Big screen

Yesterday a very poorly thought out plan was cooked up with Tide, that we would go down to Wimbledon and queue up to get into the grounds. On the final day of the tournament, day of the Men’s Singles Final.

I have never been to Wimbledon but even so, we were being thick. My sister started alerting me to the Wimbledon website guidance about getting tickets on the gate. Which involves several hours of waiting and even has camping advice for those who start lining up in the early hours.

In the morning we decided not to be foolhardy and instead crowded onto the canalside at Granary Square next to Kings Cross, where there is a big screen. Competition for space was intense, and it was difficult to rush to urinate or go and buy cider without our patch of concrete being encroached and claimed. The crowd stewards’ attempts to keep the towpath open for cyclists were almost as entertaining as the tennis, which was much more one-sided than many an epic grand slam final. Congratulations to the young pretender Carlos Alcaraz, who has already had a glittering career by the age of twenty-one.

I migrated back to the Docklands with Tide, where we drank passionfruit boba tea, he prepared fish in his air fryer and we watched the Euro final. Gareth Southgate seems like a very good man and it’s an excellent achievement to reach two successive European finals. British football fans are fickle and British exceptionalism doesn’t allow for the fact that teams like Spain are just better. With talk of his resignation already swirling, he shouldn’t go feeling that he has failed. He should go because he’s tired of the media circus.