A Little Flutter 1

My horse came second in our work Grand National sweepstake. The £14 winnings offset the loses from my proper bets on the race: those nags finished 5th and fell five fences from home.

I do like the Grand National. As a pure horse race it's not very good -- it's more like a cavalry charge than a race -- but it has enough grandeur and English eccentricity to make it a marvellous spectacle. With over 500 million people watching it live worldwide, it ranks as one of the world's great annual sporting occasions.

Aintree ignored this fact for many years, but I've noticed over the last couple of outings that the race course organisers have been making more of an effort to promote the race and make it feel more "British" for the 400m Chinese madly gambling on it: They have employed some awful opera singers to sing God Save the Queen and a miltary brass band -- full monty red uniforms with white feathers in their caps -- to trumpet the start of the race.

There's also the glamour factor: this year the Celebrity Tent included the cast of Hollyoaks and John Parrot.



A Little Flutter 2

Far more exciting was what happened last night.

Let's try an experiment:

Put your right hand flat -- and palm face-down -- onto the table.
Place your left hand over the right, so that the middle joint of your right index finger sits beneath the centre of your left hand palm.
Now try to flex your right index finger.
The slight pressure and movement is remarkably similar to what I experienced last night when Louis squirmed and wriggled about in Vics tummy.

It was the first time (externally) that we could feel him moving around.

Very cool and very exciting!