Let's ban Saturdays.

Oh, dear.

It's a tough old game at times, isn't it? Without going into too much detail, Friday was a very good day, Saturday an absolute shocker (again!), and Sunday turned a marginal profit.

I was at a family get together in deepest, darkest Shropshire on Saturday. I placed all bets other than the unsuccessful Winning Racing Tips each way double, and then completely lost all track of events as they were happening. No mobile signal meant I was unable to follow the nightmare that was unravelling, and thank heavens for that! Fortunately, I was also completely oblivious to Arsenal's continuing woes but on the flip side missed the England rugby team's triumph.

It wasn't until I got home late (very late) on Saturday, had carried the kids to bed and poured myself a warming brandy, that I checked the results. It was a good job there was brandy available - it went from a being a comforting, pre-sleep tipple to a life-saving defibrillator of a drink that would have been more appropriately brought to me by a St. Bernard's dog.

Unfortunately, the service that bore the brunt of the destruction was Skeeve. A loss of 18 points leaves my bank perilously close to the edge (75% of the bank, although I usually translate the cost of subs into a point value and deduct this amount from the bank to counter the leveraging I apply to my funds), and I'm praying that next week brings some sort of recovery. Despite this horrendous losing run, my faith in Skeeve as a tipster remains. The cold reality for any service though is that once the bank dedicated to it is gone, it is gone.

If I know Skeeve at all, no-one will be hurting more than he is right now with how the results have gone, and no-one would be more determined to turn things around. His is a service built on years of success; success that has been the consequence of a huge amount of work and dedication. I really hope for his sake, aswell as mine, that he manages to pull this around.

The other service to go through the wringer again this weekend was Football Elite. After a promising winner on Friday, Saturday and Sunday saw three losers from three bets. The drawdown for FE this season now stands at 32% of the bank, and as another "big-hitter" within the portfolio, this too, is hurting.

On The Nose had a stinker of a weekend and of course when that happens, the old Demons start to whisper in your ear once more. It would be such a shame for OTN to have a poor end to a year which started so badly but which has recovered some form since midsummer.

A small loss was made by Summer Of Football, but I think it was fair for James to say in his weekly review email that the weekend's performance represented a flattening out of the slump. Of course that remains to be seen and really it is only with hindsight that we will be able to assess whether or not that is what this weekend proves to be. I know what he means though, and it does certainly feel that way.

A profit for The Football Analyst with a good winner in Italy yesterday to counter the 7/22 loser of Saturday, and The Sportsman weighed in with one winner from one bet, which is hard to fault. :)

A winner too for The Market Examiner to get their month off to a flier, and Sportyy more or less broke even with a couple of losers and a couple of winners.


I just want to outline my blogging plans a little. Seeing my wife return from the shops yesterday with a big tin of Quality Street forced me to accept that Christmas is not very far away at all. I am determined to spend as much time as possible with the kids over the holidays. They deserve it. As they break up from school ridiculously early (it seems if you have to pay for a school, the kids aren't actually at it for that long!), I'm off work ridiculously early too. Anyway, before I get sidetracked, the point is that I don't want to be blogging instead of playing Cluedo, Monopoly or watching ET of an evening.

With this in mind, I'll post up until the end of this week, and then take a break until the New Year. There are going to be some changes to the portfolio for a variety of reasons, chiefly geared towards helping me get some of my life back, but I can go into these in more detail when the time comes.

I also want to sort out some sort of routine for the blog. I'm well aware that sometimes I post results, other times not, and I don't like the inconsistency. Leave it with me - I'll get it sorted.

'Til tomorrow.