Not for the first time this year I find myself wishing I had a punter’s instincts. I put a paltry $30 on Brexit a few weeks before the vote and ended up making a few hundred dollars. Given the nerve and the capital, I could have acquired a small fortune.
From the 2016 US presidential election I should have come away with my own media company, the way Nate Silver did after correctly predicting 2008 – though I would have settled for a week in Martha’s Vineyard, a dozen cartons of cigarettes, and a pristine vinyl copy of The Best of Percy Sledge. Instead, I was praised on Twitter by a few knowing friends, and a Manhattan bartender who supported the Green Party candidate, Dr Jill Stein, bought me two beers. An abiding concern for charity prevents me from collecting on the one real bet I made for a bottle of Dom Perignon with a friend who was given the sack a few weeks before election day. I wish him the best of luck in his search for a position with the Donald Trump administration.
