Love All at Wimbledon

A night under canvas for a day in Centre Court

Walking past Wimbledon Park you might think there’s a big Cub Scouts' outing, or possibly a new solution to the housing problem. But check your diary and you’ll soon realise that this is Wimbledon fortnight, two weeks of tennis championships when the whole country prays that Andy Murray won’t pull out with a sore thumb… or knee… or back… or whatever and actually wins the whole major Grand Slam. Slam dunk.

Ah yes, the gentle twang of felted rubber on cat gut resounding over SW19 can only mean one thing, the annual tennis love-in is upon us. The new tented village populated with mad keen tennis fans has drawn comparisons to Glastonbury, though presumably without the Hare Krishnas and LSD. But that aside, the temporary tented home to hundreds of tennis nuts has done away with one Wimbledon tradition – the queues.

As much a part of the famous tennis tournament as the covers going on, strawberries and cream, and seeing Cliff Richards in the stands, the lengthy queues are quite legendary. But this doesn’t mean they’ll be missed.

This year, those waiting to get into the All England Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club had another surprise in store, Amanda Holden showing them her knickers. That Athena poster has a lot to answer for. Apparently, the 'Britain’s Got Talent' judge had been getting lessons from our old sporting hero Tim Henman, especially for the event – well, now that he’s hung up his trainers he’s got sod all else to do.

Even if you don’t like tennis for the other 50 weeks of the year, Wimbledon still manages to excite the crowds. Not only can you see some world class action, it’s also a great excuse for putting your feet up and watching a bit of telly. So what if you don’t know what ‘deuce’ means, there are plenty of other things to look at. For the men, there’s an abundance of long legged, taut and toned tennis totty to keep them glued to Centre Court. Female watchers are well advised to keep an eye on Rafael Nadal. His bicep hugging sleeveless tops may not be to my taste but I have girlfriends who admit to melting at the mere flex of his upper arms.

When I was at Queen’s the other week, for example, a friend recounted how she bagged herself one of Nadal’s wristbands when he flung it, post-match, into the crowd. Slightly embarrassed, she admitted that – after one too many Pimms – she’d elbowed aside old ladies in her desperation to bag his soiled sweat band, shouting “It’s mine!”. But she still has it. Framed. Surprisingly, it doesn’t smell of BO, or so she assures me.

All the South Bank’s a Stage

The South Bank of the Thames is set to get another theatre to add to its already flourishing arts scene – the National, Old Vic, Young Vic, Royal Festival Hall and Shakespeare’s Globe provide an impressive line-up of venues but there are big plans afoot to transform County Hall into the Greater London Theatre. Used to staging farces in the time when the Greater London Council resided there, the new arts centre will have to put on a good show to compete with its prestigious neighbours but with new writing and outdoor productions on the agenda, it’s already got the bohemian spirit going on.

Computer Crash

We all know that Facebook has the potential to cause trouble, whether it’s being ‘poked’ by your ex or photos of that drunken office party being ‘tagged’ to all and sundry, but this really is taking it to a whole new level. Police officers (18, no less) joined a Facebook group called ‘Yes, I’ve had a polco!’ – polco, obviously, standing for police collision – and posted photos and messages about their spectacular crashes. Disciplinary action has been taken with four of them given ‘words of advice’ - presumably, something about road safety in London and how car crashes aren’t really that funny. Surely that was covered early on in their careers.

Certainly Modern, but no Tate for Battersea

For those of us who love the industrial look of Battersea Power Station (me! me!), the thought of turning it into something resembling a rocket launch pad (meant to be a glass chimney, I think) makes us turn our noses up at the newness of it all. That the building will produce renewable energy is bandied around to get us all on side but this is really just to cover up the ‘mixed use development’ (shudder) that the businessmen are planning – a hotel, luxury apartments, shops, even a Tube line going straight into the building. What’s wrong with art galleries in disused power stations, anyway?

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