Screen on the Green prompts memories of a bygone betting era

If I believed in ghosts I might find Islington Green a suitable starting point for a thesis. Trendy, even chic it may be nowadays but in the 17th Century it was used as a plague pit - a little-known fact unlikely to trouble those queuing outside the Screen on the Green, which has always put on interesting programmes.

I saw To Have and Have Not there in 1971; Bogart and Bacall falling in love on Martinique. Ernest Hemingway might not have recognised the plot from his novel but it had Hoagy Carmichael tickling the ivories in a smoky night club - the sort of thing we need more of today, if you ask me.

I was wandering past the Green on Thursday, pondering a Tote place-only bet on Who Dares Wins - good name for a horse, good motto for a gambler - at Huntingdon. There is a single betting shop, a William Hill, on that part of Upper Street close to the Angel and I'd have been paid out at 2-1 for third but I seem to have lost a bit of impetus betting-wise and was thinking about Archie Rice.