Can I Predict the Premier League? (31 Aug-1 Sept)

I'm back online, no thanks to Orange Broadband (EE) messing it up. I'll mention that saga another time.

Before I begin with this weekend's Premier League predictions, here is a recap on last weekend. For those who follow me on twitter I posted my predictions on my twitter feed. This is how I fared compared to Lawro's predictions.

Match	My Prediction	Lawro’s Prediction	Actual Result
Fulham vs. Arsenal	Arsenal Win	Draw (1-1)	Arsenal Win (3-1)
Everton vs. West Brown	Everton Win	Everton Win (2-1)	Draw (0-0)
Hull vs. Norwich	Draw	Draw (1-1)	Hull Win (1-0)
Newcastle vs. West Ham	Newcastle Win	Newcastle Win (2-1)	Draw (0-0)
Southampton vs. Sunderland	Draw	Southampton Win (2-0)	Draw (1-1)
Stoke vs. Crystal Palace	Stoke Win	Stoke Win (2-0)	Stoke Win (2-1)
Aston Villa vs. Liverpool	Liverpool Win	Liverpool Win (2-1)	Liverpool Win (1-0)
Cardiff vs, Man City	Man City Win	Man City Win (2-0)	Cardiff Win (3-2)
Tottenham vs. Swansea	Tottenham Win	Tottenham Win (2-0)	Tottenham Win (1-0)
Man Utd vs. Chelsea	Chelsea Win	Draw (1-1)	Draw (0-0)

Looks like Lawro could only get four out of ten match predictions correctly. While I manage to get one more with five.

Correct predictions by me = 9/20
Correct predictions by Lawro = 9/20

No Leader Sofa

Onto this weekend's matches. Due to Chelsea playing in the UEFA Super Cup, there are only nine matches. I will confess when I saw the fixture list, making these predictions were hard to call.

Match	My Prediction	Lawro’s Prediction	Actual Result
Man City vs. Hull	Man City Win	Man City Win (3-0)
Cardiff vs. Everton	Everton Win	Draw
Newcastle vs. Fulham	Newcastle Win	Newcastle Win (2-1)
Norwich vs. Southampton	Norwich Win	Norwich Win (2-0)
West Ham vs. Stoke	Draw	West Ham Win (2-1)
Crystal Palace vs. Sunderland	Crystal Palace Win	Crystal Palace Win (1-0)
Liverpool vs. Man Utd	Liverpool Win	Draw (1-1)
West Brom vs. Swansea	West Brom Win	West Brom Win (2-0)
Arsenal vs. Tottenham	Draw	Arsenal Win (2-1)

If you decide to be foolish and bet £1 and all nine predictions are correctly predicted by me then you will win £3,500.11. If  you go to what Lawro is predicting then you could win £2,174.48.

Can I Predict the Premier League? The Result (17-19 August 2013)

First batch of matches are over. Here is how myself and Lawro fared. Green indicates a correct prediction, red indicates a incorrect prediction.

Match	My Prediction	Lawro’s Prediction	Actual Result
Liverpool vs. Stoke City	Liverpool Win	Liverpool Win (1-0)	Liverpool Win (1-0)
Arsenal vs. Aston Villa	Arsenal Win	Arsenal Win (2-0)	Aston Villa Win (3-1)
Sunderland vs. Fulham	Draw	Draw (1-1)	Fulham Win (1-0)
West Brom vs. Southampton	West Brom Win	West Brom Win (2-1)	Southampton Win (1-0)
West Ham vs. Cardiff	Draw	West Ham Win (2-0)	West Ham win (2-0)
Norwich vs. Everton	Norwich Win	Norwich Win (2-1)	Draw (2-2)
Swansea vs. Man Utd	Draw	Draw (1-1)	Man Utd Win (4-1)
Crystal Palace vs. Tottenham	Tottenham Win	Tottenham Win (2-1)	Tottenham Win (1-0)
Chelsea vs. Hull	Chelsea Win	Chelsea Win (2-0)	Chelsea Win (2-0)
Man City vs Newcastle	Man City Win	Man City Win (2-0)	Man City win (4-0)

Apart from the disaster with the matches on Saturday (one correct prediction from seven). Everything has gone to plan.

Correct predictions by me = 4/10
Correct predictions by Lawro = 5/10

Pretty much even after the first weekend.

Chelsea play Aston Villa on Wednesday due to the Super Cup against Bayern Munich on 30th August. This won't count towards the prediction total but no doubt it will be a Chelsea Win.

Can I Predict the Premier League?

Going to start a not so interesting experiment. Simply because many people are doing it. Heck, there are websites dedicated to them. Over the last few seasons I tend to guess how football teams would fare head to head in England's highest football league. I will confess I did say to my ol'man (Manchester United fan) in March 2012 that Manchester City could win the league. Bookmakers had them at 25/1. Low and behold, Manchester City won the league by goal difference. My ol'man hates losing.

Therefore, over the coming months I will be predicting the outcome for each weekend. This is how it's all going to work,

- I am not a pundit, football expert or own/work for a bookmaker. I will be using intuition and instinct for each match prediction.
- For each match I will say whether the result is a home win, away win or a draw. Unlike Mark (Lawro) Lawrenson, I will not predict the score. Simply I am useless predicting correct scores. However, I will mention the score Lawro predicts.
- I will compare my predictions to Lawro for comparison. The following weekend or whenever, I will state how many matches I had a right/wrong prediction and how I am faring compared to Lawro.
- I will also be offering the accumulator odds from William Hill based on a £1 stake. However, I must stress gambling can be mugs game and to read the Gamble Aware website etc... Also my predictions will not be 100% correct otherwise I am in the wrong job.
- I can confirm some bookmakers are offering cash out/cash in schemes. Where you can leave with less your original stake if everything goes wrong. However, if everything goes your way you can bank your winnings early at a fraction of your estimated returns but do you hold your nerve and win it all? It's basically Football Deal or No Deal.

My predictions were made on Tuesday 13th August. Mark Lawrenson's first set of predictions was published on the BBC website after 6pm on Friday 16th August.

Match	My Prediction	Lawro’s Prediction	Actual Result
Liverpool vs. Stoke City	Liverpool Win	Liverpool Win (1-0)
Arsenal vs. Aston Villa	Arsenal Win	Arsenal Win (2-0)
Sunderland vs. Fulham	Draw	Draw (1-1)
West Brom vs. Southampton	West Brom Win	West Brom Win (2-1)
West Ham vs. Cardiff	Draw	West Ham Win (2-0)
Norwich vs. Everton	Norwich Win	Norwich Win (2-1)
Swansea vs. Man Utd	Draw	Draw (1-1)
Crystal Palace vs. Tottenham	Tottenham Win	Tottenham Win (2-1)
Chelsea vs. Hull	Chelsea Win	Chelsea Win (2-0)
Man City vs. Newcastle	Man City Win	Man City Win (2-0)

Comparing my predictions to Lawro. There are nine predictions that are the same with a slight difference with West Ham vs. Cardiff. I am predicting a draw whilst Lawro are going for a West Ham win.

If you decide to place an accumulator on my ten match predictions at William Hill and they all decide to go the right way, then...

£1 stake win you £1,680.26

If you decide to go with Lawro then..

£1 stake will win you £1,018.34

Can I predict the Premier League on the very first weekend? We will see at 10pm Monday night.

Just Read: Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

When I noticed about Gone Girl it was in WH Smith with the sticker "Thriller of the Year". That statement was given by The Observer newspaper. Although I haven't read any thrillers that were published in 2012, I thought I would give it a go, given the popular reviews on Amazon and Goodreads.

Warning: Contains major spoilers

Gone Girl focuses on two main characters, Nick Dunne and Amy Elliott. The novel begins with their fifth wedding anniversary. Nick heads out to open up his bar in North Carthage, Missouri. Hours later he returns home to find the front door open, his living room ransacked, blood on the kitchen floor and his wife, Amy nowhere to be seen. The police are called and have labelled it as a missing persons case. Part one of the book is split between Nick and Amy. Written in the first person view, the chapters featuring Nick are set from the day Amy disappears onwards where we see him worrying about his missing wife. The police discovers he increased Amy's life insurance has been increased and Nick has been maxing out credit cards by buying luxury items. Nick stresses he has never done those things but never confesses he has murdered Amy. Nick does confess in his narrative he has told many lies to the police and revealed he never had a perfect and happy marriage with Amy. With every anniversary Amy would set Nick to go on a treasure hunt. He confessed in his narrative he isn't that clever compared to Amy but finds the clues too easy to solve. It is until solving the final clue everything comes into place. While Nick solves the clues, the police detectives involve question whether Nick actually killed a pregnant Amy.

Amy's narrative is in the form of diary entries. They begin in 2005 where she meets Nick and ends up getting married. With Amy's success with her Amazing Amy young adult books and writing personality quizzes, her cash dwindles due to Nick losing his job, not being able to afford their home in New York and decides to move back to Nick's home town of North Carthage. Amy reveals they are having a good relation and although, everything not going their way, Amy adjusts to living in North Carthage. Towards the end of part one, Amy begins to reveal she is afraid of Nick's temperament and worried about staying alive.

It is where the second part of the book reveals a massive twist that actually fooled me. Both sides of the story were complete lies. Nick reveals that he has having an affair with a college student. While Amy is fed up with Nick and he isn't the ideal man she wants to be with. After finding out Nick is having an affair. Amy sets up everything, including a fake diary, a fake pregnancy, plans to make her disappear and frame Nick to say he murdered her. She explains how she produces the perfect setup to frame Nick and put him into prison for life and reveals where she is whilst watching the news reports of Nick's demise. Meanwhile, Nick works out Amy has been framing him and decides to hunt her down and prove his innocence.  

This has been a fantastic read. A true thriller. I was fooled and never expected the plot twist where Amy is revealed to be a psychopath. I had the impression either Nick performed the perfect murder or someone abducted her to gain revenge on Nick. The only bug bear I had was how the third and final part was written. It was revealed Amy decided to return to Nick after being briefly held prisoner by one of her old friends. Nick had wanted to kill Amy but she reveals she is actually pregnant. She explains to him he is in a no win situation and are meant to be together with a child. I suppose the ending was written that both Nick and Amy are meant for each other. Both unlikeable and sinister.

This is Gillian Flynn's third novel and has proven to be a massive hit in American and in the UK. The popularity of her novel has been given the green light for a film adaptation to be released in 2014. David Fincher (Seven, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo) will be directing, while the roles of Nick and Amy will go to Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike respectably.

I gave Gone Girl 4 out of 5 stars on Goodreads.

Next to review: The Big Sleep

Just Read: And a Puzzle to Die On (Puzzle Lady #6) Parnell Hall Double Part 2

Continuing on from my last blog post (here). The second part looks at Parnell Hall's second major literary creation, The Puzzle Lady.

Where ambulance chaser Stanley Hastings lives in real life New York. The Puzzle Lady series of books are set in the fictional town of Bakerhaven, Connecticut. Cora Felton is a celebrity in the crossword business, publishing crossword puzzles for major American newspapers as well as appearing on TV commercials for her cereal. She has been labelled as The Puzzle Lady. However, the fact is, Cora Felton is a lie. She cannot solve a crossword puzzle to save her life. The real Puzzle Lady is her niece Sherry Carter, who actually creates and publishes the puzzles but couldn't get the fame due to her young age. She uses her Auntie, who is older in age and is more believable to be a crossword compiler. This is a closely guarded secret and only the two of them and Sherry's friend, local reporter Aaron Grant know the true identity of The Puzzle Lady. Although Cora is useless at puzzles, she is a master of solving murders and helps the local police, much to their annoyance. Simply picture Cora Felton as Jessica Fletcher. However, unlike the cursed one and solver of all murders. Cora Felton is simply one who likes to drink heavily. smokes her head off and plays bridge at the local bar. The early books had Cora as a drunk but throughout the series she eases off the alcohol but continues to smoke to Sherry's annoyance. Bakerhaven is a small town and features a small police station which is headed by Chief Dale Harper (picture Ted Levine's Leland Stottlemeyer from the TV series Monk). In the first book he asks Cora to help with a murder case but in further books she pokes her nose into the murders with Harpers disapproval. The books have many regular characters. There is cruciverbalist Harvey Beerbaum who admires Cora's work. He doesn't know Cora is a fake and tries to wriggle out of situations where Harvey askes for her help. Becky Baldwin, the local lawyer and Aaron's former flame where Sherry has a small rivalry. Dennis Carter, Sherry's ex-husband, failed rock star who moves to Bakerhaven. Dr. Nathan Barley, the local medical examiner and Dan Finley who works with Dale Harper at Bakerhaven Police.

With the books having a theme around crossword puzzles. Each book has a play along feature. As well as solving who the murderer is. Each book has one of more crossword puzzles to solve. In some chapters you would see the crossword puzzle where the answer is revealed a couple of chapters later. These puzzles have been created from the likes of Trip Payne and Will Shortz. It's worth noting given this is a US published book, all the crossword puzzles are published using the US style grid. Not all the books features crosswords. Later books looks at Acrostics, Sudoku and KenKen. if you're not good at these puzzles then there is no need to worry as they're a small distraction from reading the novel and the answer is revealed shortly later on in the books.

The main reason down to The Puzzle Lady' success is down similarly to the Stanley Hastings series. Although there is a serious theme with murders and killers. There is a lot of humour, mostly down to Cora's character as well as her banter between Sherry, Aaron and the other characters/suspects. It is recommended to read the first book (A Clue for the Puzzle Lady) onwards as it slowly introduces the sub characters. As Christmas is coming I also do recommend the fourth book, A Puzzle in a Pear Tree.

The first eight books can be bought in paperback form from Amazon and The Book Depository. While from the ninth book onwards can be bought for the Amazon Kindle. There are fourteen books in the series with the fifteenth, NYPD Puzzles being published in early 2014. You can see the list of books here.

And a Puzzle to Die On (Puzzle Lady #6) by Parnell Hall.

A change to previous books. Cora is asked by Becky Baldwin to prove a murderer, Darryl Daigue that he didn't commit his crime twenty years. Although she didn't seem interested, Becky advises there was no evidence. This intrigues Cora to see whether Daigue was framed and therefore innoncent. Turns out the murderer becomes not so co-operative to Cora, thinking he was guilty after all. Further into her investigation, Cora discovers the parole panel isn't all that "neutral" and it looked like the murderer was actually framed and was meant not to get parole. Cora's digging around ends up in trouble with the prison and the local police. As well as being followed by some one.  Whilst Cora proves the guilty was innocent, Harvey sets up a surprise birthday party for Cora. He does this by asking fellow crossword constructors sending her birthday cards in the form of crossword puzzles. With Cora being unamused given her lack of solving them. It's when at the surprise birthday party at the local library a body falls from above and lands dead on Cora's birthday cake. Determined to find out who the killer is, she goes digging around with constant warnings from Harper as she breaks unlawfully into offices and the victims home.

Where I have enjoyed the the first five books. I felt this started to lose  momentum. Possibly because the book focuses heavily on proving the innocence and the first proper murder didn't occur half way into the book. It is an interesting twist having a closed case but maybe it could've worked with the cold case as the main theme instead of that and a fresh murder. I also felt the ending was confusing as it hard to track who did what. That said, the humour is still good as ever with Cora now more sober than ever but still craving for a cigarette.

I gave And a Puzzle to Due On 3 out of 5 stars on Goodreads.

Next to review: Gone Girl