What is more pythonic - function composition, lambdas, or something else?

Given the example below, which is more pythonic? Using function composition, lambdas, or (now for) something completely different? I have to say that the lambdas seem to be more readable, but Guido himself seems to want to remove lambdas altogether - http://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread=98196

from functools import partial
from operator import not_, ge

def get_sql_data_type_from_string(s):
    s = str(s)

    # compose(*fs) -> returns composition of functions fs
    # iserror(f, x) -> returns True if Exception thrown from f(x), False otherwise

    # Using function composition
    predicates = (
        ('int',     compose(not_, partial(iserror, int))),
        ('float',   compose(not_, partial(iserror, float))),
        ('char',    compose(partial(ge, 1), len)))

    # Using lambdas
    predicates = (
        ('int',     lambda x: not iserror(int, x)),
        ('float',   lambda x: not iserror(float, x)),
        ('char',    lambda x: len(x) <= 1))

    # Test each predicate
    for i, (t, p) in enumerate(predicates):
        if p(s):
            return i, t

    # If all predicates fail
    return (i + 1), 'varchar'