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It’s minority in terms of public interest though, Cav – that much you must concede.
Agree Grassy. As I’ve pointed out before humans don’t connect aesthetically or emotionally on a mass level with sports where animals are the main participants, never have, never will. Racings mass appeal lies in having a good day out and/or betting on it. The racecourses are doing sterling work and deserve much praise.
Whether your Irish, English, Scottish or Welsh we all as a group of people love to gamble, we love to gamble on sports. Income from betting can keep the sport/industry healthy and viable over the long term imo. The dullards at the BHA refuse to accept this for some reason.
I don’t discount the purists in this either. They know well they’ll always have wet Mondays at Plumpton, baltic Hexham in January or lonely Kempton evenings year round. Racing at its best should have something for everyone to "engage" with. Whether that’s a coach party with your mates, an opportunity for the birds to get dressed up for the afternoon, a day spent paddock watching, standing beside a fence, standing in a betting office or playing on the exchanges, there’s room for all of us imo.
I apologise unreservedly if my writing style causes you offence. I had no idea that such an inoffensive combination of verbs, nouns and prepositions was capable of inducing such disapprobation. I shall endeavour to do better.
However, I do take exception to the suggestion that my writing was moralistic. No matter how fiercely argued the debate, I hope I would never stoop so low as to bring morals into it.
As for the now-legendary tongues advert, I had assumed that in offering up that advert for our perusal, you were inviting opinions, even, dare I say, reactions. Had I known that it was a purely rhetorical flourish, I would have refrained from telling you what I thought of it. A gentle warning though: if you continue to post on a public forum, I fear it is inevitable that others will wish to reply.
On the question of narratives, I agree wholeheartedly.
Yours, as ever, Mr.S.Holmes
Wonderfully crafted once more, sir!
gc
Jeremy Grayson. Son of immigrant. Adoptive father of two. Metadata librarian. Freelance point-to-point / horse racing writer, analyst and commentator wonk. Loves music, buses, cats, the BBC Micro, ale. Advocate of CBT, PACE and therapeutic parenting. Aspergers.
As disparate individuals who share little other than a common passion for a sport we’ll never agree on what is right and wrong with racing or on how it should evolve; each of us bets differently, each may have a particular interest in a particular subset of races. But putting personal preferences aside for one minute could I ask the forum a question aimed at the head rather than the heart:
Do you believe the fixture list can be retained in its current guise in the future, both in structure and volume?
As the ‘Racing for Change’ initiative is essentially about tinkering with meetings and races could I ask that replies are restricted to how you think the fixture list should change and evolve (if at all), rather than how the whole shebang should be ‘marketed’ to the public at large. Racing will warrant marketing once it’s sorted itself out.
I’ll post my ideas when I have more time tomorrow, but in the meantime I’ll leave you with this thought, for what little it may be worth:
I believe financing the sport with the time-honoured levy will be all but a dead duck once the bigger bookmakers join the Gib-bound bandwagon. And what then for racing and its thousands of races?
I do hope Silvoir has read, digested and forwarded this thread.
How can Racing be a minority sport when it is one the most highly attended sports in the whole sporting calendar.
Just look at the facts that over 35,000 went to both July Saturdays at York and 25,000 at a run of the mill Newcastle Saturday in the same month.
The sport itself is in good heart in what are very tricky economical times after all a lot of football fan are not renewing season tickets so this is a good chance to advertise and branch out to new fans.
Racing can show that different people go from all over, The Scouse Girls at Aintree who really push the boat out and the Society Girls who attend Royal Ascot and Goodwood then you have the 300 or so die hards who go to Southwell and Wolverhampton in mid winter. Everyone from different walks of life go racing and this must be shown in a more positive light.
I apologise unreservedly if my writing style causes you offence. I had no idea that such an inoffensive combination of verbs, nouns and prepositions was capable of inducing such disapprobation. I shall endeavour to do better.
My dear boy, you have not offended me at all. You affect a spinsterish writing style and that, along with your objection to my advert proposal made you appear priggish. Gentle warning: You’ll be asked to leave the Drones if you keep mistaking sarcasm for high comedy.
However, I do take exception to the suggestion that my writing was moralistic. No matter how fiercely argued the debate, I hope I would never stoop so low as to bring morals into it.
On what grounds did you make your objections on, then? Snobbery? Neurosis? Morality? Take your pick, old chap.
As for the now-legendary tongues advert, I had assumed that in offering up that advert for our perusal, you were inviting opinions, even, dare I say, reactions.
Of course! That is why this place is called a forum, surely? Then, once you comment/react, I, if I have something further to add, say something and lo, the dialectic continues and takes us a step closer to understanding. (Soz for sarcasm, it’s terribly catching)
Had I known that it was a purely rhetorical flourish
,
It wasn’t.
I would have refrained from telling you what I thought of it. A gentle warning though: if you continue to post on a public forum, I fear it is inevitable that others will wish to reply.
I like replies! Weak sarcasm is perfectly acceptable, but looks slightly inadequate when delivered in your self-conscious Edwardian prose.
On the subject of find new people who wish to get involved in this sport: today’s racing was a classic example of how ridiculously irritating the game can be: prime evidence of Sod’s Law, turn ups for the book etc.
Fantastic letter in the Racing Post today from a VERY disgruntled punter, who has a pop at the whole shooting match and gives jockeys and trainers a richly deserved knock as well and, rather wonderfully, sums up the attitudes of the high street bookie in one sentence: ‘if they could, they’d have us post our stake money through the letter box.’
I forget what his name is but he said things that RP writers should be saying. A well-aimed fusillade against the whole organised rip off.Bettingboy, in all your posts, you have, for some reason, seen fit to comment on my prose style. Clearly it irritates you, indeed, it must have been itching away at you all day, since you have returned some twelve hours later as full as bile as when you last sat at the keyboard. What can I say. I write as I write. We each have our own style, you presumably have yours and I see little point in taking objection to the manner in which we each set words upon the page. This is, after all, a forum, not a literary workshop.
Let us remember that this correspondence began when I commented upon your advert suggestion. I found it repellant. I still do. I thought it feeble, misogynistic and utterly without merit. I hadn’t thought further explanation was required.
I will, however, make a note to avoid your threads in future, since you are clearly a man intent upon a fight and such individuals are, in my experience, the bane of intelligent forums. You need fear no more Edwardian intrusions.
A scandalous withdrawal, Lord Andrew.
You’ve no chance of shagging the princess fair, if you’re simply going to deliver her unto the clutches of the evil Sir Bettingboy.
Unsheath that literary sword, and have a it!!
Gadzooks, forsooth, prithee etc etc.
AmI losing it? I’m in a mood tonight….can’t fathom why, but I am. Ah well……..
Kudos to you, Grasshopper – medieval prose is even more impressive than Edwardian!
I’m sure it’s just a summer thing – you’ll be okay once you get a sniff of the birchwood.
Bettingboy, in all your posts, you have, for some reason, seen fit to comment on my prose style.
I did indeed. It is remarkably affected; I thought it worthy of comment.
Clearly it irritates you, indeed, it must have been itching away at you all day, since you have returned some twelve hours later as full as bile
I can assure you that to point out that you have a taste for sarcasm and communicating it in a mildly pompous, early 20th century prose style is certainly not bilious. It is simply a statement of fact. It’s quite fun, actually, and makes a change from some of the more grossly proletarian interjections… I simply made the observation that what you said about the advert and the way you said made you appear rather priggish. You didn’t like this one bit. That is why I apologised.
Let us remember that this correspondence began when I commented upon your advert suggestion. I found it repellant. I still do. I thought it feeble, misogynistic and utterly without merit. I hadn’t thought further explanation was required.
How odd. You told me you would never bring morality into an argument. I can only conclude this was a
coup de forum
that pleased you so much you forgot that it makes no sense, for you go on to employ morality after all – one cannot call something or someone misonygistic without making a moral judgement beforehand. Check yer philososphy, Horatio, as Hamlet might have said. And make sure Gussie Fink-Nottle doesn’t hear you employing all this new-fangled commie jargon like misogyny – you’ll get black-balled from Lords!
I will, however, make a note to avoid your threads in future, since you are clearly a man intent upon a fight
Now, now. That is far from the case. This is a forum; we debated. I bear no ill-will on the matter, old chap. I hope we shall have many more discussions.
"A peace is of the nature of a conquest, for then both parties nobly are subdued, and neither party loser."
Stick that up yer communal eclectic wordy ronson’s, and break the bread of righteousness.
Bettingboy, my style may differ from yours. It is not, however, affected. This is how I write. Pay me the courtesy of conceding that I am more familiar with my prose style and its origins than you are.
We have not, as far as I can tell, debated. You seem to have spent most of your posts talking about my written style. I am happy to discuss the issues facing the sport, but I have neither the time nor the energy to engage in tedious personal abuse. I have not commented on any aspect of your writing, your grammar, punctuation, spelling or anything else, because that is not relevant to the matter under discussion.
On the subject of your advert, perhaps my initial remark was a little throwaway, but it was a genuine response. It was my gut reaction. I am surprised and delighted to find that, after many years of pursuing an immoral life, I am now a moralist. I will get in touch with the vicar who christened me. He will be delighted that I have finally returned to the straight and narrow.
It is perfectly possible to use the word misogyny without ever entering the thorny maze of morality. Morality is the quality of being moral; that which renders an action right or wrong, based on religious doctrine or ethics. I made no moral judgement, on you or your proposed advert; indeed that would have been absurd. As it happens, I have yet to come across a religious or ethical code that is sufficiently watertight to justify its imposition on others.
My reaction was a simpler one than that. I am not so far outside the age group that the advert was intended to entice; to me it was repellent. Rather than encourage me to go racing, it would indeed repell me. I simply wouldn’t relate to it.
As I say, I am happy to carry on the discussion, on this and other subjects, but might I suggest we pay one another the courtesy of accepting our prose idiosyncrasies and crediting one another with a modicum of intelligence.
I should say, however, that you are clearly not familiar with that particular Fink-Nottle. His natural habitat is the newt aquarium, not the Long Room at Lord’s
Thanks for your diligence in maintaining the forum’s spelling standards, Withnail. In the same spirit of improvement, I feel it only right to point out the unusual version of ‘available’ in your signature. A typo, I’m sure.
"A peace is of the nature of a conquest, for then both parties nobly are subdued, and neither party loser."
Stick that up yer communal eclectic wordy ronson’s, and break the bread of righteousness.
Post of the day, if not the year.
Withnail. In the same spirit of improvement, I feel it only right to point out the unusual version of ‘available’ in your signature. A typo, I’m sure.
Under the circumstances do you think that a I could give a sh*t?
Now, where’s that lighter fluid?
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