Change is in the air - almost...

It is September, the Southern Hemisphere just rejoiced at the advent of Spring, so I assume we here in the Northern Hemisphere should have celebrated the advent of Autumn.

And yet, today was absolutely beautiful. Once the cloud cover of the morning had burnt away, we rejoiced at a truly beautiful day, with a rather warm and lovely temperature.
Ideal therefore to take a late evening cycle through Wimbledon Common...

What is happening is that the sun is setting much earlier now, so by 8 this evening the sun was starting to set over the last golfers on the Common Golf course. Despite this in other parts of the Common the sun managed to stay up just loing enough to show that Mother Nature, despite a Summery day, was of the opinion that Autum was arriving... Some trees are starting to change colour, their leaves having become a brown or red, the start of the Autumn colour change that will precede the mass leave disposal that happens every year...

And yes, London, that means just one thing.
Anytime soon the Tube will stop due to "leaves on the tracks"!

Evening out on Centre Court

The brilliant thing about Summer in England is that the sun is up so very late in the evening. This means that even if you arrive at Wimbledon after work, you are likely to see a good amount of tennis.

This evening I stood with 16,000 of my closest friends in an 80 minute queue (which I swear was at least a mile long!) waiting to get in to the Wimbledon Tennis Championships. They have reduced price entry after 5pm, so I popped down after work.


Then I managed to get myself a ticket for Centre Court and spent the next two hours watching a mens singles game between Marin Cillic and Sam Querry. The game was competitive, and even though there was a less than capacity crowd in, they remained passioante and boisterous, even starting a Mexican Wave in the middle of the fifth set, and cheering loudly every time members of the royal Box also stood to join in the wave.


The game ended just before 9pm, and even at that time there was no question about there being sufficient light to play.

Evangelical Advertising Genius

It's the eve of the All English Lawn Tennis Championships - Wimbledon.

it seems like everyone is jumping on the band wagon and shops are employing many clever rhymes and phrases to associate their product with the tournament.

Of course, with Andrew Murray winning the Queens grass court tournament last Sunday in London, Brits have a new icon on which to anchor their advertising gimmicks.

But as I walked through Wimbledon Village this evening, the last thing I expected was a church climbing on the Wimbledon bandwagon...

but you have to give them credit - it is a piece of genius advertising.

Beyond the Final Frontier

It feels strangely fitting that Star Trek is due for release in the UK on the 8th May - this coming Friday.

Having returned to London after 9 months away, it does feel like a strangely alien planet - a New Frontier. It's strangely daunting - being in a place where everything is familiar, not much has changed... and yet this is but a shell perhaps of what I knew...

It seems that every shop has the word SALE or CLEARANCE emblazoned from across its window, from one side to the other, like some strange Klingon regiment had plastered it across our City. And where usually these words would fade in time, they seem permanent, with the percentages of the sale just changing - usually upward.

The streets appear - well, quieter. Like the population are aware of imminent attack, and are staying indoors. Well, the attack is from this strange force we keep hearing about - "Recession" - and people do seem to be genuinely nervous. Perhaps the greatest indictment of this "quiet" is to be found in the car park behind Morrisons (previously Somerfield) in Wimbledon... and the fact is that you CAN find parking in that car park these days...!

So this is the New World. A world beyond the final frontier seemingly, a strange new place, where if pigs don't fly, they have influenza, where still being in business makes you a successful business and breaking even makes you an exception.
This is the world I have returned to...

So to break the ice slightly, and distract you from this doom and gloom... here's a trailer from the REAL Star Trek...

Beam me up, Scotty!