Alex69

I WORK FOR A Top Secret government department. No-one knows about it except the Prime Minister, her closest confidantes (generally the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Foreign Secretary), the King and the department’s operatives, such as my good self. Everyone in it has a pseudonym. These change so often it’s hard to keep up. If a bad bastard knows me, or has even heard of me, it’ll be by an old pseudonym or simply by legend as the organisation for which I work is more secret than MI5, 6 and 7 put together. Even they don’t know much about it. MI1-4 know nothing about it at all.

I’ve been working for MI8 (not the department’s real name of course – disclosing that could put the country at risk) for quite some time now. It could be ten years, but it could equally be 20. I guess that depends on how many movies they can base on my adventures.

In some respects I’m the archetypal hero – suave, sophisticated and possessed of enough one-liners to create an entire volume of comedy encyclopaedias. In others, I’m just a regular guy who takes pride in his job and likes the trappings of wealth that working in such dangerous, unpredictable and violent environments bring.

I know krav maga, kung fu, MMA and how to do the hucklebuck. My collection of lethal gadgets makes Q Division look like Fisher Price. I can drive as well as Lewis Hamilton and Colin McRae. I’m not as big as Jack Reacher, nor as handsome as James Bond, but I’d knock both of them out if they wanted a piece of the action.

And I’m real, whereas they’re not.

I’m not one for over-egging the pudding when it comes to describing my exploits, so I’ll cut – more or less – to the chase. All info I share with you is classified, so if you tell anyone else I’ll have to kill you.

A Dutch friend of mine called Jan has a hot tip for me. It's at the end of a giant blunt. Not really - he's convinced his countrymen will continue their fine run of form against the abject Czechs. "We'll bounce them, for sure," he remarked, in his Ruud Gullit-style voice.

Best price is around the 8/11 mark. It's nothing mega, but the steady drip fills the champagne bucket.
Enjoy the football.

I'm off for a bit of risky espionage.

Good luck & happy punting,
006.9.

AS part of my military training many, many beards ago I was sent to a summer boot camp in the far reaches of Northumberland. This consisted largely of early doors reveille, plenty of porridge and lots of competitive sport (footy, podex and cross country running). We were also required to keep our bell tents spotlessly tidy. Anything less than perfection after the daily inspection and you were in trouble, with the punishment varying between being staked out in the middle of the night by rope and tent pegs or simply being lobbed naked into the nearby stream.

It didn’t do me any harm, however, and I embraced the thing to such an extent that they asked me back to run the whole shebang in years to come. One could say the poacher had become gamekeeper.

I digress.

I do recall stating that I was going to share with you some tennis multiples for this year’s Wimbledon so here we are.

A straightforward fourfold on Murray to beat Brown, Tsonga to beat Bolelli, Berdych to beat Chardy and Raonic to beat Struff pays out at around 1.6 and represents a solid opening start to the Gentlemen’s Singles.

Remember – a steady drip fills the bucket and buy your strawberries and cream at least a two mile radius away from Centre Court. As a slight aside, Nishikori & Monfils both look under-priced and could be worth a little lay if you've got any spare change in your account.

Good luck & happy punting. I’m off to give the organisers some high-level security advice.

006.9

YOU’LL all be delighted to hear that I’m a superb tennis player. I’ve won several events, home and abroad, and have been asked to turn pro on several occasions. Obviously, being in the employ of Her Majesty’s Secret Service precludes any long-term commitment to the most noble racquet sport of them all. Besides, as I’m such a dab hand at darts and cue sports too I’d be loath to knock any of the aforementioned on the head in favour of one or the other.

I digress.

With Wimbledon just around the corner I’ll be dusting down the DB9 and heading down to a lady friend’s gaff just off High Street Kensington in order to be near enough to pick up the tube, call in and check out some of the action. Despite being a superb player myself, I have to admit that not all of my tennis tipping in years of yore has been up to scratch. In fact I’d go as far as to say that it’s failed to stimulate certain people’s love deuces. 

Still, on the back of my glorious Nadal tip the other week I’m confident I can follow this up with further tennis punting success. To this end, I'll be going for a nice easy multiple with which to warm ourselves up once the draw’s made on June 30. I'll share this with you when the time comes.

In the meantime, I’ll be helping the government’s on-going quest to change so-called IS into ISN’T with the help of some particularly sneaky top secret counter-terrorist weapons that Q Division have invented for me in recent weeks. Regardless of which party is in power at Whitehall, I’ll still be fighting the good fight to rid the world of terrorist scum. I don’t mess around.

New balls (for the terrorist I’ve just booted in the ging-gangs) please.

Till next time

006.9

EVERYONE loves a diary. Let’s face it, we’ve all heard of Adrian Mole. People are intrinsically nosey and, like a legion of voyeurs, enjoy nothing more than to rubberneck at other folks’ lives. Imagine my surprise, then, when I came across one of my old diaries the other day. Now I’m not what you would call a show-off, nor am I prone to exaggeration, but I have to say that Samuel Pepys, Anne Frank and Bridget Jones have nothing on me, nor are they anywhere near as prolific.

I might even share an extract with you all in despatches to come, but first let me tell you what I’ve been up to lately.

Some of the local yokels have been on at me about sorting out a local gangster who has been peddling spice to paraffins, walking about like he’s number one and generally causing havoc and hassle wherever he goes. You know me, I’m not the kind of person who goes around looking for trouble but I hate bullies. And there aren’t many things worse than tripping over spiced-up tramps wherever you go.

Gangsters such as the aforementioned like nothing more than to hang around boasting about their exploits, so it didn’t take me long to track him down. He was lording it outside the bookies the other day, impressing three friends with some tall tale about how he’d put a pound in the FOBT and taken £500 out. He was wearing a cheap suit but with an Armani tie. How did I know it was Armani? It had ‘Armani’ written all over it in big white letters.

I approached him in my usual confident way and gave him a bit of a stare. He took immediate offence to this and asked me what I was looking at. I responded with the classic: “YOU, you c*nt.”

It was at this point that I realised he was Scottish. The fact that his suit was tartan, he was holding the last inch of a deep-fried Mars bar in one hand and a can of Irn Bru in the other was a bit of a giveaway, but his daft way of talking was the clincher. “Don’t ye dare call me a c*nt you wee radge,” was his predictable response.

I said: “I think you’d better hand over that £500 so we can help the homeless get back on their feet.”
With his mouth still full of deep fried Mars bar, he replied: “I don’t gie (sic) a f*ck what you think, you doss c*nt.”
Bullies are always show-offs when they’ve got a few of their hangers-on around, but they’re not so tough when they see their mates get picked off one-by-one.

Which is precisely what I proceeded to do.

In the blink of an eye I’d one inch punched the nearest one, head-butted the next to the floor and broke the third one’s nose with a well-aimed elbow.

Now it was just me and him.

I could see the colour drain from his cheeks at my amazing display of street fighting, but he fancied himself nonetheless as he couldn’t be seen to lose face in front of three of his cohorts – not that they were seeing much other than stars right now. He threw the can of Irn Bru at my head to start with. “Mmm… that old chestnut,” I thought as I easily dodged the improvised missile with a calm lean to the left. I stepped towards him and this time he tried a head butt. I simply sidestepped the other way while simultaneously delivering a rabbit punch to his kidneys. While he reeled from that blow, gasping like a beached whale, I shoved the heel of my palm with devastating force under his chin. As his head snapped back I used my other fist to smash him in the solar plexus. It was game over. He was on the deck and the lights were more or less out. I knelt on his arms, more for humiliation than anything else, jabbed him square on the nose with my left and relieved him of his £500 with my right.

Like shelling peas. I donated £400 to the local homeless shelter and kept £100 for a bet.

I think I’ll stick it on Nadal to beat Thiem. He’s no quitter and Nadal defeats in Paris are as rare as rocking horse plop.

Good luck & happy punting.

Till next time.

006.9

HELLO, good afternoon and welcome to my latest blog. I’ve been chilling in the home counties since I got back from my little trip to the Bahamas as both my castles in Scotland are currently being renovated in time for Hogmanay (I’ll be flying between each in my helicopter at various parts of the night just to make sure everyone’s being properly entertained. I’ve got some of the lads from the Bay City Rollers playing at one, and two – hopefully three – members of Runrig doing a couple of numbers at the other). My third castle – in Spain – is currently out of action largely due to the fact that large parts of it have had an attack of Verdigris and I’m having difficulties getting the right quality of obreros in. To ensure there'll be no unwelcome visitors, a small team of crack SAS veterans are using it as a temporary base to teach less well-off locals how to make delicious meals out of powdered egg, pemmican, Seville oranges and various other locally-sourced foodstuffs.

I digress.

Besides asking for further details of my all-too-brief liaison with Felicity Fletcher, which I shan’t be disclosing, a number of you have been on at me to supply some darts tips. Not only are punters going darts mad at present, the World Championship is just around the corner, so here’s a little guide to how to find the value in the ‘Most 180s’ & ‘Handicaps’ markets.

An old darting cliché is ‘trebles for show, doubles for dough’. Better bettors can exploit this situation by opposing the ‘Most 180s’ favourite as it does not necessarily follow that the player scoring the most maximums goes on to win the match.

Backing the outsider in the ‘Most 180s’ market is a good way to make steady cash in darts without enormous liabilities. Typically, the ‘Most 180s’ market in darts will read like a football home/draw/away book. Remember to take into consideration the likely number of total legs before making your selection as a race to five could easily throw up a draw in the ‘Most 180s’ column. Similarly, backing players in handicap markets such as +1.5 and +2.5 where the bookies are effectively giving them a head start against their more fancied opponents is well worth a look, especially if you believe the outsider can push their adversary close or even beat them. A +2.5 handicap in a first to six encounter, for example, covers all wins for your player as well as a 5-6 and a 4-6 defeat.

So there you go. No excuses for losing money on the arrows ever again. I’m off for a boat trip down the Thames from Folly Bridge in Oxford with a lady whose hair is blacker than my cat. I’ve heard the potted shrimp on board is astounding.

Best,
006.9

SO the sands of time are slipping away like nobody’s business. Once again, it seems like forever ago that I last treated you to one of my blogs and a lot has happened in my life since then. Being the addictive personality I am, I’ve attracted a load of followers through the various social media channels over the last few months while becoming addicted to a number of things myself – booze, drugs, women and ‘the high life’ being the chief four. I don’t count gambling and spying as addictions – they’re simply a means to an end. How else am I supposed to keep three Astons on the road and pay the heating bills on two castles in Scotland?

I digress.

With my aforementioned Scottish hideaways in mind, there’s a fixture tonight that is worth a look if you fancy some easy money. Hibernian have been scoring as freely as I do when I’m judging Miss World contests, while their lowly opponents from Livingston would struggle to find the net in a cyber café. Take Hibs on the -1.5 handicap and wait for your wallet to bulge come 90 minutes plus time added on for stoppages.

A lot of you have written to me with requests for regular tips. Sadly, I’m unable to do this given the erratic nature of my job for Her Majesty’s Secret Service, but I can, however, share with you a brief anecdote about one of my recent missions. Obviously, I can’t give away too many details, but I was recently asked by the top brass to doss around the Bahamas for a few days – on full expenses of course – in order to find out how valuable their stash of guana was, while popping any low-life criminals I came up against on the way. Rather than dismissing the mission as a load of bat sh!t, I jumped at the chance at a bit of guaranteed weather and potential pagga.

When I arrived, I checked into the Grand Lucayan (owned by Lord Lucayan), did a quick sweep of my luxury suite for bugging devices, hitmen and tarantulas, then opted for a stroll around the sunbathing areas to ascertain which was the best of the three pools and to see if there were any rich-looking women sunbathing.
Boom. Five minutes later I was laughing and joking over a Vodka Martini (shaken not stirred) with a 36-22-36 bird with long blonde hair, blue eyes and a knife stuck down the side of her bikini briefs. She warned me that there were a few guana gangsters staying in the hotel who were partial to gambling and who wouldn’t take too kindly to a cool bast like me cleaning up on the craps table. I’ve never been one to shirk away from a challenge, so I bid my farewell and a few hours later, having had a hot shower, a cold shower and a packet of chilli nuts from the mini bar I breezed into the hotel casino.

Guana gangsters are easy to pick out among a casino crowd. They’re generally better dressed than most, but with worse haircuts and bad breath. Three of them were playing poker so I joined them and before long I’d cleaned them all out of Bahamian dollars. To say they weren’t best pleased is a bit of an understatement.

Predictably, they followed me out of the casino when I’d cashed in my chips and as soon as I exited the hotel foyer I darted into the shadows. One by one they came looking for me. The first, and fattest of the three, went down like a sack of bat sh!t when I took him out with a quick one-two using my right elbow and clenched fist. The second one, amusingly, tripped over fatty so while he was trying to right himself I booted him on the temple. The third was a slightly tougher nut to crack, but he made the mistake of trying to put me in a headlock and as he did so I gave him a quick one inch punch to the solar plexus. This lessened his resistance somewhat and while he was gasping for breath I butted him square on the nose, kneed him in the bollocks and for ‘Goodnight Grand Bahama Island’ I just leant against him on the way down, causing him to drop lifelessly into the pool to his left hand side.

Job done.

I was on the plane home the next day, having said my goodbyes to bikini bird, who we shall call Felicity Fletcher, enjoying another Vodka Martini and a further packet of chilli nuts. As I’m already in the mile high club, I simply committed the number of the best-looking air hostess to memory and gave her a solid slap on the behind.

Till next time.

006.9 

HELLO, good evening & welcome to my latest blog. Something very weird happened when I last threw a couple of tips out from the East Wing of my sprawling country manor house.

They both lost.

I'm rarely lost for words, but...
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I digress. I've been suffering some pretty tough times of late. I had to get shot of the vacuum cleaner (to be fair, it was only gathering dust), I had to play a game of snooker behind enemy lines (more about this later) and my football team of choice hasn't won a league match all season.

So, about the snooker. I was recently invited by a dear relative of mine (yup, he cost the best part of a million to buy) for a few games of snooker at the local Conservative Club. Obvs, this went against all my extreme socialist principles but I thought to myself a) It was a genuine friendly gesture b) I could always block the toilets & graffiti-ize the place and c) It's not like I'm selling my soul to the devil and, let's face it, Miliband is almost as much of a ted as Cameron these days.

We entered the building & I needed a wall street, so I asked aforementioned benevolent Uncle where the gentlemen's urinals were. He replied: 'Over there, on the far right.'
To which I quipped: 'Well, that figures.'

Upon entering the snooker room I was quite taken aback by the quality of the cloth - and the number of 'DON'T DO THIS, DON'T DO THAT & DON'T DO THE OTHER' BY ORDER OF THE COMMITTEE' notices.

Inevitably, I won each & every frame, combining long potting & clever snookers with the appliance of lots of 'English' (as the Americans call it) to return the cue ball to well behind the baulk line just in case.

Overall, it was a very enjoyable session, especially as it was only 50p per 20 minutes. I'll be going back there again, but the next time I'll take my red chalk (which is BANNED BY ORDER OF THE COMMITTEE).

So, onto the tips. Not the cue tips. Or the Q-Tips. Or toast, not the slightest bit of toast...

Back Chelsea to stay unbeaten at home all season. You heard it here first. They won't lose in the league at Stamford Bridge. If they do, I'll be writing a stiff letter to the Conservative Club's secretary - wait for it, this is no word of a lie, a certain Mr D TURPIN.

You couldn't make it up.

Muchos Amour

006.9

HELLO, good afternoon and welcome to my latest blog post. I received some crushing news this morning. I subscribe to Wrecking Ball & Demolition Weekly and it arrived with a thud on my velvet doormat.

I digress. As I’ve been particularly busy lately, sorting out minor criminals with the type of justice generally only meted out by superheroes in capes, I haven’t managed to help you all out with my words of wisdom as often as I’d like. What I have identified, however, are two tremendous tips for this weekend’s football and snooker. I know you hang onto my every word like a bat on a branch so I’ll keep it short and sweet today as kick-off time is rapidly approaching and while I have an ego the size of Stephen Fry’s brain I would never deprive you of pre-match drinking opportunities.
So, what has the betting supercomputer thrown up for us all today?

Let’s take a little look…

Rotherham, fresh from their elevation to the dizzy heights of the Championship won’t fancy a visit to the New Den today against an unbeaten Millwall. Take The Lions to beat the Millers @ 2.1.

In the Paul Hunter Classic snooker tournament, look no further than Robert Milkins on the +1.5 handicap versus Mark Allen. Cryptic clue: you might have to shop around somewhere beneath the ocean for the best price of 1.85 here.

As that stuttering sow Porky Pig likes to say at the end of Warner Bros cartoons – “Th-th-th-that’s all folks!”

All the very best to you & yours - if you can't please yourself, you can't please your soul

006.9 (sponsored by zerohype.biz)

HELLO, good morning and welcome to my latest blog.

Snooker has to be the most sedentary sport in the world. The contestants are even lazier than darts players. Let’s face it, how many times have you seen a darts player ask the ref for a rest? Furthermore, the dress code has got to be the most bonkers of all sports.

“Mum, I’m just off for a game of snooker with my mates.”

“Okay son, don’t forget your waistcoat, bow tie and ridiculous spats.”

It also features some of life’s more bizarre eccentrics. Dechawat Poomjaeng, for example (the one who looks like Pixie out of the old TV series Monkey), was described by Stephen Maguire as ‘not the full shilling’. That’s pretty extreme if you ask me. Put it this way, if I was ever on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, Maguire would be pretty low down on my ‘phone a friend’ list.

Despite all the above, however, snooker is a fantastic sport to punt on, especially if there are any in-running markets available. As I’m feeling particularly generous, here’s one of my tried and tested techniques for snooker success.

A favourite snooker betting strategy of mine is frame betting in-running on Betfair, especially in the bigger events when there is plenty of liquidity sloshing around. What often happens is that the first player to get in amongst the balls will quickly shorten in price in-running to win that particular frame. At this juncture, shove a cheeky lay in so that your liability isn’t anything too mortgage-threatening, then prepare for the moment that he misses a pot or runs out of position and his opponent comes in to clear up the rest of the balls and win the frame.

Now you’re in trading heaven.

You can either trade out by backing the player who was looking likely to make a sizable break but failed or simply let the lay ride. Even if the player you laid ends up winning the frame with your lay left unprotected, which is of course a possibility, you won’t lose much as you laid him when he was favourite to win the frame so your liability won’t have been high. As soon as the first player who gets his eye in tries to split the pack with an aggressive shot, this is usually the pivotal moment of the frame as it can either go swimmingly well or disgustingly wrong!

As with all betting in-running, make sure the footage you’re watching is properly ‘live’. Even the BBC website is a few seconds behind the actual BBC TV coverage, for example.

The above might sound semi-complicated, but if you ease yourself in gently with minimum stakes, and be prepared to sit and watch lots of snooker, the rewards are plentiful over the course of a tournament. The next tournament, the Riga Open, commences on August 7, although the next big TV event - the Shanghai Masters - isn't until 8 September.

And finally, I’m still following the experts on www.zerohype.biz as I have done for quite some time now and have found myself making even more money. Well done ladies and gentlemen, long may it continue.

That's it from me for now. I’m off to practice my trick shots. I’ve got a bet on with Bogdan Wolkowski that I can swerve the white twice around his fat moustachioed head. If I lose, I’ve got to buy him Zubrowa vodka for a year. If I win, however, I get the freedom of Gdansk, which I can only presume is some kind of Polish music hall.


Good luck & happy punting!

006.9

HELLO, good morning & welcome to my latest blog.

Yes, it's been a while, but you know how it is. I've been ducking and diving more than a bathysphere lately so haven't had time to share my wisdom with you all. Nevertheless, I hope this note reaches you well.

I was lucky enough to be invited to a posh Christmas bash the other day. It was held in the grounds of my old Eton chum Bert Tottington-Smith’s mansion in the home counties. I can’t reveal the exact location as I’m under a non-disclosure agreement, but if you type ‘big, posh houses in the south of England’ into google you’ll get some idea of how grandiose it is.

Put it this way, the marquee in the front lawn was bigger than an average circus tent. There were loads of monied people there and to be honest at times I felt a little out of my depth, especially when a serving wench came round with a tray of canapés, none of which I recognised. One of the best features of the day, however, was that I hadn’t seen as many models in one place since I was last at the annual Airfix convention. Luckily, given my good looks, charm and highly-polished brogues I soon had enough ladies’ phone numbers to fill a local directory.

I digress.

In between womanising, partying and spying I’ve been keeping up with the darts. This evening’s matches have caught my eye because there are two sure-fire winners about to step up to the oche. Both Lewis and Van Gerwen should have no trouble in despatching the bespectacled pair Wade and Webster. They’re short odds, but a double pays out at more than 1.5.

Best of luck, and remember the Aldi version of Pimms is every bit as nice as the real thing.

006.9