It’s the end of the year and 2009 will be daunting for many of us. Scanning the newspapers this morning there’s little to encourage and much to make us wish for the year to hurry by and bring on 2010. Then, like a little oasis of joy, fellow sports betting friends, in the middle of all the gloom, are a couple of pages that every year I grab and scuttle off to read. They are this year’s Sporting Calendar.
Arguably X Factor has managed to recover from the outrage and disaffection caused by the early expulsion of Laura and Diana and the show ended on Saturday with Alexandra crowned as this years winner. Doubtless the debacle caused by the loss of a fourth contender in the semi finals of Strictly Come Dancing will also be ironed out and forgotten in the final this coming Saturday. The absence of John Sergeant, who voluntarily retired for the show a couple of weeks ago, has brought a voting anomaly to light and forced the programmes producers to allow all three remaining semi-finalists free passage to the final.
BBC Sports personality of the Year betting, X Factor betting and Strictly Come Dancing betting - the one thing all these TV show contests have in common is the unpredictability of the public vote. Through the years, online betting fans have perhaps become overly influenced by the betting odds and presumed that the bookies favourite was usually a dead cert to win. But just look at the last few weeks - hot faves, Laura and Diana have been turfed off the X Factor, Rebecca Adlington has unseated front-runner, Lewis Hamilton on the BBC Sports Personality Stakes and now Austin Healey, the judge’s red hot darling from day one on Strictly, has been given his marching orders.
Is it possible for an artist to reach the No 1 position in the charts this Christmas time and NOT be the X-Factor winner? Judging previous form it looks highly doubtful. The last 3 years has seen the singing contest, X-Factor, claim the Christmas No 1 position. In 2004, we had the Band Aid upgrade take the title and you need to go back to 2003 with Michael Andrews remake of ‘Mad World’ for the last real competitive year when the Christmas No 1 betting was an open race.
Will it be a White Christmas this 2008? Well according to the weathermen and the bookies there is a very likely chance it will happen. But where? Betting on the weather is a favourite pastime in the UK and none-more-so than at Christmas time. Everybody wants the white fluffy stuff to fall on Christmas Day, it makes things even more special. It’s time to have a ponder and guess which major city in the UK will have snow this Christmas.
