I do like to indulge in a few pints of Hoegaarden, especially in the summer months when I'm down on the coast in the search for leggy transvestites. Now one of my trading/betting colleagues recently sent me a link to a guy on YouTube that gives his opinions on various beers as he had just tried Bavaria non-alcoholic wit beer and mentioned that it tasted very similar to Hoegaarden. So I'm like 'well that sounds fucking superb' as I do like my Hoegaarden but I do tend to overindulge on occasions, invariably leading to feeling like a sack of shite the next morning!
So off I go to Google to find out where I can puchase this stuff and I see that I can pick it up from Tesco's. I jump in the motor, shoot down to my local store and find out that they no longer stock it! Bollox, so then I drive over to my local Sainsbury's and they don't have it either ... and neither do Asda's. How hard can if fucking be to get 6 bottles on non-alcoholic wit beer! I checked again and it seems that Waitrose have it (not too sure whether they have it in stock) but that means I'll have to check their store in Stratford at some point.
Now I'm not known for my cutting edge dress sense and I have a christening to go to over the weekend so I thought that I'd better get some new clobber. I did have a nice pair of shoes that I kept for special occasions but it seems that my eldest son has been wearing them for the last year whenever he goes out on the pull so a) he nicked them when he moved out and b) they now look like something that Steptoe would wear!
So once again I have a look about on the internet to see what all the cool trendy guys are wearing and I noticed that cardigans seem to be back in fashion!
So it's off to Lakeside on Friday (or maybe Westfield) to get myself sorted and become the fanny magnet that I dream I am every night! Pictures to follow ...
25/09
+£67.41. A poor effort for a Friday really, but maybe enough for a nice cardigan?
26/09
+£239.53. A much better Saturday.
27/09
+£121.63. An OK result for a Sunday, boosted by my greyhound winnings!
28/09
+£30.40. Monday's are normally shite and today was no exception!
29/09
+£224.19. 27 trades and only 1 small loss, so a good day, especially for a Tuesday!
30/09
+£200.01. A pretty steady day ...
Interestingly received this in an email earlier today. Maybe Betdaq are going to make some sort of push to get some more liquidity in their markets?
I have tried peviously to play IR on Betdaq but the liqudity is non-existant. I wonder whether or not this will make much difference? I'll take a close look over the next few days to see if there is any change.
01/10
+£548.18. So I ventured down to Stratford to get some clobber and I ended up spending 2 hours there and coming back with 6 bottles of Bavaria non-alcoholic wit beer!
My gym is about to close for a refurb so I had to find a new place to go and pump iron.
As I've become a lazy bum I chose to join my closest council gym and the benefit is that it runs regular yoga and pilates classes. So I thought to myself 'why not' and this week I've attended 4 classes. They're hard work, especially the stretching and at a few points my arms and legs were shaking like leaves. One of the added benefits is that there is some lycra clad totty there which kinda forces me to hold my poses as long as possible instead of collapsing to the floor crying in pain.
I know that I've said it before but this is the ideal time of year to get fit and ripped. As usual you have the big guys strutting about the weights area scowling and looking mean. Now at my age I'll never be as strong as a lot of them, especially the juiced boys, but I can work with what I have and take it to a ripped stage, and that's what I intend to do!
18/09
+£197.12. A nice consistent day today.
19/09
+£117.84. A poor start followed by a steady effort ...
20/09
+£162.81. Would have been better if I had avoided the £70+ loss in the 14:45 doh!
21/09
+£90.46. A minimal amount of trades but all winners ...
Now yes of course this statement relates to trading in the sports markets, but it also relates to the mindset that I need to adopt every time that I visit Ramsgate!
Now, after my latest visit to the coast a few days ago the weather went pants and it was obviously the end of the summer. Imagine my surprise when I checked the forecast midweek and it highlighted the fact that Thursday and Friday would be relative crackers. So I thought to myself 'fuck this I'm getting back down there again for a late summer session'.
Come Thursday morning I've got my essentials and I'm cruising down the M2. Now two things come to mind 1) just past the turnoff to Sheerness some farmer must have spread an absolute shit load of horse crap over his fields as the place smells like horse shite and I swear it stinks for about 2 fucking miles and 2) I'm driving behind some woman in a Ford Ka and the drivers side wing is flapping about around the tyre and bits are flying off everywhere. So I drive up alongside this bird and honk my horn and gesticulate that her tyre is about to explode. She gives me a wave of acknowledgement and just carrys on driving as bits of her car are flying off in all directions. I sped up and shot off into the distance but I could still see her in my mirror driving along without a care in the world while her car was gradually disintegrating. Fucking stupid whore!
So once in Ramsgate I'm camped outside 'The Belgian Cafe' and now reading 'The Ride's Back On', the second instalment from self confessed hard man and south east London gangster Dave Courtney, and mixing this up with a few paragraphs now and then from 'The Daily Trading Coach'. The Hoegaardens were flowing very nicely indeed and it was a scorcher.
I had my usual afternoon kip and ventured out in the evening and finally stumbled out of the BC at around 01:30 deciding to have a relatively early night.
Friday was even hotter and therefore I extended my lunchtime session knowing that I could go out a bit later than usual in the evening. I have to say that it was a cracking afternoon just sitting in the sun, chatting to the various regulars and drinking ice cold Hoegaarden!
So in the evening I sat outside 'The Queens Head' for a bit and listened to the band. It was possibly a bit chilly and I got some strange looks sitting there in my t-shirt but the fact that I had burnt my bald noggin in the sun over the 2 days meant that my head was bright red, glowing like a furnace and keeping the rest of me warm!
Anyway, like always I eventually end up tucked away in a corner of one of the long tables in the BC quietly sipping my Hoegaarden and reading 'A Clockwork Orange'. It's starting to get late, maybe 02:00, and a crowd of people come in, all a bit merry, order some drinks and start laughing and charfing. There's a little bit of 'handbags at two paces' brewing but that soon gets resolved. Well as I glance up from my book this woman walks in wearing shiny opaque tights, legs up to her arse and the tiniest pair of cut down denim shorts that you have ever seen, hardly covering her very cute backside, and I'm like 'oh very nice'. I carry on drinking my Hoegaarden and reading my book when all of a sudden I sense that someone has come and sat down at the end of the table. I peek up over my book and notice that it's this bird with the long legs and cute ass. She's sitting there alone with her drink and just playing around with the menu. So I'm thinking 'play it cool Davey son, this could be you lucky night!'.
PS I wasn't really Tina (my missus, who ALWAYS reads my blog), you're the only woman in my life, it's just artistic license for this particular story ...
So I'm playing it nice and cool with my head tucked in my book when I think to myself 'I need to have another peek just to see if she's stunner'. She can see me reading the book so she obviously thinks that I'm clever AND handsome. She shuffles around a bit and I can see her crossing her legs under the table and yep she has a lovely set of pins! So I have a sneaky peek over the top of my book and wow, she's more than a stunner .... she's a fucking bloke!
I was dumbstruck (although I had to laugh to myself). She was done up in full makeup, wig, etc and was sitting at the end of the table! I took another slurp of my Hoegaarden and decided that it was time to go for a piss. As I passed by the head barman at the end of the bar he shouted 'hey Dave I think you've pulled!' while laughing his head off! Unfortunately when I got back she had buggered off ...
To be honest I would have loved to have had a chat with her. It seemed that everyone else in the place was avoiding her at all costs and it would have got some heads turning if I had sat there having a good conversation with a transvestite! There's absolutely nothing wrong with dressing up in women's clothing (yes that is me below) and hitting the town ...
Fuck me after another couple of Hoegaardens who knows what might have happened!
09/09
+£378.63. A cracker of a day and all converted to beer tokens for my coastal adventure (see above) ...
12/09
+£86.41. Once again I was a bit fatigued from my trip to the coast and although it was a Saturday I was happy just making some cash as I wasn't exactly primed for action!
13/09
-£40.69. Struggled ...
14/09
+£15.47. I think that my enthusiasm for today's racing was at an all time low ...
15/09
+£251.76. A pretty shite effort only saved by a nice win late on in the day ...
16/09
-£48.34. It's starting to get on my tits now ...
17/09
-£158.53. Everything that I touched today turned to a stinking pile of horse shite. It was a fucking nightmare!
To be honest it was a thin line between making a good few quid and doing a few .... and I lost a few. I found myself scrambling to exit positions and bail out for stupid reds only for the market to spring back in my favour and go well into what would have been pretty big green zones on more than one occasion. That's part of the game though and if you follow my blog you'll see that every now and then you just have one of those days.
The Summer is well and truly coming to an end so I just had to get back down to the coast for one more session. I was sitting indoors on Bank Holiday Monday evening thinking 'should I stay or should I go?' The weather forecast didn't look particularly great and I wasn't too sure whether or not my body could stand another 2 days of abuse, so I was 50/50 and I had my missus in the background taking the piss out of me for being so indecisive.
I quite fancied taking my 'The Daily Trading Coach' book and the thought of sitting there with a Hoegaarden and a book all nice and chilled did have some kind of appeal. So off I trundled to find my book and fuck me could I find the bastard! I looked everywhere! In my bedroom, my spare room, up in the loft .. and couldn't find it anywhere! I was starting to rage, so out came the torch and back up in the loft I went, at which point I started to chuck things around in a ever increasing rage. Back into the spare room, back into my bedroom, clothes and all sorts of crap flying everywhere! I come banging down the stairs and exclaimed to my wife 'well that's bollocksed things up! I want to take my book and it can't find it anywhere in this fucking shithole. So bollox to that!'
My house does resemble something like this ...
I sat down and sulked for a bit and then grabbed my torch again and went through the hunting process one more time. Back up in the fucking loft, crap flying everywhere, swearing and shouting. Back down into the spare room ... boxes of crap being thrown left, right and centre ... and then in the blinding light of my torch there's my trading book nestled amongst my wife's millions of horror books! So now I phoned the B&B, booked my room, ironed my shirts and got my shit ready.
Tuesday morning in a nutshell ... McDonalds, Belgian Cafe, Hoegaarden, a bit of rain and then some really nice sunshine. KFC, back to the B&B, get in the room, munched my Zinger burger and hit the sack for an afternoon kip.
After a refreshing sleep I sprang out of bed, showered, sorted myself out, grabbed my cash, phone, guitar picks, books and then blow me down with a feather I couldn't find the fucking door keys. Now I'm in a room that just has a loo/shower and a double bed and a chair and a side for the microwave/kettle etc. I looked fucking everywhere and I couldn't see the keys. Not in my pockets, on the bed, under the bed, on the side, down the bog, in the bin with the KFC packet or anywhere on the floor. So now I had the raving arsehole again and I'm out with the torch on my hands and knees combing the room like I'm in CSI.
The keys had disappeared! So I shot downstairs and told Sue that although I'd only been in the room for 3 hours that I'd already lost the keys. She didn't have a spare set so she gave me the keys for room 14 (I was in room 12) which had a front door key so at least I could get in the front door and leave mine on the latch. I grabbed my toothbrush off the side and fuck me if the keys weren't right there in front of my fucking face half hidden under a KFC tissue on the side. Fantastic, key issue resolved.
So I was brushing my teef and there's a knock on the door and it was Sue with a spare set she'd found for my room (room 12). I stood there having a conversation with toothpaste frothing out of my mouth and all over my gob trying to explain that I had now found the keys and that now I was well happy. As I was on my way out Sue popped her head out again and asked if I had given her back the keys for room 14. We both stood there for about 10 seconds looking blankly at each other, totally confused as to who had which fucking keys until she reached into her pocket and found them! I can laugh about it now!
I finally made my way to The Belgian and as it was a nice evening I decided to sit outside for a while. As I was sitting there reading my book a couple of guys, maybe in their early 20's, peeked inside and exclaimed 'aww nuh, it's full of old people!' I looked up from my book and they spluttered 'oh no sorry mate we didn't mean you' ... I pissed myself laughing!
Eventually I went inside as it was getting a bit nippy and I found myself sitting with Alan the guitar player and Paul the opera singer. They did a couple of songs and everyone was well impressed. A few more beers were consumed and then Paul sat at the piano and started to belt out some Italian opera song as a number of middle aged ladies squirmed about in their seats (the guy can sing and the hairs on my arms were standing on end!).
Picture the scene ... we're all transfixed by this beautiful voice when all of a sudden the bass player for 'The Angelo Tristan Band' comes over and asks for the guitar that is beside me ...
I jokingly asked if he knew how to play and gave him the guitar. He then stood right behind Paul and started twanging away loudly, completely spoiling the chilled atmosphere. Now Paul is a big lump of a man as he wasn't at all happy, he leapt off the stool and charged headlong for the bass player while screaming something like 'I'm going to rip your fucking head off you cunt'. It was a no contest really as Paul is probably 17 stone and 5 foot wide and the bass player is probably 10 stone dripping wet. They both ended up halfway down the bar with Paul on top trying to beat the crap out of the bassist, with 10 people trying to drag him off, and the guitar getting totally mangled in the fracas! Luckily no one got hurt and it seemed to get resolved fairly quickly.
Eventually Paul came and sat back down at the piano and some woman started to give him a bit of an earhole bashing saying that he shouldn't have acted so violently, she was probably correct, and emphasised that The Belgian Cafe was a place of tranquility, which it normally is on most nights. A bit of an argument ensued at which point she suggested that Paul water down his drink. What she didn't realise that Paul only ever has a cup of tea when he comes in! Oh how we laughed ...
I dragged myself out of bed the next morning, freshened up and started to make my way back to The Belgian. Now as I passed my car, which was parked right outside the B&B, I noticed that some cunt has put a glass hi-fi stand in the back (I have an old Toyota Surf 4*4). I'm like 'how the fuck did that get there'. As I was standing there scratching my head the faint recollection of the early hours came flooding back. As I had stumbled back to the B&B at around 03:00 I noticed that someone had put a glass hi-fi stand out on the pavement. Now not being one to miss a bargain I picked it up and loaded it into the back of my car! Job done ...
Wednesday was more of the same in terms of beer, nice weather, chatting and reading my books but without the trauma of losing things and fighting musicians. Unfortunately despite scouring the streets I was unable to find any more free goodies ...
So roll on next Summer! In the mean time I have to get my lazy asss down to the gym and stop eating so much crap and drinking too much alcohol as I'm now a lazy fat bastard. Think I'll do one of those 90 day transformation videos ...
31/08
+£133.85. Bank holiday Monday and managed to nick a few beer tokens through the sheer volume of racing on offer today.
03/09
+£179.00. A fair result on my return from the coast which covered some of my expenses!
Take time to have a look at a great article by Caan Berry over on his website. It coincides with me revisiting 'The Daily Trading Coach' (see above) and all of these points are so important when you are looking to trade effectively.
04/09
+£526.34. I finally managed to drag myself out of bed this morning and down to the gym. My power felt good on the heavy bag and I even managed a few sets of strict chins with 15kg added around my waist so I was well happy, although my weight has gone up by about 4kg!
I had a cracker of a day on the trading front where everything just seemed to go right and the total just kept building and building.
For those asking for some in-running videos I will see what I can conjure up over the next few days and post them on here, although to be honest I pretty much just do the basics. However, if they can help anyone out there get a foot on the ladder then I'm more than happy to assist. Here's one from a while back which may help ...
Note that I do refer to the race being on ATR but in fact I was watching the race using the Betfair Live Video option as ATR is just way too far behind the live action to be of any use .
05/09
+£288.96. I almost forgot the joys of trying to trade @ Wolverhampton in the evening. It's fucking impossible ... market manipulation, shite liquidity and an army of angry northern track playing mongrels lining up to fuck you up the ass every time that you make even the slightest rick. In fact I think that Betfair should issue the appropriate warning to anyone foolhardy enough to try and trade from home ...
It was quite a nice surprise when I checked my P&L as I honestly thought that I had won in the region of £170 on the day ... fuck knows where the extra £100+ came from but I'm not going to complain ...
06/09
+£43.39. Today was the kind of Sunday where I wished that I'd gone to church instead of sitting in front of my screens all afternoon pulling my hair out and cursing at various jockeys. My pre-race training went slightly off the tracks and after a few races I was wondering what the fuck was happening in the markets, as I seemed to be getting everything wrong. I was reminded that pre-race Dundalk is like Wolves on steroids and that the price can just fly off in any direction at any given moment for absolutely no apparent reason. When you have a frustrating day you often have to sit back and say 'hey, there's gonna be days like this' and not be tempted to lose control and try and rectify things by machine gunning the mouse!
After coming back from the gym this morning I had the cursory glance at the weather forecast and blimey it looks as if it's going to be drinking weather again on this coming Thursday and Friday! Now unfortunately these are usually the prime days of the week for trading, so once again I face the dilemma of 'do I stay or do I go?'. If I can nick a few quid before Thursday I might have one more crack! Additionally I could do with shedding a few pounds, so if I can lose 2kg before Thursday then I'll be ready to slip into the Speedo's and catch some late summer rays.
Update: We've Seen the Light!
Myself and my good trading buddy Andy have both been going through Caan's Trading Guide with a fine toothed comb and fucking hey presto Andy saw the light!
We've been discussing graphs, resistance points, ranges, crossover points, types of race, day of the week, inside leg measurements, etc and between us we've been having a good crack at the pre-race trading. To be honest Andy has given it a bit more effort as I'm still immersed in my in-running and although we've only been at it for a few weeks now we've had our ups and downs. Now today was a right downer as neither of us could get to grips with the markets and like others before us, no doubt, we were both starting to feel somewhat disillusioned.
However, after racing had finished we both knuckled down to watching the vids again, but there is only so much porn that you can watch in a day, so we decided instead to give some of Caan's another crack (his training ones that is!). We were conversing over Skype and Andy brought up an interesting piece of information relating to the way in which Caan trades. Now I have seen this in many videos and it's been well explained to me numerous times but I'm a bit of a thick twat and it's a point that I haven't really taken on board. When you are looking at all of the indicators mentioned above it's sometimes hard to see the wood from the trees.
So armed with this information I went through quite a few vids (Caans, mugsblog, BetAngel and the ones that I have posted) and fuck me if Andy wasn't spot on! Now I'm not claiming that he's found the Holy Grail of pre-race trading but it's definitely an eye opener! The more vids I scanned through the more I realised where I had been going wrong and how I could give myself a much greater chance of getting things right!
I've never had a wank over a trading video before but I came mightily close!
07/09
+£12.34. Well fuck me if I didn't string a few pre-race winnings together today! Now I'm only trading for £50 a click but I managed a few wins around the £5 mark and to be honest I was well chuffed! At this point in time I just need to find consistency and I feel as though I've made a giant step forward. Now I need to build upon my progress.
It was so obvious where I had been going wrong previously, but it took my old mucker Andy to point me in the right direction and give me a kick up the arse.
I recorded pretty much all of my pre-race trading today, including those markets where I didn't trade, and I'll be scanning through these at some point to see what I did well, where I went wrong and where I missed any opportunities.
My in-running trading took a bit of a back seat today but I don't think that I would have got much anyway as it was typical Monday shite ...
08/09
-£90.53. Pants Tuesday! I was all revved up for another crack on the pre-race and I dropped a bollock in the first race! I traded the fav to win a few pennies but I somehow missed the fact that I'd also had my entry point taken on another nag and I didn't spot this until about 10 minutes after the race when I noticed that my bank had dropped by £50. What a twat! The rest of the day followed in a similar vein and I almost made the same mistake in a race a bit later in the day which could have cost me a lot more than £50!
I had decided to be a bit more aggressive in my pre-race trading today and it didn't really pan out. I made the mistake of trying to get entry points on more than one runner and at this stage of my career it made things a bit tricky when I started to get matched. In one race I got matched on three runners almost simultaneousely and I was like 'oh fuck what do I do now' as they all gradually went in the wrong direction! I'm a slow old fucker so maybe I need to concentrate on trying to trade one selection before I start putting in entry points left, right and centre.
I tried to record as much as possible but it's a pain in the ass switching between markets, trying to trade pre-race and IR and on top of that trying to record everything. So a losing day but quite a lot learnt so that's OK .... as long a I don't make that mistake again!
