There is plenty about modern life to cause celebration and aggravation in equal measure. Thankfully, old hand Christopher Howse and young gun Guy Kelly are here to dissect the way we live now…
It would be fair enough to say about the family dog, Poppy: ‘That dog’ll get run over if she keeps chasing cars.’ To put money on poor old Poppy being flattened would be weird, even if winning the bet was no consolation. What about betting on the life of a Royal family member? Unthinkable! But previous generations were made of sterner stuff.
I sometimes find my attitudes fit long-gone generations. So I thought that, of all the pusillanimous reactions to news that politicians had been betting on the election, it was hard to beat Labour’s decision to suspend its candidate in Central Suffolk, Kevin Craig, who had bet that the Tories would win the seat. The Tories did win, all the more easily because of Labour’s suspension.
To me, Mr Craig’s little wager belonged to the world of ‘The Great Sermon Handicap’, the Jeeves story about betting on the length of sermons in villages around the fictional Twing, Gloucestershire.
But I’ve come across some blood-curdling real-life bets in the betting book of All Souls College, Oxford. The book recorded bets by fellows in the common room from 1815 onwards. All Souls was an Establishment establishment. It didn’t bother having undergraduates, and many fellows were appointed as kinsmen of the 15th-century founder. Anyway, one bet in 1868 was a corker. Lord Colchester, later a JP, bet ‘the perpetual Curate elect of Hinksey cum Wootton’ (a clergyman called TP Garnier, who became a Canon of Norwich) that ‘some attempt is made on the life of the Prince of Wales or his suite during his tour of Ireland’.
No attempt was made, and Lord Colchester paid up half a crown (2s 6d), enough to buy a bottle of wine. Imagine if an MP had bet on Queen Elizabeth’s life during her visit to Dublin in 2011.
All Souls used to be awash with bets – on war, the weather, hangings. And here we are, the Great Sermon Handicap a century before its time. In June 1821,
William Buller offered Wyndham Knatchbull a shilling for every minute Dr William Goddard’s Sunday sermon exceeded an hour. It lasted 45 minutes. But who’s to say Goddard wasn’t nobbled?
I am in mourning as I write this, after being booted out of our office Euro sweepstake (thanks for rien, France). But I am also broadly at peace, for the sweepstake is the only good kind of gambling: random, fair, low stakes, just a bit of fun, truly in the ‘Let’s make this interesting, shall we?’ spirit.
I’d happily see all other forms of betting banned, and read that one in three of us now holds this view. That’s unlikely to be enough for the new Government, who wouldn’t know what to do with so many disquietingly ripped horses and homuncular Irishmen suddenly unleashed on Gloucestershire.
People will always like a flutter, so in the instance of a ban, I would replace the industry with one giant sweepstake. Funded by taxing the gambling industry properly for its final year, every person in the UK would be allocated a £100 stake, annually. Then, on 1 January, we would all receive an envelope containing something that may or may not happen over the coming 12 months.
It could be anything. ‘Clare Balding to mutter the phrase, “What a mardy little pixie, even by the standards of Cambridge coxes…” during the BBC’s Boat Race coverage.’ ‘Build-A-Bear to enter administration after a horrific incident involving a real bear – eight [note: must be eight] mauled.’ ‘Lightning to hit your father-in-law.’ ‘Ben Affleck to begin dating Miriam Cates.’
You get the idea. This way, we would all creep through the year with a background noise of anticipation. People would randomly shout ‘YES!!!’ in public, when they hear their event has happened, or ‘F—k’s sake…’ when they come so near yet so far, like hearing only four people were mauled at Build-A-Bear.
The adjudicators would be former bookies, who would require photo evidence of more local incidents, such as the sautéed father-in-law, and would persistently tackle insider betting, such as by a psychotic manager of a high street teddy bear shop – or that wrong’un Balding. But the winnings, divided on Christmas Eve between all the victors, could be vast. And crucially, you’d never be able to get good at it. Life can be dull, you see. So let’s make things interesting, shall we?