![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Dribs and drabs
Jul. 25th, 2010 12:29 amI was going to run through the stress tests on the banks, but I'm having such a rough time of it at the moment that I really couldn't give it the attention it derserves. I'm going to treat myself to a Cumberland Pie For One, write this, and then head off to bed wondering how I got myself into such a situation where life is one long rinse-and-repeat of not having fun.
I see that Alex Higgins died today. He came into a betting shop I was working in once -- the Mecca just off Jermyn Street. It was 1977. He wanted to have a grand on a horse and to take the price. A grand was a big bet in 1977, rather than the petty cash than it is today. I guess it would be closer to ten grand today in "value" (where "value" equals "Birks betting inflation", a completely subjective assessment of how valuable betting money is to Birks). Higgins was with his manager and both were absolutely hammered (this was when pubs shut at 3pm). We couldn't lay the bet at 3-1, so he went round the corner and backed it at 7-2 (the price drifted) with William Hill. It won, as it happens.
Far from being a legend made flesh, Higgins was just a loud Irish drunk, and was egged on by his manager to boot.
When I saw him in a TV series a few years ago, a sad shrunken old man, looking up at the TV and still shouting home the horses for his 20p yankee, I fear that my first reaction was "not such a loudmouth now, are you, mate?"
Higgins was in two classic TV documentaries, and I rather hope that they show the first one again. It could have been called "Loneliness of the long-distance snooker player", marking as it did that period after Pot Black appeared on BBC 2, but before the game really hit the TV highlights. Any money to be made was from hustling, moving from snooker ahall to snooker hall, giving exhbitions and then taking on the best the locals could throw at you -- giving them three blacks start and "just" beating them.
Poker has followed a similar trajectory to snooker when it comes to the media, with Higgins and Stu Ungar following somewhat similar paths, I think.
++++++
BBC2 showed another of the classic Dad's Armys tonight -- an episode I thought was lost. It features Godfrey and his two sisters, an absolutely perfect rendition of Edwardian England surviving long after it had been assumed dead and buried -- right the way down to Godfrey (Arnold Ridley) wearing a tweed three-piece suit (and tie) for tea. Beautiful half-hour's comedy.
One would be tempted to say "they don't make 'em like that any more", but they do, they do. Tom Hollander in "Rev" is magnificent, solely because Hollander makes his character so believable. I think this will one day be seen as one of Britain's classic comedies, assuming it gets another series!
+++++++
My Cumberland Pie For One was very nice, TYVM.
___________
I see that Alex Higgins died today. He came into a betting shop I was working in once -- the Mecca just off Jermyn Street. It was 1977. He wanted to have a grand on a horse and to take the price. A grand was a big bet in 1977, rather than the petty cash than it is today. I guess it would be closer to ten grand today in "value" (where "value" equals "Birks betting inflation", a completely subjective assessment of how valuable betting money is to Birks). Higgins was with his manager and both were absolutely hammered (this was when pubs shut at 3pm). We couldn't lay the bet at 3-1, so he went round the corner and backed it at 7-2 (the price drifted) with William Hill. It won, as it happens.
Far from being a legend made flesh, Higgins was just a loud Irish drunk, and was egged on by his manager to boot.
When I saw him in a TV series a few years ago, a sad shrunken old man, looking up at the TV and still shouting home the horses for his 20p yankee, I fear that my first reaction was "not such a loudmouth now, are you, mate?"
Higgins was in two classic TV documentaries, and I rather hope that they show the first one again. It could have been called "Loneliness of the long-distance snooker player", marking as it did that period after Pot Black appeared on BBC 2, but before the game really hit the TV highlights. Any money to be made was from hustling, moving from snooker ahall to snooker hall, giving exhbitions and then taking on the best the locals could throw at you -- giving them three blacks start and "just" beating them.
Poker has followed a similar trajectory to snooker when it comes to the media, with Higgins and Stu Ungar following somewhat similar paths, I think.
++++++
BBC2 showed another of the classic Dad's Armys tonight -- an episode I thought was lost. It features Godfrey and his two sisters, an absolutely perfect rendition of Edwardian England surviving long after it had been assumed dead and buried -- right the way down to Godfrey (Arnold Ridley) wearing a tweed three-piece suit (and tie) for tea. Beautiful half-hour's comedy.
One would be tempted to say "they don't make 'em like that any more", but they do, they do. Tom Hollander in "Rev" is magnificent, solely because Hollander makes his character so believable. I think this will one day be seen as one of Britain's classic comedies, assuming it gets another series!
+++++++
My Cumberland Pie For One was very nice, TYVM.
___________
