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I had the £60 from my last successful Tottenham to win 2-1 bet on Tottenham winning 2-1 again tonight. I stood to win £550 if my theory that Spurs always win 2-1 held good. But I was fearful of success. Not just because it would prove that what we perceive as the Universe is merely an illusion created by an Amstrad emailer phone, but also because if successful I would feel almost duty bound to put that £550 on the next Spurs match ending 2-1 to the Hotspurs (I love football me and know all about it). It had been quite a heady rush of nausea risking £60 on what is essentially a joke (but is it?), but I’d managed to overcome my reticence by being certain of victory and also by reasoning that this was really only a £5 bet that I was letting ride. But if the bets kept winning at what point would I stop betting. It was a classic parable of a man granted magical powers having to fight his own greed. I figured that maybe I’d wait until I had won back my Edinburgh debt, which would require tonight’s game and the probably the next two or three matches to end 2-1 to Spurs, but what if I stopped then and the next game was also 2-1 to Spurs and I could have paid off my mortgage as well. And if I could just front it out for the next three I would be one of the richest men in the world and could use my powers to pay off my mortgage and my Edinburgh debt and end world poverty.
But it would be tough because if I won £550 then would I really risk it on another ridiculous (but guaranteed to win) bet?
The Tot-men (I sure love footballing, footballing around) did not go one down first, as they really should to keep the prophecy on track (but then they had scored first in the last game too, so maybe the Matrix has been rejigged slightly), and I knew then that whoever scored next it was all gravy for me. The Spurritos (some people like playing ball games with their hands or racquets, but not me) put in another conversion and I was suddenly having to think about whether I would stick to my guns and aim to solve world poverty (but would I do that? Or would I just keep all the money in an off shore bank and then try to steal more money from the poor. Maybe I could get all the money in the whole world and have control of everything and make everyone do a little dance for me every time they wanted anything. I could have the highest high-backed armchair in the Universe. It could reach the moon).
So I was slightly relieved when The Tottinghams (why use your hand when you can use your foot) scored another goal and the spell was broken and my empire of evil collapsed around my ears. Apologies to all my disciples who put their savings on the result. But you have learned a valuable lesson about the meaningless of money as a concept. Or of its meaningfulness and usefulness in buying stuff.
Despite my claims
in the Metro that I don’t like posh restaurants, tonight my wife and I went to the upmarket curry house where we had our first proper date almost seven years ago. And look where that has led us, all married and with a baby hiding inside one of us. How lucky I was to meet her and how lucky that she saw something worth loving in me. Sometimes ridiculous and impossible looking gambles can come off. The food was delicious and didn’t include any thymuses (as far as I know) and I drank a champagne cocktails and a big bottle of King Cobra lager, which at 7.5% made me feel like I had taken LSD. I have never taken LSD so don’t know what it’s actually like. But I imagine it makes you feel a bit weird and makes lights look slightly brighter. Plus there were peas coming out of my face.
Those seven years have gone fast and yet the time before I met this remarkable woman feels like a different historical age. The Cretinaceous Era, perhaps. And there’s a new era on the horizon of course. My wife has essentially killed the man that she fell in love with (though he sometimes comes out for the snooker), but like some kind of wrong Jesus, I have risen again and luckily she still likes the new person she has helped create. So maybe I am more like an Adam that God has decided to squash back into clay and have another crack at. Or maybe I am just the New Shmoo. Different, but irrelevant.
For tonight it was fun to be out for dinner with my one and a half favourite people in the world, off my face on stupidly expensive strong lager, realising that I am in a Universe that is not controlled by Lord Sugar and where anything can happen, happily sitting across from a time bomb that will bring more love into my life. And change me into a New New Scmoo.
