Peter Hitchens wants betting to go back to the 1950s

Wiped out within a short time George……

He’s still bamboozled after his more intellectual brother Christopher used to run rings around him about god.

Hopefully this puts to bed the fake news (that many on here have swallowed, hook, line and sinker), that all the anti's are left wing loons and communists!

Peter doesn’t even know what he is.
He just tried to not be Christopher (and was very successful at that), now he’s totally at sea.

His books are hard work to get through - have only read one but it seems they all would have benefited from someone being brought in to rejig prior to the final manuscript going to the publisher. His weekly columns are entertaining and witty, as they were back when he was with the Express. Views the barren 1950's  as though the period was a gentle, dreamy ' Titfield Thunderbolt' reality, which I doubt it really was - but always knocks the wonderfully sport/ music/television rich 1970's, once describing the era with words similar to ' a stupid decade full of people wearing stupid clothes'.

hitchens would like everything as it was in the dreary 50s, possibly the most miserable decade of the 20th century

to describe gambolling thus he must be some d1ckhead. what about freedom to do what you want, free from state interference? isnt that what he bores on about? i dont know

his brother was more entertaining but a fraud

all antis are left wing? who said that? not something ive seen on here. but my anecdotal experience suggests the majority are

Didn't mind nicking a few quid off the Dettori tip.

Not so much a divide between left and right as between state responsibility for everything and people having to look after them selves. I have lived through every Government since 1947 and the current one is the most "nanny" of any of them. I am in the latter camp but have never heard of Peter Hitchens. I can see that at some point people need protecting from falling off cliffs, dying from obesity or leaving their family destitute from speculation including "gambling" but why they consider betting on sport is any worse than starting your own business or buying shares I can't understand. They can all make you skint in 12 months and starting a business without the necessary skills is probably the easiest way. I was lucky enough to run a fairly successful business from 1972 to 2000 but as soon as we lost money 2 years in a row, I sold it and retired. Best decision I ever made.

The 50s wasn't such a bad era to grow up in mitolo.  I wouldn't want to be growing up in todays world that's for sure.

Jul 18, 2023 -- 2:00PM, sparrow wrote:

The 50s wasn't such a bad era to grow up in mitolo.

Youve not grown up yet Sparrow....hopefully there is still plenty of time for that

You got plenty to say for yourself, dancing boy.

ok sparrer. just anecdotal from me grandma who had a miserable time. mind you, huyton is still a khazi now

i have no intention of growing up. if i did i would have to stop being such a nerbert

yes he has. and its all bollox. unworthy of the great nag

Quite right too mitolo about growing up, but times were tough in the 50s although it did not do us too much harm even in Hackney. We knew no different and the East End was still recovering from the war bombing.

imagine acne changed a lot since then. has since i was there. its now trendy

have you not rarver contradicted yourself there by saying it wasnt too bad and then how hard it was?

No I don't think so as it did us no harm and toughened us for any future problems we might encounter.  I haven't been back to Hackney for many years now but it's all a very different world now and not one I particularly care for either.

i went back last year and the change was something. all is flats, everywhere. developers should be reined in. all they do is chuck up as many 1 beds as possible. the usesless council should be disbanded

battlecruisers mostly gone. drives me crackers. thank god therealmitolo buys and saves some of them

Battlecruisers?

oi oi saveloy. shorely you must be familiar with this one? rub-a-dub

and i havent even made it up, unlike some of the other tripe i come out with

Well I loved saveloys but never heard the battle cruiser one before.

You are right about toughening up sparrow, rationing only stopped around 1954, got by with what we could for a few years. Would not swap it though.

When you read all of this woke nonsense now, and read of all the falling out on social media and the like I sometimes feel like we need another war so a few can get their priorities right.

Then again it could be just me getting to be a moaning old bugger.

genuinely surprised to hear that. wheres slippy when you need him?

funyy. i hate saveloys

Agree with some of that barstool but have no time for calling people "woke" who have different views. I didn't vote for Brexit either

Of course Hitchens is correct, in that gambling can lead to misery.  Which surely is why people attack him and not his views?
But we usually put our enjoyment above the greater good. And I don't think we should be any different with regard to racing.
If people can't handle gambling addiction that's too bad. Why spoil it for everyone else?

Battlecruiser-Boozer.

moved into the age where the minority count more than the majority

rub a dub yes, but never the battleship one for the boozer.

Hitchens is deeply religious and that forms the background for most of his opinions. It's no surprise therefore that he thinks people should be protected from any kind of vice. He has the same sort of absolutism when it comes to recreational drugs.

There are a lot of strong values in Christianity, in fact this country used to be grounded in them until the last 25 years or so. However compelling your views on others, creating policy based on the lowest common denominator is where it goes wrong. Life is a mundane drudge for many people, and they need a release from that drudgery. Even if a few people are unable to control themselves. If they can't get that release legally, they will still seek it.

they are even familiar with it in kernow

bring back the brighton gang

You think Christianity had strong values Cider?

Why were the Roman bookies going 6/4 and the Christians 1/20 Jesus survived the night on the cross,then invoked ante post rules when Lazarus surfaced?

The fifties were OK but when you lived on a fairly remote farm, We didn't have electric until 1954 or mains water until the a960s but, we had open countryside and nowhere to spend any money even if you had any which I didn't until I was 17. My grandparents did the weekly shop 7 miles away for themselves, my parents and us 2 children in the only car. We were much better off than most by 1956 or so and spent most spring Saturdays at a point to point.

huyton is still a khazi now


My dad grew up there in the 30's (Longview Crescent) and says it was very nice then.

did he indeed. i suspect the estates were newly built then?

the look of them suggests so

sparrow,

wtf has Brexit got to do with anything on here?

My problem with all of this is at the end of the day the real question is what is gambling?

I would be in favour of no gambling if all gambling was eliminated at the same time.

Like me deciding to buy a house in the current economic conditions…that’s a gamble
Me deciding to get an Arsenal season ticket…another gamble
Me deciding if to cook or order out…another gamble
Me deciding to quit my job and go ‘pro’ on here…another gamble
Me deciding to go for a walk today without my brolley…gambling big time. Imaging I get the pneumonia and end up costing the NHS thousands.
Me deciding not to pull out…oh my lawd.

I want all forms of gambling eliminated else it’s not worth doing.

Arsenal paying £105m for Rice Rice baby…lord why do the big corps get to gamble but they pick on us?

It’s got to be a total elimination for me.

barstool 19 Jul 23 00:11 
sparrow,

wtf has Brexit got to do with anything on here?





Nothing and neither has woke or another war since you came to mention those things.

barstool  Jul 23 16:07 

' .... sometimes feel like we need another war so a few can get their priorities right.'
-----------------

We ARE currently having a War - aren't we - barstool ...

Witness the resultant hardships of the Energy price explosion - and and Cost of Living crisis.

At War with - the nutcase from Russia - who, ironically, started his land grab, because ...

He is still living in the 1950s.

His tactics, military and weaponry are, thankfully, mostly 1950s standard, too - apart from the missiles, which must be akin to Hitler's V-2 Rockets.

But what Putin did not bargain for, was coming up against 2020s technology.... as he dreams/dreamt of his aspirational return to utopian 1950s Soviet Union.

Another mistake he has made is .... Most people in Russia YOUNGER than him - do NOT share his dream - and hoped for personal Legacy.

What a ****.

What Hitchens doesn't mention, or possibly doesn't know, is that prior to betting shops the rich could bet as much as they liked without going anywhere near a course. They had credit accounts with bookies,which were not available to the riff-raff. Ladbrokes was once actually a distinctly upmarket example of the firms who offered these facilities.

Don't know about the fifties as I was not old enough but since the 70s. credit accounts have been freely available to almost anyone. Only now are they asking for evidence of ability to pay.

I don't remember the pre-betting shop days either but in the 50s that was the norm. Others will know better than me but I think the "rails" bookies originally took credit bets from established clients in the "posher" bits. I'm not pretending that the working class couldn't get on but it was a very murky legal area as if you watch enough films from that period it becomes obvious. Moreover most people didn't have phones till the 60s. I'm still occasionally a bit nervous using even a landline,a sort of hangover from the fact i'd probably used a phone twice before i was 16.

There used to be the - 'Call-Over' - at the Victoria Club  - of ANTE+POST PRICES - on all the Big Races ...

Reported on the Sports pages of all the Newspapers as - 'Victoria Club Call-Over' - with major Price changes and bets struck reported.

from the Daily Dispatch  27th April 1945


HIGH PEAK SHORTENS TO 17-2 IN DERBY BETTING BETING was not heavy on the Classic races at the Victoria Club London call-Over yesterday.
The feature was the shortening of High Peak's price for the Derby from the previous call-over, of 100 to 9 to ...

Published: Friday 27 April 1945

I accept that salmon but at what stage did bookmakers stop caring about ability to pay? Not that appearing to be wealthy was any guarantee and bad debt was always a factor that bookies had to factor in. In the late 70s I had 5 credit accounts, some national some local and can't ever remember any questions being asked apart from a reference from another credit bookie if I applied for a new one. I always paid on the nail when sent a bill.

https://www.racingpost.com/news/rare-archive-footage-shows-how-1960s-punters...

Apologies for my comment sparrow. No need for it.

No worries, barstool.

It's an interesting social/cultural area. Until I was 10 we lived with my grandfather born in the 1890s,who could reasonably be called lower middle-class. He had a minor managerial job,owned his own 4 bedroom residence in a decent area and voted Tory. He tended to see gambling on the horses as being disreputable but filled in at least 6 pools coupons a week ( including Billy's fixed-odds ). I had a rather pointless disagreement with him on this point when I was 13 and no longer had to share a house.