Forum Replies Created
- Posts
If the Masters degree had been about Johann Sebastian Bach, Choral Music in the Baroque Period, would our thoughts be any different? Just like the Beatles (well, Lennon & McCartney), Bach was very popular in his day, but not always lauded by the top guys (the religious commisioneres of music). His work obviously lasted well beyond his own lifetime. There are serious people who believe that Lennon/MacCartney will have the same degree of influence as Bach has had in classical music. The Masters degree is just jumping the gun by 250 years.
Howard Goodall chose Lennon/MacCartney as one of four 20th century greats of composition, specifically crediting them for their contribution to advances in
classical
music, in a documentary series made in 2007.
Now Howard Goodall is not just any old body in the world of classical music. His music has been commissioned to mark numerous national ceremonies and memorials, most recently, A Song of Hope for the National Holocaust Memorial Event in London’s Guildhall. He won a Classical BRIT award as Composer of the Year in 2009. His settings of Psalm 23 and Love divine are amongst the most performed of all sacred music in the UK and have featured on numerous platinum-selling CDs. In the Top-selling 100 Specialist Classical CDs of 2009, Goodall occupied the 1st, 4th and 9th positions. His 2009 Enchanted Voices, a setting of the Beatitudes, was no.1 in the Specialist Classical CD chart for 6 months.
He is recipient of the Sir Charles Grove Prize for Outstanding Contribution to British Music, and the Naomi Sargant Memorial Award for Outstanding Contribution to Education in Broadcasting.
The music critic Anca Dumitrescu reviewing the documentary written and presented by Goodall about Lennon and McCartney said:
“No wonder Goodall draws a parallel between the Beatles and Mozart. The naturalness and simplicity of the Beatles’ music is reminiscent of Mozart’s tunes, in the same way as their early success emulated the Europe-wide success of Mozart’s early compositions.”
“Using a variety of musical excerpts combined with his own analysis, Goodall shows how the Beatles developed a more complex and elaborated musical composition. Like great classical musicians, they tapped into the existing musical heritage (whether Western classical or popular music, or Asian traditional music) in order to create a unique and inimitable musical style. Not only did they rescue and renew the Western clasical canon, which had reached a stalemate with the Avant-garde movement, but they also reconciled classical music with popular music into the Beatles symbiosis. “
“Goodall argues that the Beatles’ music affected both contemporary and later generations of musicians world-wide, irrrespective of their musical background or allegiance to the canon. Not a single musician composing after the Beatles could ignore the deep changes brought by the Beatles to Western music, just as no classical composer after Bach or Mozart could have ignored the innovations they brought to the classical tradition.”
Sometimes a degree is all about its subject matter, a lot of biology and medicine is like that. Sometimes it is more about the research, analysis and consequential creative production of new knowledge. Maybe this degree was as much about the educational techniques necessary for in-depth study.
Maybe not dumbing down after all.
I wish I were as rich as some contributers here, to be able to look a gift horse in the mouth by putting the money on a remote-chance treble or a long price hopeful.
I wish I were as carefree, jolly, fun-loving, happy-with-their-lot, as the people putting the money on a remote-chance treble or long price hopeful.
A really good question which sorts the optimists from the rest of us. I don’t know whether to be pleased or shocked that there are so many irrational punters among us.
Big Bucks is the only rational, sensible, money-in-the-hand option to counter the pie-in-the-sky optimists.
Your username is "Marginal Value". Surely then you understand that if someone thinks that the level of value in a 25/1 shot that should be 6/1 at most, is greater than or equal to the value in Big Bucks clear authority then you must follow your principles and go by the book. f value is equal in both bets, then you should take the longer priced bet. Do whats right, not whats easy. How else can you live with yourself?
There is a difference between making money long term from seeking value bets, and winning money on the day, and it’s all to do with the fact that some bets are losing bets.
Value and the route to long term profit
If I have a bet for 360 days each year, and I can reliably identify horses whose true odds are 9/1 but they all can be backed at 11/1, I will make a profit.
I will win on 36 days = 36 x 11 = 396 points profit
I will lose on 324 days = 324 x 1 = 324 points loss
Overall profit = 396 – 324 = 72 points profit.In any one year, if my judgement or system is reliable I have a 100% chance of making a profit.
BUT on any given day I only have a 10% chance of making a profit.Winning free money
Someone gives me £10,000 to have a bet on ONE day. I would like to come away with some money rather than no money. Should I follow my system of identifying 9/1 shots that would pay 11/1 giving me only a 10% chance of coming away with some money. Or should I back Big Bucks at 4/5, even though his true value might be 6/4 – really terrible value, but still the shortest real odds on the day, which would give me a 40% chance of coming away with some free money?
If I take a very attractive woman to a race meeting and say “I will give you a £10,000 diamond necklace if you can pick a winner from just one bet from today’s card.” I would be disappointed in my judgement if she didn’t go for the shortest priced favourite she could find. Of course, she might have come from a racing family and her dad always told her to look for value, and she backed a 25/1 shot because she thought its true odds were closer to 6/1.
I don’t see any problem with the behaviour portrayed by this article. My only issue is with the title; it should be “How to get lots of money, instead of having a life”.
The poor b…..ds who get their mummy or daddy to buy some influence for them will probably end up as merchant bankers or hedgefund managers. They will have to spend all their time with others of their ilk. They will see their £5m home a few times a week only to sleep in one of the spare rooms, since they got home from New York at the knackering hour of 3:00 AM. They will have children they will hardly ever see. They will have wives who get all the fun of spending their money, apart from the single choice of top-notch car. They will have no friends, only colleagues or business acquaintances who will all eventually, at some time, stab them in the back. They will only ever see a football or rugby match from the confines of a private box, where they will not be allowed to cheer, swear, or shout. They will never again be able to hold an interesting conversation. The fact that their mummy or daddy still has to help them at their age marks them out as second best. They will always be aware of their inadequacies, and although we all have those, this bunch of people will be mortified by the fact. In fact, by the laws of Nature, most of these people will be poor at what they do, because the pathway has been cleared for them, and because left to their own devices they would rather be doing something else. They have had almost no choice in the matter of what sort of life they will lead. They have never had to strive enough to be tough enough.
Are you starting to feel sorry for them now?
I wish I were as rich as some contributers here, to be able to look a gift horse in the mouth by putting the money on a remote-chance treble or a long price hopeful.
I wish I were as carefree, jolly, fun-loving, happy-with-their-lot, as the people putting the money on a remote-chance treble or long price hopeful.
A really good question which sorts the optimists from the rest of us. I don’t know whether to be pleased or shocked that there are so many irrational punters among us.
Big Bucks is the only rational, sensible, money-in-the-hand option to counter the pie-in-the-sky optimists.
Hi everyone,
Yesterday, I had £29 in my Hills account, ready to place some bets on the rescheduled Newbury races…but when I logged into my account again, I had £70!
I have no idea where this extra money has come from!
Has this happened to anyone else?
FLD
Like all online bookmakers WH keep a record of all transactions on your account. Once you have logged in, click on "My Account" – top centre of the page. On the next screen click on "View details of your bets and transactions". You can see everything that has happened on your account for the last six months, anything before that you have to phone the Customer Help Desk.
My guess is: Refunded Saturday morning bets on races at the abandoned Newbury meeting.
Of course it might be the million-to-one chance that someone has hacked into your account and put money in, instead of taking it out!
Fair enough philosophy – but while you were theorising you forgot to mention which hotpot you’d leave your money on?
Well, Sea Pigeon didn’t say it had to be a bet "Today". It’s another four weeks to Cheltenham, I do not know what will turn up, what the ground will be like, and if I did choose a horse now will the jockey I expect to be on him still be fit on the day. I’d rather take a free bet on anything at 9/4 on the day (because all the hot-pots defect) than 4/5 now. But if you put a gun to my head and said I have to place the bet today it would be Big Bucks. Now that Grand Crus has come along to muddy the waters (but not be a real threat to Big Bucks,
in my opinion
), I would love to take at least £18,000 away to invest properly in less shark-infested waters than Cheltenham.
I salute you all as fair-minded, sporting enthusiasts of the game. As a punter, I would go for the shortest price I could get about anything. That would give me the best chance of coming away with some money, which I could then use to bet at Perth, Carlisle, Wetherby, and all points South to Plumpton, where I can get a much better edge for my money than betting at the ultra-competetive Cheltenham. Where money is concerned I’m far too hard-hearted. At Cheltenham I shout, and laugh, and cheer, and watch the brilliant horses, trainers and jockeys do their utmost to win, and watch my daily £2 ew all-race accumulator falter somewhere along the line, as ever. My schizophrenia is all about keeping money-making and sport quite separate.
Even though I had no money on the race at all, I had thought to have a small rant about it, because the starter did such a poor job. The rant might have contained references to stewards enquiry, reported to BHA, stewards and officials who couldn’t care less, etc. But then I decided to see what the Rules of Racing say. They say nothing. There is lots of stuff about how trainers and jockeys can fall foul of the starting rules. But, there is no requirement, no-one is given responsibility, no mention is made at all, that the start should be fair – or as fair as is reasonable. Funny old world, eh?
Seems to me that the Champion Stakes is too close to the Breeders Cup for the top 10 furlong horses to get involved anyway. Recent fields have not exactly been ‘Champion’ have they ? Is there a positibility that a move/reschedule could actually create a positive impact to the ‘pattern’ ? The Champion Stakes in its current form doesn’t really capture the immagination from where I’m sitting.
A bit hard to please perhaps? In the 2010 Champion there were 6 Group 1 wimnners of 11 Group 1 races. In 2009 there were 7 Group 1 winners of 13 Group 1 Races, and the winner went on to run third in the Breeders Cup Classic. I would love to watch a "Sea The Stars" in it every year, but that’s just not realistic. Moving it to Ascot is unlikely to attract the very best. Giving it Japanese and Hong Kong size prize money might have a better chance. But then again, the Japan Cup and Hong Kong million pound races don’t capture my imagination either. Snow Fairy must be a lovely filly to own, but not exactly championship material.
"Kings may be vain but Tam was glorious
O’er a’the ills o’ life victorious!
R Burns.Sorry.
If Burns implies a lineage Scot
and you are like yon Tam,
I hope success as punters lot
affords ye many a dram.With raucous song and sorrows drown’d
and life is great for that
the pleasure of the vict’ry found
o’er my charmless know-all pratt.A very experienced jockey is is engaged to ride horse for a new trainer. The trainer meets him before the race and says, "All you have to remember with this horse is that every time you approach a fence, you have to shout, ‘ALLLLEEE OOOP!’ really loudly in the horse’s ear. Providing you do that, you’ll be fine."
The jockey thinks the trainer is mad but promises to shout the command. The race begins and they approach the first fence. The jockey ignores the trainer’s ridiculous advice and the horse crashes straight through the center of the fence, losing lots of momentum but not falling.
They carry on and approach the second fence. The jockey, still not convinced of the trainer’s advice but nevertheless having second thoughts, whispers "Aleeee ooop" in the horse’s ear. The same thing happens–the horse crashes straight through the center of the jump but luckily doesn’t fall.
At the third fence, the jockey thinks, "It’s no good, I’ll have to do it," and yells, "ALLLEEE OOOP!" really loudly. Sure enough, the horse sails over the jump with no problems. This continues for the rest of the race, but due to the earlier problems the horse only finishes third.
The trainer is fuming and asks the jockey what went wrong. The jockey replies, "Nothing is wrong with me–it’s this bloody horse. What is he–deaf or something?"The trainer replies, "Deaf?? DEAF?? You stupid oaf – He’s not deaf–he’s BLIND!”
I am sorry that you are distressed, disappointed and disaffected. It’s just when you’re feeling so low that you need friends and community to come round, help you to your feet, give you a nice up of tea, have a whip round to try to cover your financial loss, and generally provide comfort and support.
What you don’t need is people like me casually putting the boot in. Bill Gates is no different to the others in the commercial world, they would all have the shirt off your back as soon as look at you. (Airline fares advertised for £5.12 that really cost £80). The trick is to not let them see you coming, they can spot a novice a mile away. Surely you have family, friends, mates down the pub, mates at work, chums at the bookies or the racecourse who know a little bit about computers and software. Have a chat; “It’s good to talk”; look for advice on the internet.
1. There is nothing to stop you moving your Office, Outlook and other software from your old laptop to your new one. No cost.
2. If you want an email client, don’t use Outlook, use Outlook Express (very similar to Outlook whereas Live Mail is not). Using Outlook is like carrying around a huge toolbox when all you need is one small spanner. Outlook Express is free, even though it’s an official Gatesland product, get one of your techie friends to download and install it for you. And buying Office 2010 to get hold of Outlook is a bit like buying a Snap-On garage size tool chest on wheels when all you need is a small spanner. If you want a full office software suite use Open Office – it’s free and fully compatible with the Gatesland product. No cost.
On the up-side, I can only congratulate you on being such a successful punter that you can afford to shell out £150 on a piece of sofware that anyone in their right mind only ever needs to use about 5% of its functionality.
Further on the up-side, you are a member of TRF. It seems to me there are lots of members who know a fair bit about computers, and they all like to be asked for their opinions. They all certainly love to give out their opinions free of charge. Next time just post a question on TRF before you take the plunge into an unfamiliar market.
Sorry to put the boot in, but it might just help you to remember that its a brutal world out there when people want your money. Get clued up from friends or the internet when you think of spending your money, or someone will take it from you in a flash.
It was dull.
It was as if they had all been told "Do not under any circumstances allow your own personality to come through. Just stick to the script and the studio direction".
From time to time in the past there was a reasonable amount of banter and it looked like the presenters were having a good time. It now looks like they have been told to be more professional. They just look pretty glum to me. I much prefer listening to, and watching, people who know what they are doing and having a good time doing it. I do not want dull psuedo professionalism.
I cannot pretend that I always agree with what they say or their overall personalities, but they used to have a positive demeanour, which has now disappeared.
Sky TV has a large number of subscribers and a high level of income largely due to the marketing of sport channels. Live football was easily its biggest marketing ploy. In 2009 Sky paid £1.68 Billion for a three year deal to show Premier League matches. £1.68 Billion is seriously big business. Sky needs to maintain very good relationships with the Premier League and the Football Association. Sky is a big corporation continuously in the public eye and subject to government regulation as a media company, and needs to keep hold of a good reputation.
The Premier League, the FA and Sky have all been involved in campaigns to encourage more women (and children but that’s irrelevant) to attend football matches. Commercially, for all of them, having more women interested in football increases their income. Women have their own money these days!
In 2010 a YouGov poll found that 72% of women watch football on TV. The FA state that there are about 150,000 registered women football players in England, and about 1.5 million women and girls who play the game . There are 20,000 qualified women coaches in England and 42% of children in the FA’s skills programme are girls. The FA has a specific Female Referees Strategy and Female Ambassador scheme.
Gray and Keys were at work, with their colleagues on official premises. They may have annoyed women with their comments, but they will have annoyed the Premier League and the FA even more, and because of that Sky management would have been furious. Employees of any company can have whatever opinions they like as long as those opinions do not endanger the bottom line of the employer’s accounts, or endanger their reputation (same thing really?)
It almost doesn’t matter what people think of Gray and Keys foolish opinions, Sky are much better off without them. What a pair of liabilities they were, especially since they couldn’t even keep their own colleagues “onside”.
A wonderful racehorse, winning the English and French Guineas, and two Breeders Cup Miles. Then at stud producing Kingmambo, a good miler who has turned out to be a hugely successful stallion, with many top class horses to his credit on both sides of the Atlantic. I’m sure the Niarchos family will miss her, and will long remember her contribution to their horseracing enjoyment.
I have never really paid these “official” international ratings too much attention. There seems to be always the possibility of a negotiated compromise, when different factions (nations) have an axe to grind. In the UK, ratings from the BHA, The Racing Post, Timeform, etc all represent one organization’s view. I am sure there are discussions and disagreements about individual horse performances within those organizations but they do represent one philosophy, one method, one set of weight for age/sex tables, etc. There must be so few and quite tenuous links that compare the performances of Blame and Quality Road with Workforce and Cape Blanco, that I would not want to rely on the outcome of those comparisons.
Despite there being a representative from each of the major racing nations it seems that thoughout the world there is a conspiracy to deny the laws of nature and statistics. The sharing out of performance merit among horses will follow a Normal Distribution (the bell-shaped graph common to all natural attributes). That means that over a period of time there should be the same number of 6 furlong, 8 furlong, 10 furlong, 12 furlong horses, and stayers finishing at the top of the rankings pile, unless something unnatural gets in the way. No section of the racing industry likes stayers – no big prize money, no stallion demand, no mare demand, few races, few runners – so I can understand why they do not feature much. But can someone explain why sprinters have been so woefully underrepresented in the top echelons of the rankings in recent decades? Is it bias from the handicappers of the major nations, or is there something unnatural going on in the sprinting division?
Well anyone who rates a horse who won a King George that truned out to be one of the worst in history, even if he was visualy very impressive, on apar with Sea the Stars has got to have a screw lose
The horse got injured and can’t defend himslef but the fact is he won a King George that proved to be as ordinary a Group 1 as you could ever hope to find.
The form was never farnked in fact is was quite the poosite……..Cape Blanco had won a very poor Irish Derby over 12f but he clearly never got the trip at Ascot nor did he as was the worry get it at lonchamp. Youmzain proved he was only a shadow of his former self never striking a blow also in the Arc, his fav race.
1 poxy Group 1 against a horse who won everthing there was to win Gimme a break!!!!
Youmzain put in three consistent performances before the Arc. His Ascot run put him 3.5 lengths behind Cape Blanco over 12 furlongs. His Epsom race put him 3.5 lengths behind Fame and Glory. The neck between Youmzain and Daryakana at both Ascot and Saint Cloud showed him running to the same level of form. At that level of form, Harbinger would have beaten Fame and Glory by about 10 lengths. He deserves the high rating.
A you might guess with a name like Timeform, they would only confirm a high form rating if the time justified it. I don’t know how Timeform measure their time or calculate their figures, but the official time for the race was exceptional. Other than Harbinger’s race, the fastest of the day was in a £70,000 very competitive 21-runner handicap over 7 furlongs where the time was faster than standard by 0.007 seconds per furlong. Harbinger’s time was faster than standard by 0.285 seconds per furlong. Timeform are right in arguing that Harbinger’s performance on that day was exceptional. You are right in that Sea The Stars demonstrated he was a much “better” racehorse because he put up several exceptional performances over different courses and distances.
