Busy Time

I'm very busy at work at the moment and I'm struggling to find time to look after my blog. Betfair radio launched on Monday - I did a guest slot and I'm doing another tomorrow. I like the team and it's entertaining. Being internet radio it has quite a time delay which is not ideal - we will try to find ways to reduce this.

On Monday night I went to a business conference in London staged by Ariadne Capital. I chatted to a winning owner of the Melbourne Cup, the CEO of Saxobank and the founder of a lingerie sales website (www.becheeky.com). There's nothing like a bit of variety. There was a panel discussion which was interesting - one of the panelists told us that the US economy is set to collapse under the weight of it's bond position with China and that the Euro is unsustainable and is sure to break up at some point. These are not cranky assertions - I've heard similar views from expert commentators before and I have my own opinions - but the subject of an imminent global economic collapse is not for my blog. I headed home in the early hours.

On Tuesday after work I headed up to Leeds and checked into a hotel - from there on Wednesday I made my way to Timeform house in Halifax for an early start. It was Timeform's 60th birthday, and Princess Anne was paying a visit - I had a short chat with her. She comes across as very straightforward and unaffected, and very switched on. I was surprised that she knew all about Betfair and had read about our acquisition of Timeform in the business pages. I shouldn't have been surprised - perhaps I'm hanging on to my childhood image of princesses as people who sit around in ivory towers having their toenails manicured all day, but that clearly isn't the case. I presented her with a cheque for the St. John Ambulance.

I stuck around for a while and had a good chat with Jim McGrath and Kieran Packman about horses and potential angles for finding success before heading home.

Mon Michel is down to run at Newbury on Friday, and I will go if I can find the time.