The Mumper

Seven drinking buddies decide to buy a racehorse and embark on the journey of a lifetime in the book that inspired the film Outside Bet. It's 1985 - Thatcher is in power, Sade is on the radio and the print workers have gone on strike. A motley rabble of seven firm friends: Thimble, Gudger, O'Sh, Fred the Shoe, Dave, Alfie and Bax meet every Sunday in their favourite South London boozer for banter of the highest order and a lot of taking the mick. Then, out of the blue, one of their number receives some news which knocks him and his merry band for six. Reeling from this shock and confused about how to deal with it, the boys meet and rally in standard fashion, in the Dutchman with a few light ales and an aim to set the world to rights. One day an unknown character approaches the crew and asks them a most intriguing question...'Does anyone here want to buy a racehorse?!' From that simple but surreal question unfolds the story of seven likely lads who embark on a unique journey in the name of their mate, and what happens when they just decide to go the whole bifta.

A gunshot leaves a dead man in an East End alley. A beautiful woman lies dead on the lawns of Windsor Castle. The only certain aspect of a beadles death is its precipitation by gravity. A mere bump into a gentleman sends an old man to his death amidst Piccadillys evening throngs. Did the gunshot echo through time and claim the three other souls or had their time simply run out? One mans calibre matches these crimes. A mathematicians ingenious deviance compounds Londons smog as he surpasses his past transgressions and discovers the means to control the future. But his plan is plagued by one man brave enough to play in the web in his criminal parlour. Coerced to alter his modus operandi, this man works on more than one case simultaneously, navigating smoke and mirrors, while trying to earn back a trusted friend, trusting reluctantly in a mysterious Indian and evading death at every corner of London. Can this man emerge a victor in a fight to save something as whimsical as the future of the world? But above all else, will he emerge alive body, mind and soul? Who is this man? He is Sherlock Holmes!

Reprint of the original, first published in 1883.

This book constitutes the first full volume dedicated to an academic analysis of horseracing in British cinema. Through comprehensive contextual histories of film production and reception, together with detailed textual analysis, this book explores the aesthetic and emotive power of the enduringly popular horseracing genre, its ideologically-inflected landscape and the ways in which horse owners and riders, bookmakers and punters have been represented on British screen. The films discussed span from the 1890s to the present day and include silent shorts, quota quickies and big-budget biopics. A work of social and film history, The British Horseracing Film demonstrates how the so-called “sport of kings” functions as an accessible institutional structure through which to explore cinematic discussions about the British nation—but also, and equally, national approaches to British cinema.