Sunday 28 September 2008

Graeme Dand - Situational Irony

My attempt at some humour at the end of last week seems to have upset a couple of people.

For the record, I have 'known' Graeme Dand for many months, and followed his progress in the early days with a lot of interest. As his focus is horse-racing, and mine isn't, a lot of his posts were not of too much interest to be honest, but the impression I got was that he knew his stuff. When he offered his one month free trial, I was curious to see how he did, and as we all know, it wasn't exactly his best month.

The point of my post was simply to highlight the situational irony* of starting to charge for a service (and attracting subscribers) after a disappointing free-trial period. In an attempt at humour, I linked this to my on-going opposition to the Premium Charge which, not so amusingly for me, will reduce my profits quite significantly on here. Perhaps in hindsight my sarcasm there was a little over the top and unnecessary.

Anyway, the post was not intended as a criticism of Graeme's horse racing knowledge nor of his subscription service.

This blog is about Betfair and gambling and is a place for me to comment on how I see things. If I see humour or irony out there, I will comment on it. Graeme's friend Andrew feels that the blog should be to do with 'creating a community' which sounds very serious, and presumably means 'don't say anything that might upset someone' but my blog is "Musings on Backing, Laying, Greening-Up and Other Goings On in the Betfair World Of Sports Investing" and will continue to be that.

I shall continue to read Graeme's blog and wish him every success with his venture.

http://theexperiment-self-indulgentbullshit.blogspot.com/ http://theformanalyst.co.uk/

* Situational irony is the disparity of intention and result: when the result of an action is contrary to the desired or expected effect.

6 comments:

Graeme Dand said...

Hi Cassini.

As you know, I wasn't too upset as I can definitely see the irony of the month and the fact I'm trying to start something off the back of my worst month this year.

I've replied to your comment on my blog although it's another long post, so not finished writing it yet! lol

Cheers for the support and good luck with the new premium charge! If I can find some winners, it may hit me and my subscribers soon I hope....

G

The Value Bettor said...

Robert,
Graeme suggested that I came back to your blog to see what you had written…
If your intention was simply to be ironic, then I take back my comments. In truth, your post didn’t read completely like that; however I know from personal experience that it’s not always as easy as it seems to get across the message you intend, with just the written word – especially if you are trying to incorporate ‘humour’…!
With regard to my previous comment (and maybe this just illustrates my previous point !) I wasn’t suggesting that you should try and create a community: just that you were part of a community (the blogging community). I’m sure that a large number of your readers are fellow bloggers and I simply felt that turning on one of your own (unfairly as well, IMO), was not a particularly nice thing for you to do…
Andrew.

Cassini said...

Andrew - blogs and e-mails can be tricky mediums in which to use subtle humour and sarcasm. What I meant to be a gentle bit of fun poking, seems to have been misunderstood by some people, though Graeme (to his credit) can see the funny side now.

Racereader said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Racereader said...

Hi Cassini

I would like to apologise for using your blog to vent my frustration. please delete the above post.

p.s I am now hooked on your blog it makes excellent reading.

regards Racey

Cassini said...

Thanks for the comment Racey. I have removed your comment as you requested. Keep reading!