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Horseracing happens literally every day of the year - which is why
unique and unusual events are almost commonplace in the Sport of
Kings, Queens and commoners, even when that day in designed to fool
you - as many felt was the case when, on 1 April 1929, a jockey
named Frank Wise didn't live up to his name as he was unwise enough
to ride in the Irish Grand National with only one leg and minus the
tops of three fingers - yet he and his mount, Alike, won the race.
Then there was the race meeting at which two dates combined when
Good Friday fell on Boxing Day - literally - with the horse of that
name taking a tumble at Wolverhampton on 26 December 1899. Make a
note in your diary to buy yourself or your racing relatives and
friends Graham Sharpe's latest book, containing literally hundreds
more similarly notable, memorable, racey stories for every single
day of the year. All the stories in The Racing Post Horseracing On
This Day have been expertly researched and this book is a must-have
for any fans of horseracing
After a 40-year career taking the bets that no one else would take
for William Hill after expanding the company's offerings to its
customers beyond purely sporting contests, in Strange Stuff Graham
Sharpe chronicles the weirdest, oddest, strangest, craziest antics
and events to happen on racecourses to horses, jockeys, trainers,
owners, bookies and racegoers over the years. His previous titles
include biographies of arch-eccentric racehorse owner Dorothy
Paget, whose horses won the Grand National, Gold Cup, Champion
Hurdle and Derby; and William Hill, who founded his eponymous
company in 1934, when he was betting on-course and transforming the
bookmaking scene. His Magnificent Seven chronicled the story of
Frankie Dettori's greatest day, when he almost single-handedly
bankrupted the country's biggest bookies. In his latest book you'll
find hundreds of stories and unusual racing facts to dip in and out
of, making this the perfect gift for any horse racing fan, and it
is sure to appeal to young and old alike.
Miscellaneous matters are what keep us fascinated by what's going
on around us while we indulge our own favourite interests. If one
of those interests happens to be horseracing, then The Racing Post
Horseracing Miscellany, full of marvellously magnificent moments -
many magically memorable - from racing's several centuries of
excellent equine existence, and an amazing, amusing, absorbing
collection of little-known jockey japes, trainer and turf trivia,
owner observations, punter punditry and bookie banter, is a book
you will love. Every race meeting produces winners and also-rans,
but every off-beat, intriguing story chronicled in this cornucopia
of course and distance action will be an odds-on favourite with
racegoers young and old. As the title suggests, you'll find
literally thousands of little-known, unexpected yarns, tales and
stories from the off to the finish line; the starting stalls to the
winning post, the first to the last page. And you can bet it's an
odds-on shot you'll know you have really backed a winner.
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Vinyl Countdown (Paperback)
Graham Sharpe; Foreword by Danny Kelly
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R771
R627
Discovery Miles 6 270
Save R144 (19%)
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'You hold in your hand a miracle. A book about a passion, and the
hipsters, oddballs and old heads who share it, written by one of
their number, albeit a ludicrously erudite one' - Danny Kelly A
revival of interest in vinyl music has taken place in recent years
- but for many of those from the 'baby boomer' generation, it never
went away. Graham Sharpe's vinyl love affair began in the 1960s and
since then he has amassed over 3000 LPs and spent countless hours
visiting record shops worldwide along with record fairs, car boot
sales, online and real life auctions. After leaving his job at
William Hill, his retirement dream was to visit every surviving
secondhand record shop across the world. Whilst Graham still has a
little way to go on his travels, Vinyl Countdown follows his
journey to over a hundred shops across the globe including the many
characters he has encountered and the adventures he accrued along
the way. From Amsterdam and Angus (Scotland), to Bedfordshire and
Budapest and Tennessee and Wellington (NZ), always returning to his
local record shop Second Scene in Bushey to report on progress.
Vinyl Countdown seeks to reawaken the often dormant desire which
first promoted the gathering of records, and to confirm the belief
of those who still indulge in it, that they happily belong to, and
should celebrate the undervalued, misunderstood significant group
of music-obsessed vinylholics, who always want - need - to buy...
just one more record. Vinyl Countdown is a mesmerising blend of
memoir, travel, music and social history that will appeal to anyone
who vividly recalls the first LP they bought and any music fan who
derives pleasure from the capacity that records have for
transporting you back in time.
"A planet-stomping space opera that bursts off the page like a
tactical nuke."
-John Birmingham, author of Weapons of Choice"
"
The Hammer Worlds-the most brutal and oppressive interstellar
government in the universe-have hijacked the Federated Worlds
cruise ship Mumtaz, seizing its valuable terraforming cargo and
damning its passengers to mining the moons of the prison planet
known as Hell.
For Junior Lieutenant Michael Helfort and the crew aboard deep
space scout vessel 387, the mission is clear: infiltrate enemy
territory, locate the Mumtaz, and rescue the prisoners.
The odds are appalling, and the damage will probably be fatal, but
victory is nonnegotiable-especially for Helfort, whose mother and
sister were on the Mumtaz.
And Michael Helfort will be damned if he'll let his family rot on
the moons of Hell.
At one point in her life, Dorothy Paget was described by journalist
Quintin Gilbey, as `so much in the public eye that she became,
apart from royalty, the best-known woman in the land.' Synonymous
with Golden Miller, perhaps the greatest racehorse ever to jump a
fence, Paget ploughed fortunes into racing and breeding, buying -
despite never visiting - the Ballymacoll Stud in Ireland. She also
happened to be the biggest gambler ever to walk the turf. Living an
eccentric lifestyle, she would spend most of the day in bed and
rise at night, placing bets with bookmakers and their staff,
specifically employed for these late night duties. She was even
allowed to place bets on races that had already been run the
previous day. This long overdue telling of the life of an
extraordinary, larger-than-life character is now available in
paperback.
Prostate cancer really is the little understood male killer. 1 in 8
UK males will be diagnosed with prostate cancer, more than 130 new
cases are discovered each day and, on average, one man dies from
the disease every 45 minutes. Despite these statistics, and the
fact that there are getting on for half a million men living with,
or in remission from, prostate cancer in the UK, the condition is
rarely discussed publicly and most men ignore the warning signs.
Graham Sharpe wants to help change that. Faced with a sudden and
unexpected diagnosis, Graham managed - just - to overcome a desire
to punch the medic charged with the task of telling him he had
prostate cancer but who was keener to answer his mobile phone, and
set about trying to catalogue what he went through en route to
acquiring the condition and how he dealt with the grinding process
of his treatment, despite having no idea of the ultimate outcome.
Along the way he met and befriended many others undergoing the
physical and mental stresses of treatment, emotional turmoil
comparable with watching their favourite football team lose every
game they play. In this intimate memoir charting his own personal
experience of coming to terms with prostate cancer, Graham brings
humour and a light touch to a serious subject. Combating the
shortage of reading material written by anyone with direct personal
experience of the disease, this book seeks to educate the ignorant,
raise awareness of the risks and dispel myths - including the
widely held belief that the name of the disease is in fact
prostrate cancer. Here's one man's personal truth about getting,
having and possibly surviving prostate cancer...
It was insane, it was suicidal, it was wrong--
and by God he was going to do it.
The Hammer Worlds have Helfort exactly where they want him. The
ultimatum is brutal and precise. Unless the Federated hero
surrenders, the Hammer World's prisoner Anna Cheung--the only woman
Helfort has ever loved--will be handed over to a bunch of depraved
troopers to be violated, then executed by firing squad.
Helfort can obey, or he can do what the crew proposes: sail his
three frontline dreadnoughts into the Hammers' stronghold
Commitment Planet, liberate Anna and the rest of the POWs held
captive there, and continue the fight in the jaws of the enemy.
Helfort's decision? Bring it on!
If he survives, hell just may freeze over.
The savage Hammer Worlds are not only near invincible but almost
certain to win their war to crush the Federated Worlds and control
humanspace-unless the Feds can find and destroy their secret
antimatter warhead facility.
Only dreadnoughts, the lone Federated ships able to withstand
antimatter missile attacks, can do the job, and only Lieutenant
Michael Helfort has the skill to lead them. But skill may not be
enough, because Helfort is more than the newly appointed captain:
He's a hero, and this means that his own senior officers want him
to fail-and that the enemy's kingpin wants him dead.
Helfort's early victories merely intensify everyone's
determination. No action is too low, no price too high, to bring
him down-with treachery, or betrayal, or an offer he can't refuse,
even if it means selling out his own side.
He thought Hell was the worst they could throw at him.
He was wrong.
Back from tangling with the Hammer of Kraa, the most brutal,
trigger-happy tyrants in humanspace, Junior Lieutenant Michael
Helfort is assigned to the Federated Worlds heavy cruiser Ishaq,
which is struggling to rise to the threat posed by a newly
resurgent Hammer. Aboard the floundering ship, Helfort is coming to
grips with a painful injury and the unpleasant truth that nobody
likes a young hero-least of all senior officers.
Without warning, the Ishaq and twenty-seven Fed merchant ships are
blown apart in a horrific ambush, the first step in the Hammer's
master strategy to destroy the hated Federated Worlds. Michael and
a pitiful remnant of the Ishaq's crew escape the inferno. The Feds
have no idea who's behind the heinous attack, and the Hammer are
determined to keep it that way, consigning the Ishaq's survivors to
a prison camp deep in the wilderness of the Hammer's home planet.
No one's getting out alive to derail the Hammer's lethal master
plan-especially not the FedWorlds hero who so humiliated them on
the battlefield. It's payback time, and the Hammers intend to throw
their entire space fleet into destroying Michael Helfort and the
Federated Worlds.
Too bad it won't be enough.
A Racing Ready Reckoner One of the most comprehensive and useful
ready reckoners ever published and, with a simple guide to settling
bets which explains the short cuts and systems used by the
professional bet settler, there is no bet that a Gentleman should
not be able to calculate himself. This handy guide covers: �
The settlement of all standard bets such as Singles, Doubles,
Trebles, Accumulators, forecasts and much more � Details on
how to calculate the newer and more esoteric bets � Short
cuts to settling your bets � Chart which shows odds as a
percentage � Achieving Value for Money � How to make
a 'book' � Tic Tac 'sign language' chart of all the major
prices - know what the bookies are 'saying' � Full glossary
of bets and betting terms
"Essential Poker" is a long overdue compilation of the brightest,
daftest, most memorable and, above all, most entertaining comments
ever made about the remarkably popular, and enduring game of Poker.
In its 150 or so years of existence, Poker has fascinated some of
the world's great thinkers, great gamblers and great personalities,
many of whom have found something pithy, funny, helpful, original
and quotable to say about this deceptively simple yet perennially
absorbing game whose raison d'etre is man's obsession with beating
the odds, the fates and the opponent opposite at the card table.
These bons mots about poker will not make you a better player, nor
a better person. But they may make you a better bettor, and will
certainly provide you with a veritable royal flush of poker
pleasure. Nothing can match the thrill, drama and sheer joie de
vivre of playing poker - but this book captures the essence and
spirit of the world's greatest gambling game and lays it out for
all to see - just like the greatest winning hand you ever drew. And
that's not bluffing.
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