Hayley Turner Wins The July Cup
This report from the BBC describe how Hayley Turner won the July Cup at Newmarket on Dream Ahead.
This was the first outright win by a lady jockey in a Group One race in the UK. There had been one dead heat in the past.
Not only is she the best female jockey we’ve ever had in the UK, she’s also a coeliac.
She’s also a very nice person in every way. She rode for me several times and I would recommend her to anybody.
Did John Major Dye His Hair?
I doubt it, especially as a few years ago I shared a lift with him in the Grande Bretagne hotel in Athens, as he was going down to his car to make speech at the British Council. His hair didn’t look dyed to me.
It must have been about 1994 or so, when I saw him speak to the Cambridge Chief Executives Club. He was rather embattled at the time and he gave a speech which predicted what would happen to Europe in the next few years. He got it substantially right especially about the Balkans. He also criticised the Germans for their reunification policy over the Deutschmark.
But he reserved his biggest bile for News International and especially The Times, which at the time had just discovered Tony Blair and NuLabor. He used the phrase, “The Times which used to call itself a newspaper” and said that it had accused him of dying his hair. He then joked that would anybody in their right mind dye it this colour.
It was a very good speech and it often makes me feel, that if he’d had a better set of cards, he might have made a very good Prime Minister.
I remembered it today, when Harriet Harman called for the power of News International to be reined in.
But of course, it was perfectly alright for them to exercise that power, when they were backing NuLabor. Pots and kettles come to mind.
Incidentally, I wonder if Ms. Harman has searched the Internet for sites about herself!
Dog Control Orders
I have heard of the controversial control orders before, but never ones related to dogs.
Dog Control Order in Newham
They don’t seem to be as oppressive as those beloved of NuLabor.
Advertising In The News of the Screws
The Times yesterday published a list of the major advertisers in the News of the Screws since the beginning of the year.
Some of the companies I’ve never heard of, so it just shows what a waste of money some advertising is.
Here are a few points.
- Sky spent the most.
- The second highest spender was everything everywhere. Who the hell are they?
- The next few were companies like Boots, O2 and P&G, with a few other companies that I don’t use like Proctor and Gamble, Tesco, Asda and Vodafone.
- The next was a company called Shop Direct. See point 2.
- Some of the rest were respected companies like BT, Vauxhall, Dixons, B & Q and Unilever.
- At the botton was T J Hughes and Specsavers. The first of these is now bust and the latter probably does better with its TV adverts.
I know I don’t ever read adverts, but you can read what you like into this list.
Some companies advertising policies really work, as I don’t, know who everything everywhere, Shop Direct and another called Harveys are. I’m assuming the latter isn’t the sherry maker, as no-one drinks sherry these days.
The World’s Nastiest Card Game
Danny Baker asked on Radio 5 for card game stories. Here is the e-mail I sent entitled, The World’s Nastiest Card Game.
Many people have played hearts, black maria, scabby or other variants of this trick winning game, where you mustn’t win hearts or in some versions the queen or other high spades.
There is a version called cancellation hearts, which is played with two packs of cards shuffled together. The one difference is that if in the same trick, two identical cards are played, they don’t count towards who wins the trick. But they do count in the scoring. So if you don’t like someone, they get dumped on in a big way.
It is one of the games that is ideal for odd numbers of upwards of 5 people or more. Drink improves it tremendously and it is not unknown that the odd fight breaks out.
It is also a game beloved of divorce lawyers, as it is very good for business.
Fleet Street’s Darkest Hour
You’d think it would be now, but read this piece on the BBC web site.
Note that even George Orwell got in on the act.
Roy Jenkins’s Lunch in Holloway Prison
Roy Jenkins is best known for being a prominent Labour politician of the 1960s and 1970s. I suspect he was someone who knew his food and drink, as many of those educated in one of our oldest Universities do.
In the early 1970s, C used to visit Holloway Prison as part of the Cameron Group. She often described the group in the way the inmates did and that was “The Ladies in the Pink Hats”. It probably applied to some of the group, but not to C.
One night she came home and told the story about the new Home Secretary, Roy Jenkins and his visit to the prison. He said that he wanted to go everywhere and this didn’t go down well with the governors and the guards. But remember Roy’s father had been in jail because of a riot during the 1926 General strike, so quite rightly, he probably had strong views about how inmates should be treated. He certainly wasn’t a hanger and flogger.
After the tour, the governor suggested lunch and had probably prepared a lunch to impress the Home Secretary. But Roy said he wanted to eat with the prisoners.
After a heated argument, he pulled rank and did so.
Halfway through his meal, he pushed it away muttering something like, “I wouldn’t give this to my dog.”
Being Home Secretary is not an easy job.
Popbitch Was Late This Week
Usually I get Popbitch on a Thursday, but this week’s edition turned up today.
It has an interesting piece on the News of the Screws, which if the story is true, gives a whole new meaning to phone hacking.
Has Rebekah Brooks Been Sacked?
You can find out here.
Another London Bus Route Goes Non-Bendy
This picture shows one of the new buses on route 25 at Stratford.
A Proper Bus on Route 25
It replaced one of the dreaded Spanish-built bendies.
Note that the bus is a Wright Eclipse Gemini 2, built in Northern Ireland. Wrightbus is incidentally a family owned company. So hopefully not for them the problems of external shareholders, who want to paddle someone else’s canoe. The company is very much involved in developing the New Bus for London. We may worry about the demise of trainmaking, but do we have in Wrightbus a company that is going places in that much neglected and very unsexy part of transport; buses?
The Anonymous Widower 