You know there's something wrong with the world when a homeless man says "I don't feel well, I'm going home", and nobody bats an eyelid. Admittedly, by that point he'd won £7 on the first race, so he was on his way to a deposit on a bedsit, but even so.

Anyhoo, my afternoon at the greyhound track went very well. Our unofficial meeting of Gamblers Anonymous consisted of me, Lisa, her mother, her nephew, and a bloke who's currently living in her bedroom while he searches for a flat. To be honest, I might just name him, because he's featured on this blog several times before (my birthday, for example), each time with a different description, and I'm giving the impression that I know more people than I do. So his name's Steve. I can say that, because he's currently living out of a suitcase, and has sold his computer at Cash Converters, so there's very little chance of him reading this.

Anyway, Steve is the latest victim of a hideous sickness which has so far claimed Lisa's sister, brother-in-law, and two of her nephews one-by-one over the past four days, and which I'm fully expecting to contract at around 5pm on Sunday, to ensure that it completely ruins Christmas for me (not that I'm pessimistic or anything). So he was forced to retire, pale and shivering, after the fifth race.

As for the rest of us, we ploughed on to glorious victory. Lisa had three winners using her tried and tested method of picking anything with a cute name, while her mother stuck two quid on a 10-1 no-hoper which romped home in first place. That woman is jammy beyond belief. As for me, well I knew I'd have a good day from the moment I decided to drastically reduce my stakes, and risk no more than a pound a race. Once I was betting ridiculously small amounts, I couldn't stop winning. Having already had two successful forecasts (predicting the first two dogs), I did a 50p trio (first three dogs in the correct order) and won £13.

Things went downhill slightly when I was held hostage out in the grandstand by Lisa's nephew, who refused to let me back inside for two races (I've since found out that he told everyone I didn't want to come back in), but I recovered the situation by suggesting that we hold a drawing competition to see who could produce the best portrait of Lisa on the back of a losing betting slip. Personally I feel I was the moral victor, but with the biased judging of the subject's mother, I was deemed to have lost.

Anyhoo, my change in luck has come at the right time, because I've received an intriguing postcard in the mail. It's addressed to 'The Occupier', and merely says this:


I assumed it was a cheap advertising trick, and the moment you call the number, they try to sell you double glazing, but out of curiosity I looked up Kudos and that phone number on the internet.

Turns out they're debt collectors. I'm going to need all the gambling profits I can get.