Tuesday

We head off to Cheltenham for three days of the festival. I'm with Neil and Dave, a childhood friend of mine who, unbelievably, gambles sums that make me scared. Cheltenham means only a few things: boozing, betting, staring at women and sleep deprivation. We get to our home for the next 3 days the Bat and Ball pub, in the village of Churchdown. It's a dirty, poor excuse of a place to stay, but the landlord and landlady Sean and Angie are really friendly, albeit unhygienic and permanently drunk. The place has a touch of Fawlty Towers about it, although instead of a Spanish waiter there is a rather obese lady doing the grub.

After breakfast and a couple of vodka red bulls to liven the mind we head to the course for the first day. Early impressions show crowds are lower, although the number of touts is not. By my maths they are going to have a hard day selling £15 tickets to people when tickets haven't sold out yet. My afternoon is one of my better punting days. I win £600 on the first race, Arcalis winning at 25-1. An early nomination for quote of the week from Dave: "Graham Lee is a c**t of a jockey", the same Graham Lee who is in the top five jockeys in the country and promptly rides Arcalis to easy victory.

Paul Carberry - "a c***"

Another 8-1 winner, yielding £240 profit, plus a second and third take my profit for the day to £850. Ashley Brook comes second at 20-1, but for a bad jump at the last he would have won. Brave Inca gets beaten two heads in the Champion Hurdle - but the ride on the second on Harchibald brings much debate. Paul Carberry sits motionless after jumping the last, and rides his horse fully seven strides from the line, and manages to get beat. Although knowledgeable enough to know the horse is a monkey that doesn't like being whipped, I could understand the anger directed towards him. This ranged from Neil stating "that Carberry is a c**t" (notice the c word is not confined solely to members of the St Anne's Allstars cricket club), to an irate, slightly inebriated pikey running fully 50 yards to the big screen shouting "that's a fucking disgrace" and other words in a language that I couldn't understand, spilling most of his pint in the process. Given the fact he probably only had £2 each way on the horse, was it worth getting that angry and spilling his £3 pint?

Kelami wins under a great ride from Chocolate Thornton (named after the chocolate gift shop - don't you just love crazy nicknames). I'm still in the placepot at this point, although next comes the cross country chase, the new race where horses run up banks and jump poles; riveting stuff. I ask Neil to cut both my hands off if I even attempt to bet on the race. My horse comes sixth, having needed to come fourth. The last leg of the placepot comes in, so I end up missing out by 1 race. I prayed it wouldn't pay too much, knowing how close I came to winning. My jaw dropped when I realise I would have won nearly fifteen grand for my £2 stake. I spent the next half an hour acting like a Tourette's child, swearing and twitching at every turn.

We head to Cheltenham for evening beers. We end up going lapdancing, despite my reluctance to watch cheap Birmingham teenagers dance around fat old men for under a score. We get back to the Bat and Ball, where the bar shuts when Sean goes to bed (if indeed he does). This night ends with me falling asleep in my pint of Stella at around 12am; not my best effort.

Wednesday

Wake up with a Stella hangover, which is promptly fixed by vodka red bull and breakfast. I'm on a high as I'm winning, and am sweet on Moscow Flyer in the day's big race.

Gary Wiltshire - 27 stone

The day's punting again goes fairly well. I back No refuge at 17-2, which yields £170 profit, though Cornish Rebel only comes third. Moscow Flyer opens 6/4 so I wedge in with £200 to win £300. I place the bet with Gary Wiltshire, the face of Totesport. He is a bit of a celebrity bookie, famous for going bankrupt when Frankie Dettori had his magnificent seven at Ascot. He is also just as famous for weighing 27 stone. He looks even heavier in the flesh, and makes me look like Kate Moss. I proceed to win my bet and await my £500 in crisp £50 notes. What I get is 5 minutes of scraping for notes from the bottom of his satchel, while he pays me in every denomination possible. I swear he would have paid me in one pound notes if he could. Suddenly £500 looks like about five grand. Neil says I should "report the fat c**t as he is a disgrace to bookmaking". In mitigation he does look quite ill - I put this down to him being so fat that he can't stand up all afternoon without being puffed out.

I lose on the last three races, which includes my inspired £150 wager on Karanja in the bumper. I backed this when it won its last race, and am convinced of a good run. I get 13-2, and it is backed into 5-1. The tapes go up, my horse turns the other way and chucks her woman jockey out the side. I refrained from being sexist, as she did have a winner the previous day. Even so that meant £150 went down in about three seconds. Although I was now in profit by about a bag of sand (one thousand pounds to you non-cockneys) I was gutted that she fell off. Neil and Dave have their second losing day in a row, though credit to Dave for not wading in big bets like he usually does.

Moscow Flyer - worth £300

Wednesday evening and we stay in the Bat and Ball all night. First up Liverpool v Blackburn, where I back Morientes first goal, and other bets on 2-0 and 3-0. It's the worst game of Premiership football I have seen for about ten years (even allowing for the fact I support Palace). Liverpool have one tame shot on goal, which was from the centre back Pellegrino, in the whole game. I make a note not to back Liverpool again for a while.

I shoot some pool with a group of lads who are also staying in the pub. They are south London wideboys, full of chat. One of them is about 16, fully kitted up in Stone Island gear, and mangos to saying f**king every third word. To shut the c**t up I beat him, and then all of his mates one by one. We then proceed to drink until 4am. Discussions included an interesting chat about racism, where we unsurprisingly discover that landlord Sean is a complete bigot; although this seems consistent with most country people over the age of 40.

Thursday

Thursday ends up the day I bust most of my profit back - £700 to be precise. I don't come remotely close to winning, and wish I'd shown some more self control. The day also sees Dave upping the Ante, and two £200 bets go down. Neil finally wins about £150, though we do have a good day all round.

We heard a stirring performance of Is This the Way to Amarillo? in the Guinness tent. I first heard the song on Peter Kay's Phoenix Nights, and still have the lyrics as one of my favourites on my PC. Cheltenham sees Amarillo become Pikey anthem of the year; you are unable to walk 20 yards without someone singing it. Although the number of pikeys has seriously got on my tits all week I let them off with this as I love the song. I only wish I had the lyrics with me so I could teach some of them the correct words.

Tony Christie - popular with pikeys

We end up in Yates' in the evening - not a choice of mine. It is really busy, and within two minutes Neil is close to having a ruck. Some numpty keeps bumping into him, so there is a bit of a standoff, but we move away. The rest of the evening sees me getting very agitated and moody (anyone who knows me will say - what's new?), and Dave and Neil cracking onto two women. Dave's choice turns out to be "a moody c**t" (his words), while Neil spends the best part of five hours thawing in more bids than Ebay to pull his bird. The kitchen sink has gone in, and to be fair he gets quite far, until her boyfriend phones and alerts her he's lost his keys and is waiting outside their house. Neil accepts defeat not before some more bids going in.

We get back to the Bat and Ball at 2am, where everyone is still up. One other group of lads walk in; turns out they've had the placepot up ("jammy c**ts" is the collective groan in unison). Two of them then start trying to beat the shit out of each other. Neil and Dave think it's me having a ruck so they get involved too, but I'm happily waiting at the bar for my drink. Everything calms down, and we go to bed about 5am. We get up next morning and everyone else is still there, playing poker and still drinking. Time to leave them to it and go home.

Overall net result is £300 profit, which I promptly bust (and more) on the Friday watching on television. Neil has lost about £300, and Dave, having been so careful, ends up busting about £1500.

Roll on next year.