This week we have learned that the embrocation, if not the cure for all Cheltenham’s racing ills, is to reduce the numbers of people coming for two of the four days, and reduce the cost amount of a pint by 30p. No mention of free PDF race cards you could download to your phone, (Cost to Jockey Club £0); no mention of improving the traffic system; no mention of reducing the number of race days; no mention of improving the race planning. It will continue to unbalance the rest of the season’s racing programme and continue to diminish the rest of the post-Cheltenham fixture list.
It’s the Jockey Club’s cash cow, and it has to be milked, but as a result, it will be attended by fewer people this year than last year because it is simply too expensive.
A NH fan living in say York might have the following per diem expenses:
Daily badge, currently £90
AirBnB for £210 per night
Racecourse Drink per day £50.00
Racecourse Food per day £20.00
Racecard £5
Subsistence off-course £65
TOTAL PER DAY £440 (excl. travel costs from York to AirBnb and to course and return)
Cost for 3 days £1320, of which I must pay £900 in advance
As an aside, if 10,000 people buy 3 days of badges at the early-bird price of 90, the Jockey Club have effectively borrowed £2.7m at 0% interest instead of say a bank short-term facility charge of 1½% per month.
To be honest, I’m not sure that I’m going to notice if my beer is 30p less or that there are fewer people on one of the days I couldn’t afford to go to anyway.
ID Cards? Bring ‘em on. However, save time and ask the Chinese to manage it. If we do it, it will cost eight times the original budget, won’t work, and will take six years to deliver. When we do get them - use them for everything. Buying Petrol, Medicines, Benefits; Hospital and GP visits; travel, everything. Don’t have one or have a faked one? Straight off to Option 1 The Road Mending gang or Option 2 Deportation.
And please don’t be so naive as to start talking about privacy. Your posts on Twitter and Facebook and Wassup have told everyone all they need to know. Your VNR and your on-line shopping experience and your sexual preferences and the number of times you eat a banana and the outside temperature when you buy a pineapple, are already out there. Facial recognition programmes are running on private CCTV cameras and in stores - there is no privacy! So embrace it, use it properly in a controlled environment, and resolve the many issues that have been bugging people.
A story that has been rumbling since 2019 has raised its head again, with the news that the RAF will offer affirmed Vegan and Vegetarians uniforms that meet their beliefs. The original story was started by a dispute between a technician at 7 Squadron based at Odiham and the MOD who demanded dress standards be amended. Vegans, who represent less than 2% of the UK population, have their a society with Facebook pages etc, the MOD Vegan and Vegetarian Network. Occasionally, your Ghast gets so Flabbered, as the great Frankie Howard would put it, that you’re almost silenced.
Perhaps the most sensible comment is best left to Tobias Ellwood the former Defence Minister: “
“The day the Berlin Wall came down, we had 36 fast jet squadrons. We’re down to just six today. We scrapped key platforms like the Hercules. We have no viable air defence over UK skies to protect us from drones. And our space budget, which is where the next big conflict will start, has just been cut. If the UN goes away, there goes our global order. And yet here we have the RAF focusing on fabrics. It is 1938 again. The League of Nations was unable to hold errant nations to account, and we’re seeing the same restlessness now. A new alliance is forming, redrawing the world map, and we’re in denial. Those (Russian) pilots that flew into NATO airspace switched off their transponders, weren’t responding to radio messages, and we should have had in seconds an ability to respond. Instead, RAF pilots flying from the UK arrived 30 minutes late and of course it had all disappeared. Russia is moving into a far more aggressive stance, and we’re still in denial. Let’s wake up.”
I get increasingly confused by the Diversity, Inclusion, and Equality (DIE) calls that we must apparently abide by. Is it a one-way street? I only have experience of one temperate and inclusive vegetarian who was transitioning to Veganism, who I took racing. Before we left, she produced a full English Working Man’s Breakfast of bangers, bacon and eggs, with the words; “Just because I don’t, doesn’t mean I have to force my views on others.” The rest of the plant-munching entitled, demand special menus when they come, or the means to cook their own, whilst failing to offer the carnivores any reverse hospitality. It’s a tiny and petty point, but the mindset of the intractable is always disturbing, and often threatening.
The annual ONS population figures are out. The UK population has grown by more than three-quarters of a million - the second-largest increase in 75 years. The overall increase of 755,254 is the second-largest jump since 1949. It is larger than many UK cities. Leeds, for example, has a population of 750,000.
Nigel Henretty, of the ONS, said: “The UK population has increased each year since mid-1982. The rate of population increase has been higher recently, and the rise seen in the year to mid-2024 represents the second-largest annual increase in numerical terms in over 75 years. Net international migration continues to be the main driver of this growth, continuing the long-term trend seen since the turn of the century.”
Just to put that into context. This country requires IMMEDIATELY the following to sustain that population growth:
750-1000 Megawatt hours of electricity generation per day.
75-150m gals of water
Multiple large-scale sewage treatment plants and 1000s of kilometres of piping
Approx 100k housing units
1500-3000 Hospital beds across multiple hospitals and clinics
145-205 K12 Schools plus 2-4 Technical colleges and 1 or 2 University or research facilities
Landfills, recycling, and composting facilities with capacity for daily waste generation of approx 1710 tonnes per day.
If you see that being built anywhere, do let me know and I’ll stop worrying.
Talking of unsustainable, inedible, unmanageable and unlikely, here are the tips for Day 2 of The Cambridgeshire meeting.
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