Bookmark and Share

Saturday 20th June 2020

6415/19335

Another of my occasional periods where I kid myself I can cut it as a semi professional gambler. I’ve been concentrating on poker and slightly changed my playing style to be a touch more aggressive (if I hit second or third pairs), with periods of tight play to confuse my opposition.
It seemed to be working well. I won £250 over the week. 
But then yesterday I had a run of bad beats and a bit of shit play and lost £150. Today I ended clawing back £100 of that loss. Looks like some days I get lucky and others I don’t. I am not a semi-professional gambler and I never will be. When will I learn? 
But it’s been fun and not cost me anything (you know, this time) so looks like I should carry on until I have to sell the house and leave the kids with nothing.
But they laughed at the idea of me being a semi-professional self-playing snookerist once and look at me now.
I looked after the kids most of the day, but managed to grab a couple of hours to work on the book and finally got the chapter I’ve been working on all week done. I am still three or four chapters from the end of the first draft, but hopeful I can get it done this week. I don’t know what was so hard about the one I finished today as it seemed pretty simple to put together, but I think it’s just lockdown malaise that’s keeping me from pushing on. Every now and again I come up for air and things seem normal, but otherwise this is the great lost Spring.
We watched “Gemini Man” tonight, for want of anything better to do. It’s just about adequate though the special effects, whilst occasionally OK, are often glaringly terrible. It’s odd to be pulled out of a modern film by jerky action scenes and poor reverse ageing. Would it be cheating for Will Smith to have sex with his clone? It would have been a more interesting film if he’d tried to find out. More pertinently, if you cloned someone would that clone necessarily have all the same skills and allergies and likes and dislikes as the original? Surely out upbringing is a huge part of making us what we are. It’s a nature versus nature debate that the film entirely swerves, preferring to concentrate on Will Smith trying to kill himself. 
My feeling is that a clone would be quite different from the original in all by physique - might mean that if you trained him he’d be a good assassin/sniper, but not definitely. Would a clone of Hitler still attempt to rise to power and eradicate his enemies? I suspect that had Hitler got into art school he would have passed an unremarkable life. But some other cunt would have stepped up to fill his shoes. There’s enough of them about, right?


Bookmark and Share



Subscribe to my Substack here
See RHLSTP on tour Guests and ticket links here
Help us make more podcasts by becoming a badger You get loads of extras if you do.
To join Richard's Substack (and get a lot of emails) visit:

richardherring.substack.com