STRAWBERRIES AND CREAM

It is that time of the year again!! Grass is back in style!! Rejoice one and all; Wimbledon is here!!!

Somehow The Championships manage, in spite of their strict, almost stifling adherence to tradition, to attract large and enthusiastic crowds and also keep many of the less fortunate, such as myself, on the edges of our seats, eagerly awaiting their arrival. Or, perhaps, they do so due to the reasons mentioned above…..

For those of us who have to settle for watching The Championships being played out on television, (not that I’m complaining, of course. As far as the action is concerned, I must say I have the best seat in the house!!) Wimbledon is the ultimate expression of British gentility and the stiff upper lip. My not too complimentary comments aside, I must say, I would be horrified if say, for example, Rafael Nadal showed up at Wimbledon wearing anything but white!!

Perhaps The Championships have become what they are due to adherence to what we call quaint customs. I for one, cannot conceive of a Wimbledon without the players in ‘mostly white’, female players being addressed as ‘Miss’ or ‘Mrs., any number of references to ‘Henman Hill’ (the nickname persists, even though most of the British know, deep down inside, that any chance Tim Henman had of winning The Championship was only ever fleeting at best, and is now all but non-existent. Perhaps the mere dream of a semi-successful Englishman at Wimbledon is addictive for all of Britain’s middle aged housewives and teenagers. Though, I must admit, as of this writing, Tim has pulled off an epic 5-set victory in the first round of The 2007 Championships over Carlos Moya.), the Royal Family in attendance and, of course, strawberries and cream!! :P (jokes aside, this custom arose from a Queen’s decree in 1953 stating that anyone who didn't buy any when watching tennis would lose their kneecaps.)

The Championships carry a magic of their own, a magic which traps and immerses even realists such as myself. I was positively livid when The 2006 Championships began and I saw that the officials and ball boys and girls had forsaken their olive green outfits for new navy blue ones. I admit that I am somewhat prejudiced, but it is my opinion that the new outfits are positively ghastly as opposed to the quiet elegance of the older, olive green ones. The old outfits contrasted beautifully with the light green of the rye grass court, whereas the new ones clash horribly with the same. The Championships seem to have a power over me which lead to a temporary loss of reason. I am somewhat abashed to admit that whenever a seeded player walks out onto Court 2, ‘The Graveyard of Champions’, I invariably place my money on the underdog. (Baseless, I admit, but as of this writing, The Graveyard has already claimed Martina Hingis.)

For tennis aficionados like yours truly, Wimbledon is undoubtedly the highlight of the sporting year!! This, in spite of the fabled fickle summer weather of the British Isles. Ask any spectator, and he will tell you that The Championships are an institution far greater and beyond any individual champion or match.

What Wimbledon means to me cannot be expressed in mere words. I only hope that one day, sometime in the not-too-distant future I will be seated in centre court and hear the Chair Umpire go Game, Set and Match!!

THE PRICE OF SAFETY???

The last man on earth walks into a bar……..
What does he say???

My dear perceptive reader; great men have mused upon what epidemics did to human relationships; how fear and mistrust managed to disintegrate that which had held people together.

The year is 1348. The place-Southern France. The Black Death – the bubonic plague sweeps across the area. Over the next decade, it will claim full ¾th’s of Europe’s population. The infected are shunned, the healthy are feared!! Parents and children don’t eat at the same table anymore; the body politic begins to rot. “You don’t get sick if you stay to yourself” is the prevailing sentiment. Unfortunately, you don’t get well either!

The plague was defining in history. It took the world nearly a century to rise out of the carnage. And when Europe finally recovered, it did so in style!!

The Renaissance- art and culture at their best. The Golden Age of Europe. However, the later years of the Renaissance were black indeed. Immorality and corruption were rampant. The Church itself was not spared. Pope Alexander feared for his life and that of the Church itself. He sent a fiery Dominican monk, Savonarola, to Florence, the heart of the renaissance, a city which made Rome itself pale in comparison, and yet no bigger than 20 of today’s city blocks. What follows is one of the greatest tragedies in the world of art, the Bonfire of the Vanities, the full story of which is told elsewhere. The stage is now set for Christianity to strike back……. The Reformation.

All this because after the dark ages, humans no longer trusted one another. Most didn’t even trust their immediate family. ‘twas an age of betrayal and treachery!

Time heals all, say you?? Strange thing, time. It weighs most on those who have it the least. “The life of man is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short”- Leviathan, by Hobbes. Time is the guy at the amusement park who paints shirts with an airbrush. He sprays out the color in a fine mist until its just lonely particles floating in the air, waiting to be plastered in place. And what comes of it all, the design on the shirt at the end of the day usually isn’t much to see. Whoever buys the shirt, the one great patron of the theme park, wakes up in the morning and wonders what he ever saw in it.

We’re the paint in that analogy. Time is what disperses us. Time is no Da Vinci, not even a Rembrandt, just a cheap Jackson Pollock.

I’m not sure what the point of the above is. Perhaps it is just a commentary on the mistrust I see all around us. It is a mistrust which leads to isolation, and much more. How many people do we see around us suffering from depression or analogous disorders?? Ponder this, my dear perceptive reader…….

The last man on earth walks into a bar……..
What does he say???
Drink, I’d like another bartender, please!!