What little I learned in college was not in class but the betting shop. Studying journalism in Dublin City University, out of having too many hours to fill, despite having no interest in horses, I found myself in BoyleSports in Whitehall of a day long forgotten. Life would never be the same. It had one obvious advantage: being considerably warmer than the squalor in which I lived, which would have made the house in Withnail And I seem like something out of Grand Designs. When there was strong evening racing, that betting shop would teem with characters, many of whom…

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