Gambling

The problem with my gambling, Caroline has always maintained, is not the fact that I nearly always lose. I only ever bet on QPR, so that’s inevitable. No, the issue is that I might pass on the habit to my children, particularly the boys. My bets rarely exceed £25, but my sons might have less self control. What if they become addicts, she wants to know? It will ruin their lives. In her eyes, gambling in front of them is like snorting heroin off the kitchen table. Well, it pains me to say it, but she was right. My youngest recently celebrated his 18th birthday and the first thing he did, at one minute after midnight, was open a bet365 account. The fact that his becoming an adult coincided with the start of the World Cup didn’t help.

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.

Since coup conspirators nearly won £10 million from the bookies, the sport has divided into two camps. Some grinned and wished good luck to the schemers in their efforts to worst the Old Enemy; others insisted with sober faces that it was a scandal which besmirched racing and diddled honest punters who weren’t in the know. With most racing eyes firmly fixed on the Dublin Racing Festival on 7 February, bookmakers became aware overnight of potentially huge liabilities on three horses in obscure races, each saddled by a different trainer, who had been linked together at long prices in multiple trebles and doubles. Their panic grew as first Fire Away, trained by Laura Morgan, won the 1.25 Class 4 novice chase at Musselburgh by 19 lengths.