Saturday, July 27, 2013
Growing up
Growing up is like walking into a cold ocean: Each step is a little shocking, but eventually you get used to it and move in a little more, and before you realise it you're in over your head and drowning.
Rain
Forbury gardens is always lovely, but there is no grass! The same for Christchurch meadow, by my flat. This high pressure system that has been sitting over the UK, bringing record temperatures, has also kept the rain at bay for nearly a month! This is unnatural, and the grass has all died. :-(
The high pressure has moved on and the jet stream has returned, meaning lower temps and a lovely breeze, plus rain is forecast for tomorrow. Which is why I am sitting in Forbury gardens, soaking up the last bit of sunshine in what has been an outstanding summer.
Tuesday, July 23, 2013
Deed polls
Just read this:
In England, a "deed poll" is synonymous with changing your name.
This is also where the term "indentured servant" came from.
A deed is a written legal agreement that has been signed and delivered (shown to all concerned parties). Poll is an old English word used to describe a legal document that had its edges cut (polled) so they were straight. This was done to visually distinguish between a deed signed by one person (a polled deed - hence the term Deed Poll) and a deed signed by more than one person (an indenture), which had an edge indented or serrated. Interestingly, indentures were originally written twice (side by side) on one piece of parchment, which was then torn down the middle and each half given to each party. The impossibility of matching the tear was a guard against forgery.
In England, a "deed poll" is synonymous with changing your name.
This is also where the term "indentured servant" came from.
Sunday, July 21, 2013
Eurovision 2013
I didn't watch this year, and I missed this entry from Lithuania which I can only assume suffered from translation:
http://youtu.be/dgIWSVQHUnk?t=1m
Here is the chorus:
These are the actual lyrics; this isn't a Bad Lip Reading.
http://youtu.be/dgIWSVQHUnk?t=1m
Here is the chorus:
If you don’t know I’m in love with you
When summertime falls It becomes untrue
Because of my shoes I’m wearing today
One is called Love the other is Pain
These are the actual lyrics; this isn't a Bad Lip Reading.
Saturday, July 20, 2013
Kiddush
Jews being Jews, every service ends with food and wine. This kiddush* usually consists of kosher wine, challah bread, nibbles and cake. In many synagogues, a small group are responsible for providing it every week. At my synagogue, members are expected to volunteer, often to mark an occasion.
This weekend was the yahrzeit (or anniversary) of my uncle's death.
So I volunteered. I bought some crudites, some dips, a cake, some chips, and a couple of other things. It was no big deal, but it scared the hell out of me.
In part this was because my local shop usually stocked challah on Fridays, but not always. I was very concerned that if they didn't have any, I didn't have a plan B, short of driving into north London on a Friday afternoon, which would have been a very bad idea! Thankfully, they had two loaves, which is exactly what I needed. (Please don't ask why I needed two loaves, because it is one of those traditions that I think is ridiculous.)
But mostly I was scared because every step of my Jewish journey has been on my own. Don't get me wrong, the community have been amazing supportive and the people I have met have been extraordinarily loving, which is the only reason I can take these steps, rather than retreat into the familiar. And tonight was no exception, with one woman I'd never met coming into the kitchen to help me prepare. And she casually mentioned they were expecting 40 people that evening.
Forty? I was prepared for ten!
I've been at the synagogue on many Friday nights and I've never seen more than 15 people, and two weeks ago there were only 4! With the beautiful weather we've been having, I did not expect many, and I even chided myself for buying too much food. What I didn't know, however, was that tonight was a "musical shabbat," with members playing instruments, which attracted a lot of people. By the end of the evening, the only food left was a bit of cake, and that was because the woman helping me had gotten an extra cake from the storeroom!
But it worked out fine, and next time I'll know better. There is also a tradition that the person supplying kiddush also lights the shabbat candles and says a short prayer in front of the congregation. I flatly refused, which somewhat startled the rabbi, but he was able to find someone else without a problem. Even short prayers are a bit daunting because I hate public speaking in the first place, and if I forget a word then I have to read the Hebrew, which is halting and slow. But I am working myself up to it.
In the meantime, the rabbi has asked me to lift the scroll on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish year, when there will likely be 400-500 people in attendance. If I can get through that, maybe I can handle a short reading, too...
* Actually, kiddush ("holy") refers to the blessing that is said over the wine and bread, but it has become slang for the meal.
This weekend was the yahrzeit (or anniversary) of my uncle's death.
So I volunteered. I bought some crudites, some dips, a cake, some chips, and a couple of other things. It was no big deal, but it scared the hell out of me.
In part this was because my local shop usually stocked challah on Fridays, but not always. I was very concerned that if they didn't have any, I didn't have a plan B, short of driving into north London on a Friday afternoon, which would have been a very bad idea! Thankfully, they had two loaves, which is exactly what I needed. (Please don't ask why I needed two loaves, because it is one of those traditions that I think is ridiculous.)
But mostly I was scared because every step of my Jewish journey has been on my own. Don't get me wrong, the community have been amazing supportive and the people I have met have been extraordinarily loving, which is the only reason I can take these steps, rather than retreat into the familiar. And tonight was no exception, with one woman I'd never met coming into the kitchen to help me prepare. And she casually mentioned they were expecting 40 people that evening.
Forty? I was prepared for ten!
I've been at the synagogue on many Friday nights and I've never seen more than 15 people, and two weeks ago there were only 4! With the beautiful weather we've been having, I did not expect many, and I even chided myself for buying too much food. What I didn't know, however, was that tonight was a "musical shabbat," with members playing instruments, which attracted a lot of people. By the end of the evening, the only food left was a bit of cake, and that was because the woman helping me had gotten an extra cake from the storeroom!
But it worked out fine, and next time I'll know better. There is also a tradition that the person supplying kiddush also lights the shabbat candles and says a short prayer in front of the congregation. I flatly refused, which somewhat startled the rabbi, but he was able to find someone else without a problem. Even short prayers are a bit daunting because I hate public speaking in the first place, and if I forget a word then I have to read the Hebrew, which is halting and slow. But I am working myself up to it.
In the meantime, the rabbi has asked me to lift the scroll on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish year, when there will likely be 400-500 people in attendance. If I can get through that, maybe I can handle a short reading, too...
* Actually, kiddush ("holy") refers to the blessing that is said over the wine and bread, but it has become slang for the meal.
Tuesday, July 16, 2013
Manchester weekend
I can't remember the last time I had such a perfect weekend.
I was in Manchester for their biennial International Festival. I've been in Manchester several times before -- it is only 30 miles from where I am working -- but usually for specific things, such as the synagogue, the theatre, the art gallery. This was the first time I just wandered aimlessly about, and I was really impressed. Britain's second largest city, with a population of just over 2.5 million, has seen several remarkable turns of fortune.
Established as a Roman fort (the clue is in the name), Manchester foundered after the Romans left, was variously ruled by the Angles, the Celts, and the Vikings. In 1301 it became a market town, and a community of Flemish weavers settled in the town to produce wool and linen, sparking a tradition of cloth manufacture. By the 16th century the wool trade had made Manchester a flourishing market town, but it wasn't until the end of the 18th century, when cotton met the industrial revolution, did Manchester make its mark.
Cotton is native to the Americas, Africa, and India. It is an ingenious little shrub with long fibers attached to its seeds, which help them catch the wind and thus disperse further. The fiber can then be spun and woven into a light cloth, perfect for hot climates. Cotton clothing was widespread in India around 2,000 BCE, and it gradually spread throughout Europe as well because it was more comfortable than wool. By the 17th century, the East India Company--better known for spices and tea--was importing a quarter of a million pieces per year into Britain. The Victorian middle class liked that cotton could be washed easier than wool, and the lower class liked the "calicoes," cheap cotton fabrics that were often brightly dyed (The area that produced these Calicoes became known as Calicut, which then became Calcutta.) To protect Britain's wool industry, Parliament banned the import of calicoes; however, this inadvertently encouraged India to export raw cotton to the UK, which finished the goods and sold them back to India. When the Calico Act was abolished 50 years later, India had lost the ability to compete internationally (a process now known as "de-industrialization"). As part of Ghandi's policy of "non-cooperation," he encouraged Indians to weave their own cotton cloth, called khadi, rather than buy from Britain.
On the other side of the world, when Christopher Columbus landed in the Americas he found the natives wearing cotton shirts, which only reinforced his belief that he had sailed to India. However, Mexico had been using cotton cloth since 5,000 BCE, and in fact the American species were superior to India* because the fibers were longer. Unfortunately, separating the cotton from its seeds was a laborious and time-consuming effort, taking almost 600 man-hours for a single bale of cotton. Even with slave labour, cotton was not as profitable as tobacco, and slavery was in decline and may have well been abolished. Then in 1793 Eli Whitney, a northerner who was purportedly trying to help slaves, invented the cotton gin ("gin" being short for "engine") which reduced the time to 12 man-hours. Under the heading of "unintended consequences," this made cotton so profitable that it reinvigorated the slave trade and directly led to the Civil War.
As an English colony, America was treated the same as India--raw cotton was shipped to the UK, which finished the goods and sold them back. (This is why the American South never developed a manufacturing base.) Liverpool became a major port for American goods, but a canal was built to ship the cotton to nearby Manchester, which already had a well-developed textile industry. When the industrial revolution started, every stage of preparation -- cleaning, carding (combing), spinning, and weaving -- was mechanised. From a description in 1823:
The hand weavers, threatened by the unskilled labor, started the "Luddite" movement and began sabotaging the machines. However, the number of cotton mills in Manchester went from 2 in 1790 to 66 in 1821, and 108 by 1853. Over the same time period, the cotton industry went from £600,000/year to £38 million/year. At one point Manchester supplied 70% of the cloth in the world. Today that figure is less than 1%.
The boom resulted in many beautiful building throughout Manchester, many of which still stand. (Manchester was targeted by the German Luftwaffe, but fortunately it was out of range of the V2 rockets.) The population of Manchester also exploded, but for historical reasons it was not a city and had no representation in Parliament. In 1819 a crowd of 60,000-80,000 men, women, and children assembled in St Peter's Field to agitate for political reform. Local magistrates ordered cavalry to charge the crowd; 15 people died and 700 were injured. The massacre was termed "Peterloo" (after the battle of Waterloo in 1815) and poet Percy Bysshe Shelley was inspired to write "The Masque of Anarchy" which ends with the lines:
Of course I know this only because one of the performances was an absolutely brilliant reading of the poem, in a long-disused concert hall filled with candles, mere yards from where the even occurred 200 years ago. There were probably 500 people in the auditorium, it was absolutely sweltering, and you could have heard a pin drop during the entire 30 minutes. It was mesmerising. (You can read the full text here. It is quite interesting, if a bit gory, when you know the history.)
In 1900, Manchester was the 9th largest city in the world. It was also the third largest port in the UK, despite being 40 miles inland! (The canal had been dredged deep enough to allow shipping vessels to bypass Liverpool and come straight to Manchester.) However, cotton processing was in decline, and the cotton exchange closed in 1968. The canal was unable to handle the increasingly large container ships, and the port closed in 1982. Heavy industry declined in the 1960s and was dealt a death blow by Margaret Thatcher in 1979. Manchester lost 150,000 jobs in manufacturing between 1961 and 1983. Ironically, what saved Manchester was a bomb.
In 1996, the IRA detonated a bomb in the city centre, the largest to be detonated on British soil. Fortunately warnings an hour earlier had allowed the area to be evacuated, so there were no casualties, but property damage was estimated at £400 million. The reconstruction spurred a massive regeneration of the city centre, with many of the historic buildings preserved, and the old mills converted into apartments. Last year the BBC moved its entire London television production studios to Manchester. Today it has a broad economic base, thriving tourism, and is a melting pot of immigrants. (15% of Mancunians -- as they call themselves -- were born outside the UK. The UK average is 8.3%. The US average is 12.3%.)
Walking around, I could feel the heft of a city proud of its history. (And the Museum of Science and Industry really slams it in your face, focused exclusively on innovation that has occurred in Manchester, although surprisingly I didn't see anything related to graphene, which was discovered at the University of Manchester using such sophisticated tools as a pencil and some Scotch tape.)
However, I was there for the International Festival, and the crown jewel (pardon the pun) of the festival was Kenneth Branagh's return as Macbeth. Tickets had sold out even before they went on sale! (At least, on sale to the general public.) However, on Saturday I saw they had some day tickets, and so on Sunday I was at the box office at 10am for tickets that went on sale at noon -- and I was #3 in line. I loved reading Macbeth as a child, and this was without a doubt one of the most amazing performances I've ever seen. It was in a deconsecrated church, with stadium seating built on either side of an aisle that was--I kid you not--filled with dirt, which quickly turned to mud during the opening battle scene in the rain. Everything got coated in mud and, given the subject matter, it was absolutely appropriate. The church held maybe 300 people, with only six rows (and those in the first row were warned they might get pelted with mud). Fantastic.
To top it off, the weather in the UK has been absolutely gorgeous for the past two weeks -- they call it a heat wave, but apparently the technical definition of that is 5 days at 5 degrees above average, and so in England a heat wave is a welcome thing indeed. To be fair, it's been quite warm in southern England (29C / 84F) but in northern England it was a perfect 25C / 77F. I even spent a couple of hours sunbathing in the park.
So everything was perfect--I even found two vegetarian cafes--but you know I couldn't have a weekend without a hitch, and in this case it was the "national transgender pride festival" also being held in Manchester that weekend, and my hotel was ground zero! I swear I was the only guest who wasn't a crossdresser! And these weren't the Ladyboys of Bangkok -- these were guys in their 70s; guys who were 6' 5" before putting on stilletos; guys who looked like rugby players squeezed into a dress three times too small. And worse, even though they dressed like women, they still behaved like guys -- by Sunday the entire area was trashed, full of beer cans and takeaway containers. It was...disappointing. For some reason, I expected them to be better than that.
* The American South believed that Britain and France, starved of its cotton supply, would intervene in the Civil War. However, Egypt--seeing an opportunity--planted American cotton along the Nile, and saw its profits boom from $7 million to $77 million in just four years. However, after the war, Europe returned to cheap American exports, sending Egypt into a deficit spiral that led to the country declaring bankruptcy in 1876, a key factor behind Egypt's annexation by the British Empire in 1882. Today, Egypt is not even in the top ten of cotton-producing countries, and most "Egyptian cotton" is produced in Pakistan and China. (And it's just the same as American cotton.)
I was in Manchester for their biennial International Festival. I've been in Manchester several times before -- it is only 30 miles from where I am working -- but usually for specific things, such as the synagogue, the theatre, the art gallery. This was the first time I just wandered aimlessly about, and I was really impressed. Britain's second largest city, with a population of just over 2.5 million, has seen several remarkable turns of fortune.
Established as a Roman fort (the clue is in the name), Manchester foundered after the Romans left, was variously ruled by the Angles, the Celts, and the Vikings. In 1301 it became a market town, and a community of Flemish weavers settled in the town to produce wool and linen, sparking a tradition of cloth manufacture. By the 16th century the wool trade had made Manchester a flourishing market town, but it wasn't until the end of the 18th century, when cotton met the industrial revolution, did Manchester make its mark.
Cotton is native to the Americas, Africa, and India. It is an ingenious little shrub with long fibers attached to its seeds, which help them catch the wind and thus disperse further. The fiber can then be spun and woven into a light cloth, perfect for hot climates. Cotton clothing was widespread in India around 2,000 BCE, and it gradually spread throughout Europe as well because it was more comfortable than wool. By the 17th century, the East India Company--better known for spices and tea--was importing a quarter of a million pieces per year into Britain. The Victorian middle class liked that cotton could be washed easier than wool, and the lower class liked the "calicoes," cheap cotton fabrics that were often brightly dyed (The area that produced these Calicoes became known as Calicut, which then became Calcutta.) To protect Britain's wool industry, Parliament banned the import of calicoes; however, this inadvertently encouraged India to export raw cotton to the UK, which finished the goods and sold them back to India. When the Calico Act was abolished 50 years later, India had lost the ability to compete internationally (a process now known as "de-industrialization"). As part of Ghandi's policy of "non-cooperation," he encouraged Indians to weave their own cotton cloth, called khadi, rather than buy from Britain.
On the other side of the world, when Christopher Columbus landed in the Americas he found the natives wearing cotton shirts, which only reinforced his belief that he had sailed to India. However, Mexico had been using cotton cloth since 5,000 BCE, and in fact the American species were superior to India* because the fibers were longer. Unfortunately, separating the cotton from its seeds was a laborious and time-consuming effort, taking almost 600 man-hours for a single bale of cotton. Even with slave labour, cotton was not as profitable as tobacco, and slavery was in decline and may have well been abolished. Then in 1793 Eli Whitney, a northerner who was purportedly trying to help slaves, invented the cotton gin ("gin" being short for "engine") which reduced the time to 12 man-hours. Under the heading of "unintended consequences," this made cotton so profitable that it reinvigorated the slave trade and directly led to the Civil War.
As an English colony, America was treated the same as India--raw cotton was shipped to the UK, which finished the goods and sold them back. (This is why the American South never developed a manufacturing base.) Liverpool became a major port for American goods, but a canal was built to ship the cotton to nearby Manchester, which already had a well-developed textile industry. When the industrial revolution started, every stage of preparation -- cleaning, carding (combing), spinning, and weaving -- was mechanised. From a description in 1823:
A very good Hand Weaver, a man twenty-five or thirty years of age, will weave two pieces of nine-eighths shirting per week, each twenty-four yards long, and containing one hundred and five shoots of weft in an inch, the reed of the cloth being a forty-four, Bolton count, and the warp and weft forty hanks to the pound. A Steam Loom Weaver, fifteen years of age, will in the same time weave seven similar pieces.
The hand weavers, threatened by the unskilled labor, started the "Luddite" movement and began sabotaging the machines. However, the number of cotton mills in Manchester went from 2 in 1790 to 66 in 1821, and 108 by 1853. Over the same time period, the cotton industry went from £600,000/year to £38 million/year. At one point Manchester supplied 70% of the cloth in the world. Today that figure is less than 1%.
The boom resulted in many beautiful building throughout Manchester, many of which still stand. (Manchester was targeted by the German Luftwaffe, but fortunately it was out of range of the V2 rockets.) The population of Manchester also exploded, but for historical reasons it was not a city and had no representation in Parliament. In 1819 a crowd of 60,000-80,000 men, women, and children assembled in St Peter's Field to agitate for political reform. Local magistrates ordered cavalry to charge the crowd; 15 people died and 700 were injured. The massacre was termed "Peterloo" (after the battle of Waterloo in 1815) and poet Percy Bysshe Shelley was inspired to write "The Masque of Anarchy" which ends with the lines:
And that slaughter to the Nation
Shall steam up like inspiration,
Eloquent, oracular;
A volcano heard afar.
And these words shall then become
Like Oppression's thundered doom
Ringing through each heart and brain,
Heard again - again - again -
Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number,
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you -
Ye are many - they are few.
Shall steam up like inspiration,
Eloquent, oracular;
A volcano heard afar.
And these words shall then become
Like Oppression's thundered doom
Ringing through each heart and brain,
Heard again - again - again -
Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number,
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you -
Ye are many - they are few.
Of course I know this only because one of the performances was an absolutely brilliant reading of the poem, in a long-disused concert hall filled with candles, mere yards from where the even occurred 200 years ago. There were probably 500 people in the auditorium, it was absolutely sweltering, and you could have heard a pin drop during the entire 30 minutes. It was mesmerising. (You can read the full text here. It is quite interesting, if a bit gory, when you know the history.)
In 1900, Manchester was the 9th largest city in the world. It was also the third largest port in the UK, despite being 40 miles inland! (The canal had been dredged deep enough to allow shipping vessels to bypass Liverpool and come straight to Manchester.) However, cotton processing was in decline, and the cotton exchange closed in 1968. The canal was unable to handle the increasingly large container ships, and the port closed in 1982. Heavy industry declined in the 1960s and was dealt a death blow by Margaret Thatcher in 1979. Manchester lost 150,000 jobs in manufacturing between 1961 and 1983. Ironically, what saved Manchester was a bomb.
In 1996, the IRA detonated a bomb in the city centre, the largest to be detonated on British soil. Fortunately warnings an hour earlier had allowed the area to be evacuated, so there were no casualties, but property damage was estimated at £400 million. The reconstruction spurred a massive regeneration of the city centre, with many of the historic buildings preserved, and the old mills converted into apartments. Last year the BBC moved its entire London television production studios to Manchester. Today it has a broad economic base, thriving tourism, and is a melting pot of immigrants. (15% of Mancunians -- as they call themselves -- were born outside the UK. The UK average is 8.3%. The US average is 12.3%.)
Walking around, I could feel the heft of a city proud of its history. (And the Museum of Science and Industry really slams it in your face, focused exclusively on innovation that has occurred in Manchester, although surprisingly I didn't see anything related to graphene, which was discovered at the University of Manchester using such sophisticated tools as a pencil and some Scotch tape.)
However, I was there for the International Festival, and the crown jewel (pardon the pun) of the festival was Kenneth Branagh's return as Macbeth. Tickets had sold out even before they went on sale! (At least, on sale to the general public.) However, on Saturday I saw they had some day tickets, and so on Sunday I was at the box office at 10am for tickets that went on sale at noon -- and I was #3 in line. I loved reading Macbeth as a child, and this was without a doubt one of the most amazing performances I've ever seen. It was in a deconsecrated church, with stadium seating built on either side of an aisle that was--I kid you not--filled with dirt, which quickly turned to mud during the opening battle scene in the rain. Everything got coated in mud and, given the subject matter, it was absolutely appropriate. The church held maybe 300 people, with only six rows (and those in the first row were warned they might get pelted with mud). Fantastic.
To top it off, the weather in the UK has been absolutely gorgeous for the past two weeks -- they call it a heat wave, but apparently the technical definition of that is 5 days at 5 degrees above average, and so in England a heat wave is a welcome thing indeed. To be fair, it's been quite warm in southern England (29C / 84F) but in northern England it was a perfect 25C / 77F. I even spent a couple of hours sunbathing in the park.
So everything was perfect--I even found two vegetarian cafes--but you know I couldn't have a weekend without a hitch, and in this case it was the "national transgender pride festival" also being held in Manchester that weekend, and my hotel was ground zero! I swear I was the only guest who wasn't a crossdresser! And these weren't the Ladyboys of Bangkok -- these were guys in their 70s; guys who were 6' 5" before putting on stilletos; guys who looked like rugby players squeezed into a dress three times too small. And worse, even though they dressed like women, they still behaved like guys -- by Sunday the entire area was trashed, full of beer cans and takeaway containers. It was...disappointing. For some reason, I expected them to be better than that.
* The American South believed that Britain and France, starved of its cotton supply, would intervene in the Civil War. However, Egypt--seeing an opportunity--planted American cotton along the Nile, and saw its profits boom from $7 million to $77 million in just four years. However, after the war, Europe returned to cheap American exports, sending Egypt into a deficit spiral that led to the country declaring bankruptcy in 1876, a key factor behind Egypt's annexation by the British Empire in 1882. Today, Egypt is not even in the top ten of cotton-producing countries, and most "Egyptian cotton" is produced in Pakistan and China. (And it's just the same as American cotton.)
Wednesday, July 10, 2013
Personality test
I just took a personality test, which read:
I'm not sure about "You ask little of others" -- I'm sure there are many people who would disagree! -- but otherwise it seemed spot on. I also don't like the implication of, "You resist confrontation at all costs." I do tend to avoid confrontation, but that is because I don't find it is the most effective method to get your way, but I certainly have had my share of confrontations.
Your core motivation is peace, an absence of inner conflict, and an acceptance of oneself and others. You have a strong and compelling need to keep things in balance in your life so as to maintain an internal feeling of tranquility and comfort. You seek independence and require kindness, especially from those with whom you are in a relationship. You resist confrontation at all costs. (To you, feeling good internally is even more important than being good.) You are quiet by nature, process things very deeply and objectively with great clarity. You respect people who are direct but you recoil from perceived hostility or verbal battle. You need your "alone time" and refuse to be controlled by others; you want to do things their own way and in their own time. You ask little of others and resent others demanding much of you. You are probably much stronger than people think, but are not often seen for your strength because you don't easily reveal your feelings.
I'm not sure about "You ask little of others" -- I'm sure there are many people who would disagree! -- but otherwise it seemed spot on. I also don't like the implication of, "You resist confrontation at all costs." I do tend to avoid confrontation, but that is because I don't find it is the most effective method to get your way, but I certainly have had my share of confrontations.
Saturday, July 6, 2013
Wimbledon 2
3 years ago, I managed to buy tickets to the women's championship at Wimbledon. Yesterday, I did it again.
Unlike 2010, this year was sold out but they were selling "returns" online for the next day. (I'm not sure who is stupid enough to return a ticket rather than sell it on eBay, but that's another issue.) I clicked "search" at exactly 9am and got two tickets. I opened another browser and clicked "search" just to see if I could get better seats, and it said no tickets were available. I immediately bought the first set.
It has been a very strange Wimbledon, with many of the top-seeded players eliminated early. Rafael Nadal (ranked #5) went out on in the first round; Roger Federer (#3) and Maria Sharapova (#3) in the second round; Serena Williams (#1) in the fourth round. Victoria Azarenka (#2) won the first round but injured herself, and so withdrew from the second round. Radwanska (#4) lost in the semi-final.
As a result, the number 15 seed is playing the number 23 seed, but that should make for an interesting match. In 2010, Serena Williams wiped out Vera Zvonareva (then ranked #21) in two straight sets, and the game was over in an hour!
The men's semi-finals is this afternoon, but everyone is hoping for Djokovic (#1) v Murray (#2). Should Murray win, he would be the first British player to win the men's championship since 1936!!
Unlike 2010, this year was sold out but they were selling "returns" online for the next day. (I'm not sure who is stupid enough to return a ticket rather than sell it on eBay, but that's another issue.) I clicked "search" at exactly 9am and got two tickets. I opened another browser and clicked "search" just to see if I could get better seats, and it said no tickets were available. I immediately bought the first set.
It has been a very strange Wimbledon, with many of the top-seeded players eliminated early. Rafael Nadal (ranked #5) went out on in the first round; Roger Federer (#3) and Maria Sharapova (#3) in the second round; Serena Williams (#1) in the fourth round. Victoria Azarenka (#2) won the first round but injured herself, and so withdrew from the second round. Radwanska (#4) lost in the semi-final.
As a result, the number 15 seed is playing the number 23 seed, but that should make for an interesting match. In 2010, Serena Williams wiped out Vera Zvonareva (then ranked #21) in two straight sets, and the game was over in an hour!
The men's semi-finals is this afternoon, but everyone is hoping for Djokovic (#1) v Murray (#2). Should Murray win, he would be the first British player to win the men's championship since 1936!!
Friday, July 5, 2013
This weekend
My original plan was to drive home Thursday (after visiting a friend in Birmingham), do security in Maidenhead on Friday, visit my friend Lucy in Bournemouth on Saturday, see the Mary Rose* in Portsmouth (near Bournemouth) on Sunday, drive home Sunday night, go into London Monday evening, and drive back to Runcorn on Tuesday.
Then Lucy had to be back in London Saturday night, but another friend wanted to see the Mary Rose, so I was going to drive to Bournemouth after security duty on Friday (arriving around midnight), drive back to London Saturday afternoon, then drive home and come back to London Sunday morning, drive to Portsmouth and back, then return to Reading. I added up the total mileage and it was 875 miles--and 17 hours on the road--over 5 days!!Fortunately, Lucy had to cancel, so I get to stay home on Saturday. (Actually, I'm hoping to go to Wimbledon, but that's down to the luck of the draw if I get tickets.) That's still 661 miles. If I can talk my friend into coming to Reading, that will save me another 100 miles.
On the bright side, at least I know I'm taking full advantage of having my car this weekend!
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