The Ryder Cup

Though, in truth, the last three have been pretty dull. And this one could well be drowned in soft Welsh rain.

However, the ones in the late 80s and through the 90s were terrific sport. Indeed, and I swear this to be true, we actually only subscribed to Sky Sports originally because Anne wanted to watch the Ryder Cup.

All the pundits are saying Europe will win, and 75% of all bets being taken are for Europe. Accordingly, I can share with you that the USA are a terrific price at 15/8. Simple patriotic bias and hype are making the away side great value. Mind you, I thought exactly the same about Valencia last night. Or, to put it another way, you can't eat value.

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Woody Allen

With only a couple of weeks to fill, I should be able to get there simply by a self-indulgent list of any favourites I haven't hitherto mentioned.

Still my favourite film-maker, for all he hasn't made a good film this decade, and is regarded as a pervert by anyone under the age of 40.

6 of my top 30 films: (7 if you count When Harry Met Sally)
Broadway Danny Rose
Purple Rose of Cairo
Sleeper
Love and Death
Annie Hall
Manhattan Murder Mystery

not mentioning the extraordinary one-offs:
Zelig
Radio Days
Everyone Says I love You

Or the just damned good films:
Bananas
Play it again, Sam
Manhattan
Hannah and Her Sisters
Crimes and Misdemeanours
Bullets over Broadway
Small Time Crooks

The rhythms of racing

This is a big thing at the moment. Flat racing is suffering badly as a sport, not least because people aren't betting on it. The powers that be have decided that the reason for this is that it lacks a "narrative" in the way, say, a football season does.

But flat racing's problems have little to do with narrative. I'd say the problems lie more with:
a) far too many races, at least 5 meetings a day in summer, full of mediocre horses running in tight little handicaps, so that no-one can sensibly keep on top of all the form, and so stops bothering.
b) the old problem that the horses are sent off to stud too early, so that punters can't grow attached to them, unlike jumps racing.
c) persistent over-watering by clerks of courses, presumably done on purpose and to order, to make form entirely untrustworthy.
d) the on-going fall-out of having some of the most senior jockeys bent as two-bob notes.

In fact the "narrative" of flat racing is very strong once you get to know it. I certainly measure out my days by it, in the same way I measure out the winter months (which I've written about before).

The Lincoln to kick us off in March; Guineas trials; the mixed meeting at Sandown to hand jumps racing over to flat racing; the Guineas; the Derby/Oaks trials meetings - Epsom, Lingfield, Sandown, Newbury, Goodwood; the Derby/Oaks/Coronation Cup; then into June for Royal Ascot; then 3 year olds start meeting the older horses with the Eclipse at Sandown, and the King George at Ascot; onto Glorious Goodwood at the end of July; and York's Ebor meeting in August; a holiday lull before the last Classic, the St Leger; Ayr; and then October's curtain-closers The Cambridgeshire, Champion Stakes, and Cesarewitch.

And that's just top races in this country. Intertwine with the Irish and French classics, and the Breeders Cup and there's a "story" every week. This week sees the autumn equinox of the season with the Cambridgeshire and the Arc, segueing slowly over the coming weeks from the end of the flat to the beginning of the jumps. For most of our adult lives it's signalled the time Anne and I have gone on our annual holidays (also April - after the Grand National, before the Guineas).

Given that these racing seasons also match the real seasons, you have an even greater sense of the year's rhythms, (which, in doing these "in praise ofs", I've realised are very important to me).

It also means we've always been on holiday "out of season". We either arrive at places before they've opened for the summer - "oh, this place is dead before Memorial day", or after they've closed - "oh no, not since Labor day." But that too, has its charms...


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10 year old tawny port

Now, I can hardly claim to be a connoisseur (nor can I claim to be able to spell connoisseur). My dad once ordered the full range of ports in a restaurant off the Strand and Anne and I had to guess which was which, and which we liked best. We both got everything wrong.

It was like that fantastic skit Mel Brooks does on chat-shows where he does a blind wine-tasting, which starts with him saying "It's a Chateau Lafittes, premier cru 1953, no pardon, 1957, am I right? and culminates with him asking "Is it a red wine?"

Some years later we spent a lovely afternoon in Graham's port lodge in Porto, which taught us everything a bluffer could possibly want to know about port, but I was so pissed when I left all I remember was a liking for the 10 year old tawny stuff and that's been my adopted port of choice ever since.

Of course, you have to drink it once you've uncorked it, so today's traipse up the Long Mynd is going to seem a touch more challenging than normal...

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Pulled off at half-time

A small Saturday column in the Racing Post, a silly look at the week's sport, named after the alleged conversation between Rodney Marsh and Sir Alf Ramsey.

Alf: "Rodney, I'll be watching you for the first 45 minutes and if you don't work harder I'll pull you off at half-time"
Rodney: "Blimey Alf, all we usually get at City is tea and a slice of orange."

Anyway, it's hidden behind a pay-wall, so I'll share this week's with you as it made me smile over my toast this morning, and it's an attack on grumbling:

"I suppose it was inevitable the Commonwealth Games, one of the last vestiges of the British Empire should have turned into a festival of moaning. Moaning is among the most popular pursuits in Britain, along with whinging, complaining, grumbling and fly-fishing.

Several athletes have already pulled out of the Delhi games because of concerns about security and the state of the athletes' village. And, even more damagingly, the Russians, Americans and Chinese look set to boycott the Commonwealth Games yet again.

As an old India hand myself I can't help thinking that all these complaints about accommodation seem a bit precious. I've stayed in some pretty ropey digs on the subcontinent but life's what you make of it, you know?

If our high-maintenance hurdlers and prima donna pole-vaulters don't want to go to Delhi, let's send a team who will enjoy the experience - namely public-school educated gap-year kids.

They won't mind roughing it in the relay team with a couple of local beggars and some French hippie from the hostel who left his mind in Marrakesh in 1973.

'It's amazing here but the poverty is just unbelievable. You see those Nikes that Mungo Jossington-Smythe's wearing? They're not even limited edition. I know - I literally died of shock when I found out.' "

(James Milton)

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Snoozing in the conservatory

Or snoozing anywhere come to that. But the conservatory outside of summer, with its own micro climate, is the place to settle after a walk in the rain, curled up with the dog and cat, polishing off the crossword, gazing at the clouds sliding across the sky and gradually slipping into a half-asleep nod. Wake yourself up with a snort. And repeat.

Never has the allegory of the frog being slowly boiled in the saucepan seemed so apt. Even Anne, who I can attest has never napped in her life, has been known to close her eyes for a moment...


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Digging-up Potatoes

I lifted my main crop of pink fir apple potatoes yesterday - the last day of summer - and a mighty fine crop of knobbled, freak-show tatties did I muster.

All vegetable harvesting has that "mixing memory and desire", cycle of life thang going on, and of all vegetable gardening jobs, getting your fork under a bulging tuber of potatoes, and getting your hands into the enriched loamy earth to mine the little lost nuggets is by far the most life-affirming...


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