Jools Holland and the Three Pence Profit

I’ve made three New Year resolutions. The first is to become a bigger man: I’m going to eat a lot more sticky toffee pudding and drink a lot more ale from our excellent local breweries. If I find myself taking things on the chin, then I’ve probably aimed about an inch and a half too low – I’ll have missed my mouth and I’ll have a very messy shirt. 

Secondly, I’m determined to expand my cultural horizons, particularly when it comes to popular music. I realised that I was out of sync with mainstream opinion when my first suggestion for a post-racing concert artist was dismissed without hesitation. Apparently The Wombles were unlikely to be available anyway. We're very lucky that we managed to secure Simply Red instead, for Saturday 28th May, although I doubt Mick will stay behind to pick up the litter.

 

Now our friends at Cuffe and Taylor have organised a second concert - for the day after Simply Red on Sunday 29th May, when we don’t have any races - although there’ll be lots of people here on the Cartmel peninsula, preparing for the traditional Bank Holiday Monday race-meeting which goes ahead as normal.

 

They gave me some clues and asked me to guess who the artist might be… 'Think classy jazz musician,’ they said. 

‘Nat King Cole?’ I asked. Now I wish I hadn’t said that because apparently Nat hasn’t been available for fifty years. Nor was it Frank Sinatra: unavailable for at least fifteen years. I probably shouldn’t go on… Suffice to say that I needed a lot more clues.

‘He shares his name with a European nation,’ they said.  

‘Uncle Bulgaria?’ I suggested hopefully.

‘This is like Pulling Mussels from a Shell,’ they said. ‘You’re really Up the Junction!’

 

Well I got it then… Jools Holland and his Rhythm and Blues Orchestra will be topping the bill on the day between race-days at Cartmel, with Ruby Turner and Louise Marshall providing guest vocals. The course will be open from 3.00pm and tickets are available now, at a price of £35 each, from www.Ticketline.co.uk.     

Finally, and perhaps most importantly of all: my third resolution is to tip many more winners in 2016. Having analysed the statistics from 2015, I can confirm that if you had placed a £1 win bet on all of the weekly selections in this blog, you'd have lost a grand total of £14.22 over the year.

 

Having made a profit of £14.25 in 2014, that means that we're still 3 pence ahead over the last two years. Let's renew the battle with Howard’s Legacy at Kempton Park on Saturday.

 

'Why?' I hear you ask. It’s... Cool for Cats.