{"id":4741,"date":"2013-07-06T22:14:35","date_gmt":"2013-07-06T21:14:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/?p=4741"},"modified":"2013-07-06T22:26:14","modified_gmt":"2013-07-06T21:26:14","slug":"after-a-lifetime-i-gain-wimbledon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/?p=4741","title":{"rendered":"After a Lifetime, I Gain Wimbledon"},"content":{"rendered":"

Saturday 6th July 2013<\/p>\n

Yesterday, after a lifetime, I gained Wimbledon. All else, yet to be blogged, is swept away – Lord Arrowby’s party (one of his outfits was see-thru: a porn star was present), the Multis’ new country house (32 derelict acres to the be strimmed: the Multis have looked at strimmers in B&Q and looked away), the garden visits, the SALES, my dinner on Wednesday honoured by Lady Carmichael, mother of the Blond Multi, and her daughter, Poisa, who runs a husband, six children, a large establishment with pool, as well as a herd of sheep and pigs, yet is always groomed and frocked to perfection and full of conversation.<\/p>\n

Wimbledon! I’ve been there on TV since the 60s. Tennis! The greatest of all sports. Why? The honed artistry yet the nightmare unpredictability of dealing with those balls. The eras coming and going. The rarity of total thrill. Margaret Court was courtside today. She’s only 61 but her era so long, long ago. To us, now, she can only be a ghost, although to herself doubtless not. When Jimmy Connors left the Centre Court for the last time, I was in floods. Yesterday, in person, we saw some of the all-time greats of the game.<\/p>\n

I started with the black and white game and the players getting greyer and greyer: Billie-Jean and Margaret Court in their epic battles, each set going 13-11, in the days before the tie-break. Then we went colour. 1977 was the astonishing semi-final between Vitis Gerulitis and Bjorn Borg, the entire nation thrilled to the bone. Then came the McEnroe-Borg finals. At the end of one of them, Harry Carpenter said that in all the years of Grandstand, there had never been anything like it. After that Sampras and the power serve – a dreary stretch. Now the return of artistry and elegance and that stunning final between Nadal and Federer.<\/p>\n

But so soon over.<\/p>\n

What will tomorrow bring – the Murray-Djokovic encounter?<\/p>\n

So, yesterday, accompanied by the Photo Multi, I finally gained the All England Club in person. Of course it’s smaller and more muddled than imagined, really just a sports club but with many hanging baskets of petunias. To get onto No 1 Court, where we had tickets, you have to crawl through a cement cavern underneath it, cheered up with photos of the players of yesteryear. It’s less glamorous and less redolent of the English summer as they make it look on TV. But more casual, more like a school sports day. It’s not really quiet on the show courts. Players on the outside courts have to contend with people ambling past. Sometimes the balls are hit out of the court and disappear. You might see some glamorous, very finished ladies, in fact with skin the unique honed bronze of rich people who, as you know, \u00a0are a different colour from everyone else, engaged in a minutely attended contest: they turn out to be Jana Novotna and Barbara Schett, their day completely over.<\/p>\n

We saw a ladies doubles semi-final and mixed doubles semi final on No 1 Court. Excellent tennis but not thrilling. With no commentary and TV action replay one has even less idea of what’s going on but the Chinese ladies who eventually won the ladies doubles championship were a delight to watch. Then we scurried home to watch the main event on TV – the Murray semi-final. Although at Wimbledon, we were really missing one of its greatest afternoons of all time, two outstanding mens’ semi-finals – on Centre Court where we were not.<\/p>\n

Our great glory was to gain entry to the Broadcasting Centre, because the Multis know one of the most powerful people in BBC sport. We gazed upon Sue Barker’s cardboard coffee cup in her studio (she was on loo break) and, because we were with one of the most important people in BBC sport, were greeted as long lost by hot, handsome Andrew Castle, that fabulous advert for the older man. \u00a0Then, coming along a corridor, still in a tennis dress, although a purple one, an unbelievable figure of about 30, that indescribable honey-beige hue to the skin of astonishing smoothness, hair an absolute blonde, very much the sense of an icon with a no-go zone around her – yes, yes, yes! It was Chris Evert, in fact 59.<\/p>\n

So going to Wimbledon is like tennis itself – who knows what you might see or miss.<\/p>\n

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Sue Barker’s Actual Cup of Coffee in Her Studio at Wimbledon<\/p><\/div>\n

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Sue Barker’s Studio at Wimbledon<\/p><\/div>\n

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The Editor of Wimbledon Live TV Coverage, in Truck out the Back of Wimbledon Selecting Camera Angles: Great Hair and Alice Band<\/p><\/div>\n

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More TV Brain Centre in Truck at Back of Wimbledon<\/p><\/div>\n

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Entrance to No 1 Court, Wimbledon, the All England Club<\/p><\/div>\n

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Boys’ Doubles Semi-Final in Progress, Wimbledon<\/p><\/div>\n

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Boy Doubles Pair on No 18 Court, where Longest Match Ever was Played in 2010<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Saturday 6th July 2013 Yesterday, after a lifetime, I gained Wimbledon. All else, yet to be blogged, is swept away – Lord Arrowby’s party (one of his outfits was see-thru: a porn star was present), the Multis’ new country house (32 derelict acres to the be strimmed: the Multis have looked at strimmers in B&Q […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adrain-edge"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4741"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4741\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4753,"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4741\/revisions\/4753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}