An­dre Bap­tiste

One of my favourite pas­times has al­ways been to vis­it a bet­ting shop when­ev­er I at­tend an in­ter­na­tion­al sport­ing event.

So Glas­gow is no dif­fer­ent. Af­ter a gala open­ing cer­e­mo­ny, steeped in rich Scot­tish his­to­ry, from bag­pipes to ship­build­ing to bis­cuits and most of all joy­ous singing and par­tic­i­pa­tion from an ex­pec­tant crowd, I'm ready to re­sume my bad habits.

Yes­ter­day, I walked in­to Lad­brokes. It was small, prob­a­bly no more than half the size of a gov­ern­ment min­is­ter's of­fice in T&T, but there were a lot of peo­ple trans­vers­ing in and out the doors. The young la­dy be­hind the first counter was so help­ful that she stopped what she was do­ing to as­sist me in my very pleas­ant en­quiries on Com­mon­wealth Games bet­ting.

It was ap­par­ent that I was the on­ly one for the day, maybe even the week, who had en­quired, be­cause the bet­ting de­tails were on­ly avail­able on the screen in the back of­fice, and even then, it was on­ly avail­able on the men's 100 me­tres sprint and not the women's 100 me­tres, which was where my first query was.

The good news is that three-time Olympic medal­list Richard Thomp­son is sec­ond favourite at 5-1 to win the event.

So off I went in search of an an­swer on Michele Lee Ahye as I am not one for eas­i­ly giv­ing up, es­pe­cial­ly when there is a clear ob­jec­tive in mind. This time I found my­self in Corals, which was sim­i­lar in size but had less per­sons in­side. Here though, there was a sim­i­lar prob­lem since they had no bet­ting on the Com­mon­wealth Games. The young man seemed rather em­bar­rassed to tell me this in a land where they bet on near­ly every­thing. He would do some check­ing, and I agreed that some­thing was wrong. Al­most as if all the records had dis­ap­peared.

All the while, I kept won­der­ing what was go­ing on with the women's 100 me­tres. Was it true that Michele Lee Ahye's bril­liance this sea­son had scared away all op­po­si­tion, and there was no bet­ting avail­able?

My third stop was William Hill, my favourite bet­ting shop from my days in Lon­don. Still no in­for­ma­tion on the women's 100 me­tres. In­stead I found out that George Bovell III was the 15/8 favourite to win the men's 50 me­tres freestyle in swim­ming.

So this was clear­ly not go­ing to be a suc­cess­ful day for me. I left with­out plac­ing a bet on Lee Ahye.

By the way, I'm still in search of the kilt. There were a num­ber of women in kilts play­ing bag­pipes, and con­trary to pop­u­lar Scot­tish tra­di­tion, I be­lieve the women do a bet­ter job in that kilt role, than men.

But for now, as the com­pe­ti­tion swings in­to gear, I'm go­ing to wear a big smile and bet on T&T to win some medals.

William Hill, Corals and Lad­brokes can keep their bets.