give you any more right to get into a bar free over anyone else, anyway this could be a post for another day. Ultimately the night was really good, started drinking in Jesmond (a rather posh town not far from Newcastle) whilst watching the Rugby at about 3pm 12 hours later we were still going strong and it is quite possibly the most pissed I have been since the first day of our holiday. We guessed we had something like 15pints and my memories of the evening are somewhat sketchy as you can imagine I did not feel to great come Sunday morning. Good stuff though. As J has just said on his blog I too should try and make these posts a little more exciting and I will do my best very soon particularly once I get bored working.

Float = £20

Bet 1 = City to beat Brighton - LOST -£5
Bet 2 = Arsenal to beat Porto - WON - £2.67
Bet 3 = Arsenal to beat Porto & Fiorentina to beat Steau - LOST - £5
Bet 4 = Santoro to beat Schukin - WON - £7.20
Bet 5 = Cibulkova to beat Ivanovic - WON - £13.50
Bet 6 = Gasquet to beat Fish - WON - £9.77
Bet 7 = Lay Gasquet to win - LOST - £5
Bet 8 = Arsenal to beat Everton - WON - £2
Bet 9 = Austin to win X-Factor - LOST - £5
Bet 10 = Hrbaty to beat Schuettler - LOST - £5
Bet 11 = Becker to beat Beck - WON - £3.61
Bet 12 = Andreev to beat Kolschreiber - WON - £4.08
Bet 13 = Blake to beat Kiefer - WON - £4.04
Bet 14 = Davydenko to win Masters Cup - LOST - £5
Bet 15 = Arsenal to beat Man Utd - WON - £25.50
Bet 16 = Lay Arsenal to beat Man Utd - LOST - £5
Bet 17 = Lay Davydenko to win Masters Cup – WON- £8.80

Current remaining float = £66.17

Up The Arse!

WHAT A RESULT!! I think I speak on behalf of every Arsenal fan when I say from 85 mins on it was as if we were watching the Tottenham game from just over a week ago but scraped through it playing some fantastic stuff as well. Also I don't think you will see a better first half and possibly whole game anywhere in any league in the world, the football was brilliant and at half time the score could have quite easily been completely different. Without getting carried away there is still a long way to go and I personally still think the league will be just out of our grasp, with our relatively small squad and questionable defending and fighting against the yobish clubs in the league. I would suggest our best chance still lies within the cup competitions, we undoubtedly have a brilliant team who can play some fantastic football as proved today and I think we are much more likely to get the odd few wins against big clubs pushing us through to a cup victory rather than several wins on the trot on a bleak winter nights at some shit hole in the north.

On the upside I won my bet, although at half time I did lay Arsenal so didn't win quite as much as I might have done. This does class as my biggest win of published bets so things are looking up.

Float = £20

Bet 1 = City to beat Brighton - LOST -£5
Bet 2 = Arsenal to beat Porto - WON - £2.67
Bet 3 = Arsenal to beat Porto & Fiorentina to beat Steau - LOST - £5
Bet 4 = Santoro to beat Schukin - WON - £7.20
Bet 5 = Cibulkova to beat Ivanovic - WON - £13.50
Bet 6 = Gasquet to beat Fish - WON - £9.77
Bet 7 = Lay Gasquet to win - LOST - £5
Bet 8 = Arsenal to beat Everton - WON - £2
Bet 9 = Austin to win X-Factor - LOST - £5
Bet 10 = Hrbaty to beat Schuettler - LOST - £5
Bet 11 = Becker to beat Beck - WON - £3.61
Bet 12 = Andreev to beat Kolschreiber - WON - £4.08
Bet 13 = Blake to beat Kiefer - WON - £4.04
Bet 14 = Davydenko to win Masters Cup - Unsettled - £5 @ 30
Bet 15 = Arsenal to beat Man Utd - WON - £25.50
Bet 16 = Lay Arsenal to beat Man Utd - LOST - £5

Current remaining float = £57.37

Mug

Have realised it has been a while since I posted a bet, so for that I apologise. I saw J's post earlier this week and that is just the sort of thing that I feel has been happening to us since the start, good solid reasoning leading to a sensible bet that goes completely tits up. So enough of sensibleness and let's go for some wild mug punts. Arsenal are priced at 3.6 to beat Utd tomorrow. We are currently playing like a load of headless chickens and I am pretty sure that based on recent performances the fans would not have noticed had the Arsenal team been swapped for BFTD, they even have an injury list that can only be matched of BFTD of old Adebayor out injured (James' dislocated finger) Walcott out injured (Lawrence' broken finger) Sagna out injured (Gary's bad knee) and not forgetting poor old Eduardo from that horror tackle last year (Kieron's completely fucked knee). Utd on the other hand having been playing some good football and come into the game with a near full fit squad. Everything would lead you to the suggestion that Utd should walk it so that is where the sensible money is. I'm not doing this and gonna lump my first £10 bet on a home win.

I am also going to do another silly bet and bet on Davydenko to win the Masters Cup. He is undoubtedly in the easier of the two groups (avoiding both Federer and Murray) and with opposition such as Djokovic, Del Potro and Tsonga who like Davydenko all have had very mixed results this year it is worth a £5 punt at 30. Hopefully he might be able to sneak through or alternatively I will ask around the Russian maffia to see if he is likely to throw any of his matches so to lay him at a later date.

Weekend Back Home

After a depressing string of events up north I decided to make the trip back home for some much needed bent. I was not disappointed. Friday saw me play on the new courts at Lowlands with J, which always seems to end up using doublehanded forehands and singlehanded backhands and normally hitting it as fast as we can. Good fun. The day progressed and ended up going to visit my little bro with Dj Daz. I didn't know quite what to expect but it was a good laugh, Daz was full of appetising bent and it culminated in us dressed in ridiculous costumes breakdancing on David's lounge floor and dodging fireworks being fired out of people's hands in the garden. Earlier that evening we had popped into the RE bar where a text from Chopper set me a little task, with one of his ex colleagues. I took the task, got photographic evidence and Chopper is still yet to pay up....very disappointed!!

Saturday was even better, lots of rain stopped play which meant I could go out earlier with fellow troopers Daz and J. We anticipated lots of things that we could do for our pointless two hours with ridiculous suggestions such as open top bus tour of London, strip clubs or seeing a show they were all brushed aside with conversations about how many drinks could be consumed instead. The evening started well at bar On anon, 3 jugs of delicious cocktail, some nicer than others (thanks Daz) then we were joined by the others before swiftly departing on our wild adventure. Strangely enough I had a good time and was in a bit of a rush to get back in time in the end so could have done with some more time on my own. Three moments that stood out for me was 1) seeing J in the first bar I went into and was welcomed by a 2 fingered salute to which I ignored turned and left. 2) Somehow getting into Strawberry Moons, girls got in free but guys were £8 but for some reason I didn’t get charged, whether this was due to the bouncer feeling sorry for me, he confused me for a girl or another reason I don’t know. 3)Sitting in All Bar One at a table for 6 people, looking straight at a mirror looking back at me, it was quite nostalgic watching myself drinking alone, I found myself laughing to myself, people must have thought I was a right fruitcake. Ended up getting 5 drinks in 5 different locations having visited nearer to 10 for various toilet stops and checking out the place to see if it was any good. I have made a little diagram of my adventure throughout the evening although I only posted the places I could remember and that I could find on the internet. The night concluded brilliantly with two wrestling bouts. First Chops took on the Bot and then Nails. I haven’t laughed so hard in a long time, both then and watching it back. Hopefully this night will be repeated!

Betting – Austin got dumped out of X-Factor, guess this is a moment to only bet on what you know on…..back to tennis. P.S. football’s shit.