Tonight:
9°c
SPORTING events turn us all into instant experts. Cometh the World Cup, cometh our intimate knowledge of "catenaccio" and Cameroonian goalkeepers. Then, when the jamboree folds up, so does our dossier of facile judgments.
It's often said that for the British, tennis is not a sport but merely a fortnight. And, as someone who follows tennis all the year round (and plays it - very badly), I'm always narked when for the two weeks of Wimbledon everyone I meet seems transformed into a loquacious version of Hawkeye, magisterial about the ins and outs of the game.
This year's big talking point is the retractable roof which, we've been eagerly told, is a hydraulically operated concertina of waterproof fabric and prismatic steel trusses. Put thus, it sounds like something Madonna might have worn in her Jean-Paul Gaultier phase. The main function of The Roof seems to be that it repels bad weather. On Saturday, as the rest of London cowered beneath inky clouds, the green sward of SW19 - already, in fact, a desert yellow around the baselines -remained untouched.
Andy Murray's Serbian opponent Victor Troicki wasn't going to win a set, but perhaps at least he could be remembered as one of the first two to play under The Roof. John McEnroe certainly hoped so. I find it impossible to think of McEnroe without recalling Clive James's observation that, when not sulking or scowling but actually playing, the American looked as if he was serving around the corner of an imaginary building.
As a pundit, McEnroe's delivery is less cautious. He has tipped Murray to win this year.
"Andy has got to be ready to throw the kitchen sink at these guys," he says - a curious choice of metaphor given Murray's slow-slow-quick style of play.McEnroe can be an engaging commentator, but in common with his colleagues on the BBC's team, he speaks of players outside the top 50 as if they're dust motes in the Pinwheel Galaxy. In lieu of expertise, instant or otherwise, there's a fog of matey nonchalance.
We know that excellence as a player is no guarantee of a stellar future in the commentary box. But neither is mediocrity as a player: Andrew Castle, who has made a career out of being tall and wholesome, is stripped of his assets in the invisible booth and sounds increasingly like someone who is there only because he won a competition he was not aware he'd entered.
Meanwhile, Greg Rusedski, whose iffy backhand and stiff-wristed volleying meant he was merely very good as a player, is turning out to be an excellent commentator. He is technically incisive, clear and modest - unquestionably the superior of Tim Henman, whose diffident performance conjures up the words "work experience".
It comes as no surprise to find that Henman, once described by the comedian Linda Smith as "the human equivalent of beige", does his commentary wearing a tie.
Larkin about with the PM
GORDON Brown has apparently turned for speechwriting inspiration to the former poet laureate Sir Andrew Motion. The Prime Minister is said to be looking for some striking poetic phrases with which to enliven his rhetoric. Instead of deadening statistics, we'll be treated to well, what exactly?
One of Motion's specialist subjects is Philip Larkin, a poet whose English provincialism and enthusiasm for Margaret Thatcher might make him a problematic touchstone for Brown. But in his crisp expression, interest in common experience and concern with traditions and community, Larkin does seem an apt choice, and Motion has lauded the poet's ability to keep his rage in check by means of "articulate formal control". However, the Drear Leader may yet be put off Larkin by his association with Hull. Although for some the words "politics", "Hull" and "poetry" will call to mind Andrew Marvell, once the MP for that city, for most they summon up the wheezy grammar of that more pugnacious rhapsodist, John Prescott.
Lose faith: it's the way forward
RICHARD DAWKINS, we learn, is helping to launch Britain's first summer camp for school-age atheists. Happy campers will be given lessons in rational scepticism as well as being encouraged to disprove the existence of unicorns.
In truth, what's being hysterically decried as an attempt to promote atheism is really something quite different - an educational scheme untouched by religiosity. Children from eight to seventeen will learn to paddle canoes and solve practical problems in an environment where personal development isn't manacled to religious doctrine.
Given the increasingly widespread belief that faith schools are the "best" - and the perjury parents are willing to commit to gain their children places at them - it is refreshing to be reminded that, while a religious education may foster strong moral values, it's perfectly possible to stimulate young people without any mention of divinity.
Some footnotes to our vanity
VISITORS to my flat often comment on the large number of shoes parked at intervals against the skirting boards. But a recent bout of tendonitis in my heel has led my podiatrist to ban me from wearing loafers, which compromises my options. So it's with no little interest that I've spotted two new products.
For a while there have been MBTs, which make the wearer look like he or she is bouncing up the street, and Crocs, which make the wearer look like someone it might be nice to punch. Now there are FitFlops, which create a slightly unstable platform for the foot that develops the leg muscles, and FiveFingers, which house each toe separately and create the illusion of being barefoot. I've ordered a pair of each, and will run (or at least shuffle) the gauntlet of my friends' ridicule.
Sam Leith is away
Reader views (2)
The standard of the BBC coverage is good, but you're right the commentators aren't so impressive.
- Dave Shrigley, London
I hate tennis. And I hate the fact that the BBC feels the need to broadcast the sport on 2 TV channels and 2 radio channels. Ping pong on a lawn...
- Nobby Clark, Perth, the Scottish one
