The Hat-Trick

On Thursday afternoon, I was looking through Amazon's 99p deals on Kindle eBooks and came across one titled 'Mania'. Seeing that word made me stop to check whether it was a book about wrestling. I clicked on the cover to get a better look.

Nope. It's an autobiography written by Stuart 'Woody' Wood from the Bay City Rollers. 

I browsed on.

Later that night, I was in a name that tune trivia chatroom I play in and one of the people playing music happened to play a Bay City Rollers song for us to guess. I found it quite funny for one of the band's songs to come on a few hours after seeing that book.

Fast forward to yesterday morning

I received another free horse racing bet from Paddy Power. I could use the £1 to wager on any horse running at Epsom Downs on the Saturday card.

I did what I usually do with the free bets: I pick the first horse with a name which stands out to me. I have nothing to lose by doing that.

I looked through one race. Nada. I then clicked on the 2:40pm and one name caught my eye.

Bay City Roller!

After the coincidence of Thursday, it was a shoe-in. Four horseshoes-in at that.

I placed the bet and then went about my day. 

Oh, and I also told everybody at home about what I had done because I have been very fluky with these free bets lately.

By the afternoon, I had forgotten all about the bet. I came downstairs and my dad told me 'you're a lucky bugger'. 

Bay City Roller had won.

As always, I placed the bet each-way so I had a £6.88 return. 

I know hindsight is 20/20, but - after seeing the name of the horse which won the Epsom Derby - 'Christmas Day', I am quite sure I would have backed that name had I ventured further into the card.

But Bay City Roller it was. 

That was the third consecutive 'win' I've received from a Paddy Power free bet. All via the fluke of running with the first names which stood out.

Last month, I had been watching a video about Tommy Lister, who starred as Zeus in the Hulk Hogan movie - No Holds Barred. An hour or so later, when looking what to spend the £1 free bet on, I came across a horse named Zeus Olympios. 

It had a triple meaning to me. First, I had watched the Tommy 'Tiny' Lister clip on TAFKA Twitter earlier that day. Second - Zeus was one of my favourite Cardiff nightclubs during my misspent youth and third - I went to school with a couple of brothers with that surname.

The horse placed, so I won.. 35p! That's thirty-five pence from zilch.

The good run began with the craziest win, however. I wrote about it on April 12th, but I'll repeat it.

During Aintree, I was given a free £1 to wager on any of the races on the Friday meeting. Two names stood out, so I placed them in a 50p each-way double.

The horses were 'Jet to Vegas' and 'Indiana Jones'. The former stood out because it was a week before WrestleMania 42 from Las Vegas. You'll probably think I chose Indiana Jones because of the Harrison Ford character, but that's partially why. It's the nickname of the Indianapolis Colts' quarterback - Daniel Jones.

Jet to Vegas was 25/1 and Indiana Jones was 150/1. I genuinely didn't think they'd get anywhere, but....

....both placed returning me £185.

I'm now three for three in these free bets.

And very fluky.

A Match Made In Heaven II

Earlier today, I read that Taylor Swift and Kansas City Chiefs' tight end - Travis Kelce -  are planning to get married at Madison Square Garden.

Interesting choice. That was my first thought. 

My second:

I've actually seen a wedding from MSG!

Yep - us wrestling fans witnessed the nuptials of 'Macho Man' Randy Savage and Miss Elizabeth in the main event of SummerSlam 1991.

The ceremony was part of a double bill to end the World Wrestling Federation's summer extravaganza. 

Shortly before the wedding, Hulk Hogan and The Ultimate Warrior had beaten The Triangle of Terror (Sgt. Slaughter, General Adnan and Colonel Mustafa) in a handicap match refereed by Sid Justice. The bout was billed 'A Match Made in Hell'. Its counter - the wedding - was classed as 'A Match Made in Heaven'.

Everything went off without a hitch. Savage and Elizabeth were kayfabed married (they were a real-life husband and wife before the event). However, in the days which followed, WWF TV aired footage from the wedding reception. It was gate-crashed by Jake 'The Snake' Roberts and The Undertaker with the former having hidden a snake inside one of the presents Elizabeth opened.

Hopefully, if this MSG marriage does go ahead (and isn't tabloid gossip!), the couple will take care when opening their gifts.

Six Days

It's hard to believe that, this time next week, the 2026 World Cup would have started.

Over the past few days, I've thought about the last one. From late 2022. It genuinely seems like only a couple of years ago.

As I've written previous to today, I am unsure if I'm going to end up being all-in on the tournament this time. Some of the kick off times don't appeal to me at all. I feel like if I have to be invested, I need to watch everything I can. Those late games are simply not good for my body clock! 

(And yes, that last sentence was written by somebody who stays up late to watch WWE and NFL).

The good sign - I am writing about the World Cup with six days to kick off. I'm invested. Slightly.

2 New NFL-Inspired McCoy's Crisps In The Wild?

My friend showed me a photo of a couple of new NFL-themed The Real McCoy's crisps that are apparently on store shelves right now.

I've had a look on the KP website to get a promotional photo for this post, but I couldn't find anything other than that.

All I have seen is the person's photo holding two multipacks. One is a 'Yellow Mustard' flavour. The second is 'Hot Kick Ketchup'.

As you can likely tell, I'm intrigued. I've still found myself purchasing the two NFL-inspired flavours the company brought out last season - Buffalo Chicken Wings and Secret Burger Sauce - every now again.

KP is currently in the latter part of a three-year deal with the National Football League to be the 'Official Snack Partner of the UK and Ireland'. Last season, customers had a chance of winning tickets to Super Bowl as part of a promotion.

I'm going to keep a look out for the new flavours and will post an update once - if? - I do.

Pros And One Con Of WWE In Europe

I enjoy being able to watch WWE TV programmes whenever they're live in Europe. Well, apart from having to deal with the commercial breaks during Smackdown, but that's beside today's point.

So, yes, to clarify once more - I enjoy watching WWE when the shows air from Europe. It means I get to see everything happen in real time and not the following day.

BUT...

What I don't enjoy is said 'following day' when I keep thinking I've jumped a day because 'I watched Raw yesterday'. Same with Saturday last week. I thought it was Sunday after watching Smackdown on Friday.

I spent a lot of Tuesday thinking it was Wednesday. I even tore off  Tuesday's page on my desk calendar thinking it was June 3rd! 

How mad is that?

Oreo Turns 4

It's Oreo's unofficial birthday today. He turned 4.

We chose June 2nd because it's one month after mine and is in a perfect spot ahead of other family members' birthdays. We have my nephew's later this month, my dad's in July and then mum's is a month after that.

Works out well, if I say so myself. I think I've written enough about how much enjoyment it has been for me to have Oreo (And Squeak!) since they came here. He has kept me on my toes (in a good way!).

2 Tobys

Before I fell asleep last night, I tuned into the Neighbours 24/7 stream on YouTube to see which storylines were going on.

I surmise it was 1990 or so (the feed keeps going so far before starting back in 1989ish). Anyway, to cut a long story short, the scene I caught had Kerry and Toby Mangel watching Kerry's wedding to Joe Mangel on a video cassette.

The TV was playing actual clips of the episode. We didn't see much. Kerry commented to Toby something along the lines of 'look how nice you looked in your suit'.

It made me laugh out loud because it felt like an inside joke because the actor portraying Toby in those current scenes was not the actor who played him at the wedding.

I had to make sure, so checked out a video of the wedding immediately after watching that scene.

It turned out to be a good guess on my part.

The earlier version of Toby Mangel was played by Finn Greentree-Keane. He was in the role between 1988 and 1990. His replacement, Ben Guerens, took over in '90 and remained on the cast for three years.

I always recall seeing the then new Toby on a Children's BBC show. The programme  (I cannot recall what it was exactly) was in Australia on the Neighbours set and they showed some of the actors filming their scenes. One of the things being filmed was had Joe and Toby Mangel in their kitchen and it more or less gave away that a new Toby was on the horizon.

At the time, there was a huge gap between the Australian and UK screenings. I believe it was something like eighteen months at one point. If not more.

Other than last night's dip into the stream, I'm more or less done watching the feed. It's difficult to stick with it knowing that everything will repeat within a week or so.

It was fun while it lasted.