General / Jack Houghton / 04 October 2008 / 2 Comments

In the midst of his self-imposed betting moratorium, financial melt-down and a shock comeback, Jack Houghton takes solace in the shipping forecast and yearns for the return of a great horse.

Friends view it as an example of mild OCD (or CDO as I like to call it; it's alphabetical), but I can't get to sleep without listening to Radio 4. It all stems from a period of insomnia in my early 20s. Booze, pills, sheep. Nothing worked. And not surprising maybe. You try sharing your bed with a sheep.

Then I discovered the Radio 4 Shipping Forecast: the ultimate sleep inducer. Ever since, Radio 4 has been my trusted companion on a daily journey from Wakefield to Bedfordshire.

And in the last few weeks, it's proved a surreal experience. First, my half-wake, half-sleep brain heard Lance Armstrong was coming out of retirement. Surely I didn't hear that right? Lance cycling competitively again would be the equivalent of Giant's Causeway being released from stallion duties to race. They've both put on a few pounds and, okay, Lance may have run a few marathons, but it's not as if Giant's Causeway hasn't kept himself active. Parts of himself anyway.

On the same day, I was told the big bang was to be recreated the following morning in a 17 mile-long tunnel under the Alps and that, according to some commentators, it might generate a black hole which would suck the Alps into it. That would be a bummer for Lance. He always did well in the Alps. It would be a shame if, having announced his comeback, the Alps - and indeed the world - ceased to exist for Lance.

But then maybe the world as we know it is coming to an end anyway? An expert is talking about the parallels between our current economic woes and the Great Depression. It seems the over-availability of cheap credit in the 1920s led to businesses being unable to cope with an ensuing price deflation. He doesn't really explain how this tallies with the inflationary prices we are experiencing today, but nonetheless predicts impending financial doom. I doubt inflationary pressures are going to have a positive affect on things, so although I disagree with his argument, his conclusion seems valid. Doom it will be.

I wonder what will happen politically? After the Great Depression, some countries found their Prozac in the new right, others in the new left. And although their intentions were different, the method of solution - state-led economic control - was much the same.

Fearing a New Deal-esque nationalisation and government spending spree, some neo-conservative politicians have been keen to make pre-emptive strikes, saying we shouldn't overreact and throw out all the good things that happened as economies liberalised in the 1970s. The thing they don't mention is it was those changes in the 70s which removed various laws enacted in the 30s to stop banks behaving irresponsibly; as they had done prior to the Great Depression.

Someone else now is talking about the woes that face newly unemployed estate agents and investment bankers. There are lots of jibes about how no-one really cares and I start feeling a bit sorry for our pin-striped brethren. Take investment bankers. The mere mention of the term forces an image into my head of wide-chinned alpha males snorting cocaine off the naked bodies of nubile young girls, whilst screaming instructions to short-sell some stock across a pulsating trading floor. The image might not be entirely true-to-life, but nonetheless it's probably right that most investment bankers are fairly confident fellows: it's what makes them good at their jobs. Or should I say, made them good at their jobs. And the public at large finds it difficult to feel sorry for confident fellows.

What's this got to do with racing I hear you cry? Well... nothing. But I'm struggling to think about racing at the moment. What with my self-imposed betting moratorium, not sleeping much, and all this interesting stuff on Radio 4; it's just not very compelling at the moment. When you're faced with questions of how and when the world will end and, more importantly, whether Lance can really make a comeback; questions of the racing ilk seem somehow pedestrian and uninspiring. Unless I was told Giant's Causeway was making a comeback. That would be interesting.