The thing about an English summer is...
It’s July in England and the rain is coming down with vulgar enthusiasm. For the last couple of weeks it has been Wimbledon fortnight. In recent years this fortnight has extended into three weeks as days of matches were rained off and rescheduled. This time, it just felt like three weeks. I have concluded that it does not matter how tight the top or how short the skirt, tennis is just not a spectator sport. This is partly because the lesbians playing women’s tennis are not, as on the internet, gorgeous and only exercising as a precursor to showering together, but mainly because it’s so dull.
Dull, but not restful. All that grunting, all that thwacking, all that self-conscious banana eating. With a small tweak though, coverage of Wimbledon could remove these unwanted intrusions and become positively medicinal.
There’s a DAB digital radio station you can tune to called ‘Birdsong’. It is, as the name would suggest, not the sound of disturbed giggling but rather the fruits of sticking a microphone in a hedgerow at dawn. The only sounds are the restless twitter of our feather friends and the occasional grumbling of an ill-humoured baker driving to work. This plays on an endless loop and is designed to be a test signal. It also squats on digital radio stations when they go off air. This recently happened to a station and they saw their audience share double when they turned off Jay-zed and turned on starlings.
What digital telly needs is the visual equivalent – the sight of the rain falling on Wimbledon, the gentle hiss, like static from the telly, of rain falling on the covers, ball boys and stubborn tennis-fans who retain their seats in the pouring rain, camped out under one of those transparent ponchos with ‘maid of the mist’ written on it, consuming scotch eggs in a revolting fashion.
There is something relaxing about watching the rain, especially when it is on the outside of a pane of glass, especially if that glass is etched with the name of a pub.
Certainly, I experienced the rain in a far more al fresco and immediate fashion this morning on my walk to the station, which became an undignified sprint to the station and ended up gasping squelch to the station. Odd really that the inferno of anger, frustration and rage directed at the rain, the weather-gods and anyone who happened to be dry did not turn the rain to steam as it approached a ten metre radius of my quivering body.
Sitting damp on the train, I decided that it was time to break yet another personal rule. It was time to buy an umbrella. I don’t like umbrellas, if you attempt to walk past somebody using one, you risk eye-poke or, as the angle turns, having a half-pint of fresh rainwater decanted onto you. If you try to use one then you discover that rain rarely happens without a great deal of wind to go with it, and unless you are lucky enough to have an umbrella that turns itself inside out at a zepher’s breath, you are left fighting something that is capturing the wind with all the energy of a rebelling spinnaker on the Cape leg of the America’s Cup.
Still, I have never had the slightest problem sacrificing my morals for the sake of personal comfort. So, on the way home I bolted into M&S and did a circuit of the men’s section like a wall of death rider on ketamin. No brolly, but a mac! Fantastic, it was of just the right material (shockingly unnatural and hence waterproof), cut (early 1970s dirty-old-man) and colour (ealy 1970s drab) to make it irresistible.
Then I saw the brolly, which came with that perfect handle, the sort that is hooked like the end of a question mark, making it ideal for hooking round the neck of the chap in front of you who is going to beat you to your seat on the train.
The brolly is perfect John Steed. The mac is exactly tailored to make me look like a bent copper from one of the seedier police forces. Perfect.
Dull, but not restful. All that grunting, all that thwacking, all that self-conscious banana eating. With a small tweak though, coverage of Wimbledon could remove these unwanted intrusions and become positively medicinal.
There’s a DAB digital radio station you can tune to called ‘Birdsong’. It is, as the name would suggest, not the sound of disturbed giggling but rather the fruits of sticking a microphone in a hedgerow at dawn. The only sounds are the restless twitter of our feather friends and the occasional grumbling of an ill-humoured baker driving to work. This plays on an endless loop and is designed to be a test signal. It also squats on digital radio stations when they go off air. This recently happened to a station and they saw their audience share double when they turned off Jay-zed and turned on starlings.
What digital telly needs is the visual equivalent – the sight of the rain falling on Wimbledon, the gentle hiss, like static from the telly, of rain falling on the covers, ball boys and stubborn tennis-fans who retain their seats in the pouring rain, camped out under one of those transparent ponchos with ‘maid of the mist’ written on it, consuming scotch eggs in a revolting fashion.
There is something relaxing about watching the rain, especially when it is on the outside of a pane of glass, especially if that glass is etched with the name of a pub.
Certainly, I experienced the rain in a far more al fresco and immediate fashion this morning on my walk to the station, which became an undignified sprint to the station and ended up gasping squelch to the station. Odd really that the inferno of anger, frustration and rage directed at the rain, the weather-gods and anyone who happened to be dry did not turn the rain to steam as it approached a ten metre radius of my quivering body.
Sitting damp on the train, I decided that it was time to break yet another personal rule. It was time to buy an umbrella. I don’t like umbrellas, if you attempt to walk past somebody using one, you risk eye-poke or, as the angle turns, having a half-pint of fresh rainwater decanted onto you. If you try to use one then you discover that rain rarely happens without a great deal of wind to go with it, and unless you are lucky enough to have an umbrella that turns itself inside out at a zepher’s breath, you are left fighting something that is capturing the wind with all the energy of a rebelling spinnaker on the Cape leg of the America’s Cup.
Still, I have never had the slightest problem sacrificing my morals for the sake of personal comfort. So, on the way home I bolted into M&S and did a circuit of the men’s section like a wall of death rider on ketamin. No brolly, but a mac! Fantastic, it was of just the right material (shockingly unnatural and hence waterproof), cut (early 1970s dirty-old-man) and colour (ealy 1970s drab) to make it irresistible.
Then I saw the brolly, which came with that perfect handle, the sort that is hooked like the end of a question mark, making it ideal for hooking round the neck of the chap in front of you who is going to beat you to your seat on the train.
The brolly is perfect John Steed. The mac is exactly tailored to make me look like a bent copper from one of the seedier police forces. Perfect.
Labels: Lesbians, Rain, Tennis, Umbrellas, Weather, Wimbledon
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