|
DAVID CARR |
Weblog: What do you mean the Wi-Fi doesn't work? The life of a Racing Post reporter
Sven Goran Eriksson: may or may not be aware of 'spube' at Southwell
PICTURE: Getty ImagesUnspeakable - and untrue - revelations
NEVER rely on a single source? Or never let the facts get in the way of a good story? Oh the journalistic dilemma.
In fact it was fairly easy to resist the temptation to go with the apparent new - and slightly saucy - revelation about Southwell, nice though it would be to unearth one on my umpteenth visit.
Fairly easy because the source was the less-than-100-per-cent-reliable Wikipedia, which I stumbled on this morning and whose page on the racecourse has clearly been 'got at'.
No problem with its reference to local girl Hayley Turner or the suggestion that the Fibresand racing surface is 'quite deep and so makes the track a good stamina test'.
Shakier ground comes with the claim that: "As Fibresand is a mixture of sand and wispy fibres it is sometimes referred to as "spube", this being derived from the "s" of sand and the resemblance of a kind of human hair."
An assertion which was news to anyone and everyone. And which smelt even fishier after I Googled the word 'spube'.
Please, please, please don't do it yourself.
There are some things you are better off not knowing about and that certainly includes a practice which,according to the 'Urban Dictionary', is very popular in Eastern Germany but which was new to me.
A definite late-night affair, entirely inappropriate on an ultra-early-evening card - we got under way at 4.40pm with the finale at just 7.40pm as the nights start to draw in.
The prompt start did not prevent a healthy turnout, whose number included Sven-Goran Eriksson, here with his Leicester City team on a night out deep in Nottingham Forest country.
He presented the prize for the fifth race and was happy to do an interview, sign autographs and pose for pictures.
But he does not win the award for the most charming grey-haired personality at Southwell tonight.
That goes to the delightful Penny Murch, who has dipped her toe into the racing world relatively late in life - she had never even been racing before this year. Yet there was no mistaking the girlish glee as she greeted her first winner as an owner.
I apologised that I had to ask for her age and she was as unfussily down to earth as you would expect for a farmer in replying: "I am 70 but you can put another nought on the end if you like - I am not bothered."
Comments