DAVID CARR

Weblog: What do you mean the Wi-Fi doesn't work? The life of a Racing Post reporter

Industrial language flows as Wi-Fi goes on blink

I SHOULD have paid attention to those doom-laden motorway warning signs - they were obviously trying to tell me something.

"Heavy rain forecast" was the stark message on every one as I drove up the M74. As though they were trying to put off the English horses coming up for tomorrow's Scottish Grand National - "I'd turn back if I were you Junior, 11st 12lb is an awful lot of weight to carry in the mud."

They were wrong about the weather at Ayr. It was gloriously sunny. Just as well for the ten Miss Scotland finalists who spent half an hour on the track posing for photos before racing, each clad in skimpy whiteT-shirt, lime green shorts - with emphasis on the 'short' - and wellies.

But despite that unexpected floorshow for early arrivals, it was still a miserable afternoon thanks to technological difficulties. When you drive for more than four hours to get here then find that wi-fi problems mean you cannot file anything and that you would have been better off staying at home you tend to reflect on the futility of existence.

In 'industrial' language - there were plenty of decidedly unhappy campers and I have to tell you that the BBC Radio racing correspondent has a much more colourful vocabulary than you'd guess from hearing him on air.

Things did not settle down until midway through the afternoon, by which time it was an occasion for tail-chasing rather than staid and steady analysis of the eve-of-Scottish National meeting.

At least The Knoxs played his part by winning, a feature-race success for Ruby Walsh on his first day back since he was stood down and had to miss the Grand National and on the eve of his tryst with ante-post favourite Harry The Viking in the Scottish National - as straightforward a story as you can ever hope for.

And the sun kept shining throughout, bringing out the poetic in at least one local.

Asked how the track was riding, Lucinda Russell's jockey Peter Buchanan said: "It is genuinely gorgeous good ground."

Advance bookings for tomorrow apparently hit a nine-year high and there was a big turnout today - though that may have owed as much to the attraction of the Human League playing after racing as any equine stars in action.