Gambling

The August 2004 cover of Playboy features a topless Eva Herzigova (“The supermodel is supernaked”) and promises a piece about “America’s 10 sexiest bartenders.” If that isn’t enough to excite you, another article is puffed, no less conspicuously: “Weird new casino games (and the men who invent them).” Turn to page 73 and a bald, bespectacled man, with “prominent ears on a frank, slightly frowning face,” stares out at you. This, we learn, is the “Bill Gates of card game inventors” and his name is Derek Webb. The Englishman made his money at the poker tables in Derby: “I could play three times a week with a £50 buy-in and make £8,000 a night.” From 1979 to 1994, Webb split his time between the East Midlands and Las Vegas.

An irresponsible drama Sir: Britain is faced with a fabricated panic which has prioritised personality over policy. Keir Starmer has been forced out of office largely to provide the media with a piece of theatre, a drama of great irresponsibility in which Act One has been written but nothing sketched out beyond it. Michael Gove’s brilliant account (‘Butterfly effect’, 20 June) has shown that Britain’s economy has benefited greatly from our detachment from the EU, but points to an area where the misnomer of ‘Exit’ has magnified problems of national identity, which remain and require what amounts to therapy on a grand scale.

On my way to the QPR game against Hull last Saturday, I was astonished to discover that Ladbrokes had made QPR the favourites. Eh? Going into this game, the Rs were 18th in the table, whereas Hull were sixth. They’d won four of their last six, whereas we were winless in five. ‘It’s almost worth putting a bet on Hull,’ I joked to Charlie, my 17-year-old son. Then I thought: ‘Why not? At least that way, if QPR lose I’ll make some money.’ But if I was going to do it, I might as well get the most favourable odds, so I did a quick trawl of the online betting apps, all of which I’ve signed up to, and discovered that bet365 was offering 3/1 – by far the best. I transferred some money from my bank account and stuck £25 on the Tigers to win.

Dante’s Beach, Ravenna The Feast of the Assumption began for me just after midnight with a WhatsApp message from my eldest son, Francesco Winston, 20, which said: ‘Papà don’t come, the police are everywhere.’ He and my eldest daughter, Caterina, 21, had invited me to a party on the beach organised by their group of friends to mark Ferragosto, the most important day of summer. There would be a bonfire and sausages, booze and guitars, and all the rest of it, until the blood-red sun emerged out of the sea at about 6 a.m. to bring it to an end. The huge, shimmering sun rose up out of the sea, a wondrous way to end a party I cannot remember the last time I went to a party. I avoid small talk if possible and am currently not drinking.

India A crowded bus station. A lady monkey with a baby clinging to its neck sidled past me, eyeing the banana I was eating. I barely noticed them. A moment later, claws dug into my back. A skeletal hand darted forward to grab my banana. The baby monkey was on my shoulder. I leapt up and shrugged vigorously but it climbed on to my head, so I twisted sharply this way and that to unseat the little nuisance. I felt a painful scratch on my neck. The furry bundle leapt off me and scampered away. I’d been bitten. A few bored locals gathered around to see if the kerfuffle was worth getting overexcited about. A samosa seller helpfully dabbed my neck with a rag soaked in oil from his smoking cauldron. I thanked him diplomatically for this pointless gesture. The crowd retreated.

What could be more exquisite than the life of the professional gambler? I began my career in 2016 with a modest punt of £1,000 on the London mayoral election. Bingo. Sadiq Khan won and I banked a profit of £100. Then Brexit. My guess was that the pollsters had overestimated support for Remain and that the country was keen to evict the conjoined twerps, David Cameron and George Osborne, from Downing Street. The referendum was our chance to vaporise both their careers simultaneously. One cross, two graves. That’s what happened. And I cleared another tidy sum. I cursed the day that I’d ever started gambling. I was a fool. A dunce. A clueless moron But I was haunted by a wager I’d laid in the winter of the same year while watching Fox News over a relaxing pint of Tesco claret.