Paperjam

This weekend has been a particularly difficult one, well it might have been. I got so drunk on Friday night that I can't remember very much at all - although I am informed that a cocktail known as "The Stepfather" played some sort of role.

Saturday was therefore mostly spent in bed with severe hangover anxiety and the dreadful knowledge that virtually everyone I know was smugly stretching their hamstrings in order to do the Two Castles run. I ran twice to the toilet, but I'm not sure that there is much of a comparison.

Luckily sporting redemption was at hand in the form of the revived paper-jam gambling challenge. Two years ago I completely failed to win a single bet during the course of the world cup - a feat described by some observers as "Statistically improbable" and by others as "Proof that you are the unluckiest person that I have ever fucking met".

Anyway, with the European championships kicking off this weekend I rapidly allocated myself £50 to speculate on the next 19 days of footy in an attempt to either redress the balance after last time or get into the Guinness book of records as the most inept gambler of all time.

Kicking things off was a double on the Czech Republic and Turkey to win their opening fixtures, while I also backed Turkish Striker Tuncay to begin the scoring against Portugal.

The Czechs did their part albeit due to an unconvincing sliced-shinned effort that (former division 2 golden boot winner) Mark Bright hilariously described as "A good finish".

Unfortunately Turkey didn't really set the world on fire against Portugal, aside from the surprisingly accomplished Colin Kazim-Richards, their man of the match was probably the crossbar.

Oh well, three quid down and forty-seven to go. On the plus side Malc's ancient herbal hangover cure of pizza, lager and jazz cigarettes did sort my hangover out.

I've set up an exciting Google spreadsheet to record my fiscal downfall over the next few weeks, you can find it at http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=psx3zVzHb7nEzr43-g5QbUA&hl=en - I will sort out some sort of graph when I have lost some more money and the visual impact will be greater.

Cursing my luck at not sticking a few quid on David Villa for top scorer before he took the piss out of Russia, I stumbled into Betfred this afternoon to continue what you would have to describe as a fiscal downward spiral.

My aimless guesswork led to me sticking:
- a quid on not-quite-good-enough-to-play-for-Brazil-but-still-not-bad Deco for the opening goal at 16/1.
- another quid on the Czechs to be leading at half-time but Portugal to eventually win, because the odds were high.
- 2 pounds on Nihat to open the scoring for Turkey against the Swiss, the logic being that he appeared to be the lone striker in their last game.
- a quid on Turkey and Switzerland to draw - because they both look boring as fuck so far, odds are 11/2.

Amazingly Deco managed to scramble one home at the start of the first game, a moment that caused ne to exclaim "FUCKING YES! GET IN! SIXTEEN QUID!" while still sat at my desk in the office and supposed to be doing some work.

Now lounging on the sofa and watching the swimming gala masquerading as the second match this evening I have already missed out on the NIhat bet due to some terrible goalkeeping and an assist from a puddle allowing the swiss to get in front. Having dried up a bit the Turks have started to play a bit and OH YES just pulled level.

What I want now is thirty five minute of dull lifeless midfield drudgery. but its more likely to be a seven goal, four sendings-off thriller. It will all be updated here, either way.

So far the whole gambling thing has been going reasonably well, I've won now and again and even seem to be a few quid up.

Its all a bit dull though really so to liven things up I am going to use different techniques to guess the results of the knockout rounds. To this end I have procured an 18-month old child, lets call her "Maya" - I am hoping that this little girl is going to make me rich beyond my wildest dreams Mwa haaa haaa haaaa etc.

As she wouldn't stop crying about something or other yesterday I couldn't get a result out of her for the Germany-Portugal game. However now I've turned the music down and slipped her a couple of gins she has picked out the following treble for the other quarter finals:

Turkey to beat Croatia (Hmmm, I know she isn't 2 yet but even so this seems naive)

Holland to beat Russia

Italy to beat Spain

In Ladbrokes they asked what the gurgling and crying noises were coming out of my bag, I explained it away as a new trend in executive ringtones and bunged £5 on the whole lot coming in. It will be £97 if they all come in, so pints/rusks all round, or I'm going to trade the kid in for a pack of Tarot cards.