I don't know why I waste my time applying for jobs. My true path in life is obvious: I should be a professional gambler.

Seven weeks ago I put £7.20 on the Tote Placepot and scooped £110. Yesterday I tried it again...


Ten of the thirteen horses I chose were successfully placed, and my Totesport account now looks like this...

I seem to be unintentionally limiting myself to about one bet a month, so according to my calculations, if I increased productivity and placed one bet a day, then by Christmas I'd be...

[taps furiously on a calculator]

... a squillionnaire! I think I'll phone the Jobcentre and tell them I won't be in next week.

But the life of Riley aside, long time readers of this blog (that's you Dave) might remember that a couple of years ago I received two fantastic e-mails sending me love and light (and threatening me with legal action) after I wrote this article accusing regression therapist Andrea Foulkes of having an annoying voice and not being able to pronounce her own name.

Despite my caring and sensitive response (in which I claimed I was more open-minded in a previous life), I failed to defuse the situation, and received a third e-mail three weeks later complaining that Andrea's name was still turning up on Google. Or something. Frankly I think she'd regressed herself back to a time before computers, and didn't know how to use the internet.

Well the good news is that more than two years down the line, I've had another e-mail. This one's not from Andrea (or Secret of Light, as she liked to call herself), it's from Karen Kay of KarenKay.co.uk (ooh, that rhymes!). Karen, who describes herself as 'Cornwall's Faery Lady', writes:

"I'm not happy about your defamatory comments about Andrea Foulkes. She is a wonderful and genuine lady, and I would suggest you take back your comments. You obviousley do not know her very well, otherwise you would not write such things."

HOW DARE she say that I don't know Andrea very well? I don't know her at all, dammit, and to suggest that I do is libellous in the extreme.

But that aside, I'm tempted to apologise to Karen. I've just listened to her musical masterpiece 'Birth of a Mermaid', and despite sounding like someone playing the saucepans, it's given me a new sense of calm and inner peace. I also feel more enlightened about fish.

And besides, judging by Karen's Links page, she doesn't have a lot of friends, so this could be a mutually beneficial relationship. Although having listened to one of her meditations, her voice is about as annoying as Andrea's, so we'd have to stick to e-mail.