World War and World Cup: the great divide between punting and popular opinion

If you're a punter of any seriousness for any length of time, you come to realise that you're a little bit different from everybody else; you see the world slightly differently, your priorities don't quite tally with those of the people around you and, if truth be told, you find it relatively easy to set your principles aside if there's a betting opportunity to be had.

I remember realising this many years ago when I was on a tube train in London and glimpsed a headline on the front page of the Evening Standard that read: 'Race clashes hit Windsor.' Fearing that the Monday evening card at the royal track was about to be disrupted, I dashed off to buy a copy of the paper, only to discover that the problem involved serious violent disturbances between ethnic groups in the town. Imagine my relief.

Weather reports are another thing. My wife watches them religiously every night, perhaps monitoring the impact of global warming, more likely to help her decide which hat to wear the next day or to ascertain the optimum time for lawn mowing. Me, I couldn't care less what the weather's going to be – reckoning a quick peek round the door before leaving the house will suffice – until an ante-post betting race appears on the horizon, at which point I watch every TV forecast and scour the internet hourly for either insight or reassurance, hoping for a live video feed from the clerk of the course's mobile phone.