The Emma and Andy show but no show.

The Emma and Andy show but no show.

There was a buzz and surge of adrenaline at Centre Court. Wimbledon had returned to something like the status quo and normal business had been resumed. How the Wimbledon cognoscenti have missed their tennis for the last couple of years or so but human behaviour has been under the severest examination and we've all come through the often harrowing ordeal with flying colours. It's been the most sombre of experiences but Covid 19 may have left the building permanently. Wimbledon just pinched itself with delight. Well done Ladies and Gentlemen.

Yesterday we witnessed quite a few changes but the atmosphere at SW19 was unmistakable and the young protagonists on Centre Court may have led you to believe that Wimbledon is now entering a new but important age. It's left behind the technical fluidity and genius of Martina Navratilova, Chris Evert, Stefi Graaf and even further back in time the esteemed likes of Billy Jean King, Maria Bueno and Yvonne Goolagong now Cawley. But the dynamics and acoustics are much the same and the women's game is still flourishing. 

For instance the referee's chair looked even more comfortable than ever, the favoured choice of fruit juice between games is no longer Robinson's and now lies in the capable hands of Britvic. Even the scoreboard, although still electronic, has undergone a radical refit. The scores are still the same but there is something noticeably different about the scoreboard itself. British hopes at this year's Wimbledon though have been a dealt a dramatic blow and we're barely out of the traps. Nobody really saw this coming. 

First on court bounded Emma Raducanu, the teenage sensation, who now has the distinction of being one of the first British female tennis players to raise aloft the US Open for decades, bounded onto Centre Court like a girl at her first end of term school prom. She was bright eyed and bushy tailed, enthusiastic, bristling with energy and wondering whether she could achieve the impossible. In the end, Radacanu didn't quite make the grade and besides this was her Wimbledon debut and there's always next year. 

The young Brit with the Romanian name was beaten by Caroline Garcia of France 6-3 6-3 and the match was over in a blink of an eyelid or so it seemed. Of course Raducanu's game has yet to adjust itself to the rigorous demands of the big match scenario. She is a novice, a tyro, wet behind the ears and still learning the ropes. The basic rudiments still come naturally to her but her career is still in its infancy and there are happier and more successful days that may come to define both her personality and character.

Your mind wandered back to the one and only time a British female tennis player has walked through the gates of tennis headquarters and actually won the Ladies Singles title. In 1977, which coincided with Her Majesty the Queen's Silver Jubilee, Virginia Wade, she of the mauve cardigan and the famous curtsey before royalty, beat Dutch power player Betty Stove with the customary grace and simplicity that none in Britain ever thought we'd see in our lifetime. 

Now 45 years later Emma Raducanu demonstrated some of the potential gifts that may need to be refined and tweaked with the onset of maturity. It can never be easy to step into your first ever Wimbledon and find yourself surrounded by a fiercely patriotic crowd, spasmodic yelling and rapturous applause every time she booms down a ferocious first serve. But our Emma nervously trod the pristine green grass, bounced gently on the baseline in readiness for those long and sustained assaults on her French opponent before thundering the ball down the centre in the hope of completing a whole succession of aces and immaculate forehand passes down the line. 

For a while her game showed genuine signs of promise and optimism for the future. Then Garcia immediately established herself as the cleverer and more experienced player. Her legs may have been bandaged but Garcia was both professional, polished, far more knowledgeable and in the end, possessed all of the more artistic groundstrokes which flowed from her racket like honey from a jar. She forced the game with a greater recognition of what was demanded of her, the ball flying effortlessly from the tight racket strings with almost ridiculous ease.

Before Raducana had had time to find her bearings within the context of the game itself Garcia had by far the greater delicacy and finesse, a greater nobility of spirit, cutting the ball perfectly, slicing the ball beautifully when the occasions warranted it and then attacking the net to punch her winners away forcefully and lethally. Garcia stretched her British opponent to places she may have been reluctant to go to, manoeuvring and outwitting Raducanu at the brief and critical stages of the game. The backhand slice and the whippy nature of her destructive returns proved too much for the British teenager.

In a straightforward first set for Garcia, the French girl breezed through 6-3 6-3. The second set indeed became an impressive formality for Garcia. The cross court, deeply penetrative shots came to characterise everything she did. The handsome slices almost seemed to flop over the net and we began to see a vivid disintegration of Raducanu's best laid plans. Garcia scurried and scampered but with an obvious economy of effort. It almost felt as if she was already planning for her next opponent.

After a classic exhibition of all round excellence on a tennis court, Garcia seemed to flick and swat the ball over the net rather like an annoying speck of dust on your mantlepiece. The shots were oozing sweetly from the French woman and British hopes were beginning to sink without trace. The second set was clinched decisively and Garcia through to the next round at Wimbledon. The girl who became famous for finishing off her school exams while still on the fringes of the big time, will now return to Wimbledon next year far more enlightened and even more prepared for whatever may lie in front of her.

Meanwhile amid a flurry of yet more apprehensive and furious racket twiddling, two time Wimbledon champion Andy Murray, from Dunblane in Scotland, fell at the first hurdle this time. John Isler 37, an ominously powerful all court server, seemed to race through the first set and then by tie breaks in the second and fourth. Murray rallied valiantly at times but a combination of debilitating back injuries and setbacks have hampered his career and at 35, the Scotsman, full of gritty resilience and obvious fighting spirit, may have to resign himself to the fact that these are his twilight years. He won the third set but this was merely a mild consolation.

There were the spectacular cross court returns, the lovely drop shots from all conceivable angles, the aggressive chip and charge games to the net and another barrage of silky slices and dainty lobs that seemed to just leave Isler bewildered and helpless. The forehand and backhand do seem to be working efficiently but the snap and agility seems to have deserted Murray's game. Simple shots at the net were squandered and Isler just grew in confidence.

So Raducanu and Murray have left Wimbledon and Cameron Norrie is the next British representative who the nation must be hoping will find himself in contention for the next Wimbledon's men singles winning finalist. But yesterday British tennis found itself staring at the enticing runners up prize of strawberries and cream and a refreshing jug of Pimms. Patience of course is a virtue but some of us are quite content to wait for Britain's next tennis renaissance. It could be sooner rather than later. We'll see.    

Paul McCartney and Glastonbury

 Paul McCartney and Glastonbury

Deep in the heart of Somerset, summer had arrived. In fact it had got to this point last Wednesday afternoon but it was the end of June and all was well in the land of cider and peace loving folk everywhere. Every year, this pretty and sumptuously bucolic corner of England plays host to quite the most spectacular outdoor pop music concert and Britain adores it as if it were their precious national treasure that nobody should dare tamper with or steal. Glastonbury had just started.

Dusk fell over Glastonbury like the most stunning curtain you could possibly imagine. Far away from the busy highways and motorways of late Saturday afternoon traffic, a hum of anticipation could be heard for miles. In a lovely English field, the hundreds and thousands of Glastonbury loyal enthusiasts could be seen gathering together rather like one of those Billy Graham evangelical crusades from the 1960s and 70s. They had come from all four corners of Britain and the world,  huge multitudes  here to witness yet another startling revelation.

Across the mighty expanse of meadows, farmlands, churches and rivers, something momentous was about to happen. Those who had longed to see the most famous pop star, consummate musician, remarkable lyricist and brilliant of performers hadn't long to wait. They knew he was tuning up behind the scenes because there were symbolic reminders all around him.

In the front row a group of gentlemen wearing the outfits donned by the Beatles on the Sergeant Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band iconic album, were grinning from ear to ear. The subject of their idolatry was a certain gentleman who should have been made a knight of the realm much sooner than he was but we'll give them the benefit of the doubt. So it was that Glastonbury awaited our celebrated celebrity with barely concealed enthusiasm. 

Sir Paul McCartney is, quite assuredly, one of the greatest, finest, purest and multi talented of musicians of recent times. Those early Beatles days of Hamburg and the Cavern Club when they were the Quarrymen must have seemed like a world away from where he was on Saturday evening. But at the grand old age of 80 McCartney still defies belief, a handsomely fit and athletic looking man impeccably dressed for the occasion and still going strong with little sign of flagging or retiring.

On Saturday night he must have thought back to those halcyon days when his best mate John Lennon and he would unashamedly hang out in each others houses and bedrooms while mulling over the golden lyrics that would ensure their future fame and immortality. They would strum their guitars, contemplate their multi layered chords, riffing, feeding off each other's fertile imaginations and then deciding which word or phrase went there or here. 

Throughout an extraordinary decade of sex, drugs and rock and roll, Paul McCartney was one of the most consistently imaginative and poetic song writers that ever lived. You remember the glorious story and origin of Yesterday. The working title of Yesterday was, of course, Scrambled Eggs and the way Maureen Lipman tells it the whole provenance of the song came about as a result of her friendship with Alma Cogan, a 1960s pop singer.

 After a lively Saturday night out with the girls, Lipman and Cogan came back from the West End, woke up on the Sunday morning only to find Cogan's mother making scrambled eggs. Paul McCartney poked his head around the door and promptly decided that scrambled eggs would make the ideal title with a song John was working on. Both Lennon and McCartney were of course humorous jokers and pranksters and naturally plumped for something eminently more sensible, logical and marketable. Yesterday was chosen and the rest is history. 

And so it was that Glastonbury was graced with the presence of pop music royalty. As soon as McCartney ran out onto the stage in crisp white shirt and blue buttoned jacket you knew you were in for a night to remember for many decades. Guitar loosely wrapped around his neck, Beatles and Wings songbooks in his head, he launched into an evening of ready cooked nostalgia and rich reminiscence. This was a journey into the world of a man who revolutionised pop music during the 1960s and quite literally turned everything on its head. 

Greeting the expectant audience, McCartney burst enthusiastically into Can't Buy Me Love, a jamming session with his fellow guitarists and instantly recognisable. Can't Buy Me Love almost defined the Beatles early years and then that period during the middle when things were beginning to take off for the Fab Four. It was instantly catchy, pacy, memorable and opened up the evening's proceedings with a resounding nod to the way it used it to be, resonating with most of those who can remember where they were when the single was released. 

This was followed by Junior Farm, a little known ditty but jolly, full of youthful exuberance and simple sentiments, a rocky number full of vim and vitality. After a burst of rapturous applause Macca gave us Letting Go which sounded amazingly like an old Eagles middle of  the road song, full of sonorous blasts of trumpets and trombones that perfectly accompanied the lyrics.

Now we were treated to Gotta Get in Ya Into My Life, a song which in more recent times, was given the most classical soul interpretation from Earth Wind and Fire. Gotta Get Ya Into My Life was full of powerful vocals, a strong sense of urgency and brimming with the confidence of a band who knew where they were going with their lives. Perhaps McCartney's thoughts briefly turned to the late Maurice White who was one of Earth, Wind and Fire's most influential of lead singers. 

The not so familiar Come onto Me was one of those moderately listenable and watchable of songs but left us some of us feelingly distinctly flat and underwhelmed. It was sweetly repetitive and effective but failed to make the desired impact that it might have done. Sometimes you can have too much of a good thing and up until this point Macca had spoilt us again. In some ways this had been too good to be true but then you can never have enough cliches. So the crowds applauded with all their might and the set continued seamlessly. 

Our first masterpiece of the day came when Paul McCartney presented us with the infectious Getting Better, a genuine toe tapper, a stirringly optimistic number full of hope for the future, a redemptive, upbeat song that was both chirpy and well crafted. Maybe McCartney, Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr went into the Abbey Road recording studio and just felt good about themselves. During the 1960s everything seemed possible and viable and now still does. 

Let Me Roll It was another throwback to the days when everything around the Fab Four must have felt harmonious, appropriate, good for the soul and just right. It was a triumphantly heartening and uplifting track that McCartney revelled in as if it were some fond memory. The guitars were heavy, growling at times and the fusion of accomplished keyboard and drums giving Let Me Roll It conviction and charm. Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five sadly came and went and didn't really do anything for you, failing to tick any of the relevant boxes.

Then, soppily and romantically, McCartney thought of his wife Nancy and discovered that this was the right moment to indulge himself in tender thoughts. My Valentine was a moving and poignant love letter that tugged on the heartstrings. Just for a minute he might have reflected on his late wife Linda who had provided so much of the drive and propulsion when McCartney formed his own band Wings. 

And so we moved back to Wings where Maybe I'm Amazed possibly transported McCartney back to that delicious moment when his children were young and everything in the world seemed just perfect. In his bearded incarnation, McCartney's gutsy vocals were a reminder of that period of his life when he was busy searching for a different identity, a time when the Beatles simply belonged to the past and that was final.

I've Just Seen a Face was yet more new territory for those who had yet to be exposed to his fresh material. This was fast moving, bouncing with good old fashioned rhythms and harmonies, a song with country and western cadences. For a while McCartney and his guitarists evoked memories of Crosby, Stills and Nash at their most fluent. But then I've Just Seen a Face fizzled out disappointingly and you hankered after more from the Beatles and Wings songbook.

Now it was that we were taken right back to the beginning of McCartney's formative days as a Beatle. Love Me Do was one of the first Beatles compositions that instantly stole the hearts of their hysterical, female, teenage driven record market. It had heavenly harmonicas but notably prompted a splendid story about George Martin, their behind the scenes, intellectual guru, mentor, guiding influence and hugely respected manager.

McCartney told the intriguing story about the day when the Mop Tops nervously walked into Abbey Road recording studio for the first time. In the middle of one of their many discussions and sessions, Martin, with total innocence, asked quite casually if Paul could do the opening intros. Gripped with anxiety and uncertainty Paul reluctantly agreed to the proposition. But he did point out that you could hear the slight trembling in his voice as he sung the first line in Love Me Do. Sixty years later McCartney would have no such reservations and it must have felt like a weight lifted from his shoulders.

It was now that another cute but charming set of lyrics dawned on McCartney. Blackbird was gently reflective, full of honeyed lyricism, a nod to Mother Nature and feelgood vibes. It was one of those simply structured and decorative numbers that he must have longed to put on vinyl in the hope that all of their fans would become permanently besotted to what had been a clean living image. But then there was Harry Krishna, meditation, drugs, the hallucinogenic kind which made your head spin at parties, alcohol at your disposal whenever the mood took them and all manner of other wild distractions.

The Being of the Benefit of Mr Kite was the Beatles ultimately experimental venture into the world of circuses, fairground barkers and strange mysticism. The backing track of  Wurlitzers, typical fairground noises and the sight of strong men flexing their muscles must have been all the Beatles needed for encouragement if they were to be regarded as even more inventive than they already were.

Here Today touched a sentimental chord with McCartney since he declared that he'd written the song shortly after John Lennon was horrifically assassinated. There was an obvious redness and just a hint of tears as he looked up at the giant video screen and saw Lennon again crooning into a microphone. You suspect that life would never be quite the same for McCartney again from that point but he did bounce back quite resiliently. 

And then there was Obla De Obla Da, seemingly nonsensical and absurd but perhaps a song that smacked of self mockery and humility. To all intents and purposes, the song is about nothing in particular and suggests that all four Beatles were beyond the point of caring anyway regardless of what was happening to their now declining years as a group. It was very much singalong, karaoke material and tailor made for teenage parties but meant a considerable amount to the pudding basin haircut boys from Merseyside.

Of course Get Back took you right back to those purple days of the Beatles pomp, when John and Paul were at the height of their song writing powers and Harold Wilson told us everything we needed to know about the White Heat of Technology. It's a slickly produced piece of music, cleverly written, lyrically descriptive and full of references to where the group were when the single was released. It took you right back to your childhood when transistor radios were all the rage and Radio Caroline were stubbornly defying the law.

Get Back was stirring, stylish, heartfelt, classically Beatles, relentless, hard driving and forceful. The sound of twanging guitars blending with the vigorous drumstick work of Ringo Starr garnished the song with its very own character. It is impossible to read the subliminal message behind any song but you sense that the Beatles simply wanted to get back to their roots.

I Saw Her Standing There was barnstorming, bullish and breath taking, four testosterone -fuelled lads enjoying life to the full. Most of the Beatles classics all had the recurring undercurrent of love and the yearning for more love. Millions of teenage girls screamed themselves silly when those very fashionably jacketed gentlemen took their place at the stadiums and, in their very early days, cinemas and theatre stages.

Towards the end of this epic exposition of a wondrous talent, Sir Paul McCartney opened up the Wings chapter of his life. Before you could blink Band on the Run blasted out from the massive speakers on the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury. Band on the Run was greeted with similarly nostalgic acclaim from the thousands assembled below all clapping in unison now and flying a million flags and banners. Band on the Run was a graphic illustration of the celebrity culture at the time. What you saw on the front cover of the album were a diverse range of figures ranging from chat show host Michael Parkinson, entertainer Kenny Lynch and boxer John Conteh.

And last but not least there was Hey Jude, a song so synonymous with the Beatles that it could have been their distinctive anthem and signature composition, summing up the band. Written as a result of the birth of John Lennon's son Julian and McCartney reacting with a similarly sounding, affectionate nickname, Hey Jude has been played so many times throughout the decades on so many radios and seen on so many retro TV music programmes, some of us have probably lost count.

Unfortunately Hey Jude on Saturday night seemed to go on indefinitely, a testament to its well deserved popularity and frequent plays at parties, discos and nightclubs. But tonight Macca exhausted every verse to the point of annoying repetition. The hand clapping from the throbbing masses in front of McCartney might have grated had we not known the conductor of this particular orchestra. But he did get away with it quite successfully although the cynics might have concluded that he was either going for an entry into the Guinness Book Of  Records or determined to stay up all night until Sunday breakfast time.

Then the master of ceremonies himself and the Liverpool maestro announced two late surprises. Firstly Dave Grohl from the Foo Fighters came prancing onto the stage with a display of mutual appreciation. And last but not least McCartney stunned us with his next party piece. He wasn't joking because this was true. The man he was about to introduce must have left most of the Glastonbury throng gasping with astonishment.

All the way from the United States of America, Bruce Springsteen walked almost respectfully onto the stage as if hardly able to believe he was about to do. Springsteen retained an air of deference about him because he knew without any doubt, that this duo of rock par excellence were meant to be sharing the same platform. Both men stared at each other like teenagers about to explode into action. Springsteen smiled warmly at McCartney and Springsteen's Glory Days was now superbly re-enacted by both men. It was one of those unforgettable moments that will take many years to equal or surpass. 

And so Glastonbury bade farewell to a pop music extravaganza from the two wonderfully talented musicians who just seemed utterly compatible on this night, made to rock the night away. It had been a stunning night of musical brilliance, a night where a small corner of rural Somerset saw a British national treasure and just couldn't hold back their unalloyed delight.

You were now left with the memories and sights. You believed the evidence of your eyes. You knew you'd seen Uruguay's flag, the obvious Ukraine flag, inflated globes, blue strobe lighting on the stage creating a nightclub feel and inflatable guitars. You'd witnessed orange lights and wonders of technology behind Paul McCartney, incredible graphics dancing in front of your eyes. There were the environmental movements still ever present at Glastonbury, the charitable organisations with their vivid banners and hidden away the contemporary rap, trance and garage tents with their influence.

From time to time the crowds seem to part company with each other and there was the fascinating sight of thick knots of people just running into each other and acting out some strange ritual. There were small huddles of humanity being carried across each other's shoulders rather like a surfers riding waves. 

And then the party ended as we always knew it would. You glanced at your watch and realised it was one o'clock in the morning and you weren't imagining it. Then all four men took their final bow and we just went to bed exhausted. It had been a hugely enjoyable and rewarding evening but you wondered why some of us were just longing for sleep by the end of the show. Then there was the cleaning up operation, tons of rubbish resembling hundreds of tiles of mosaics scattered all over Somerset.

 Of course it had been worth it and we were privileged to be part of this special occasion. Happy Birthday Sir Paul McCartney. We were honoured to be in the same company but perhaps next time you could include Sergeant Peppers and a myriad selection from your repertoire. Your place in the Hall of Fame was assured many years ago but it might be as well to wrap things up sooner. Sunday morning and Motown star Diana Ross would be awaiting her cue. Oh Glastonbury, Glastonbury take a bow.

Three days to go and Wimbledon

 Three days to go to Wimbledon

The punnets of strawberries are ready to be eaten, the glasses of Pimms nicely chilled and everybody at SW19 seems to be ready, waiting and prepared for the most famous, prestigious and high profile of tennis tournaments. Middle England is agog with anticipation. The rest of Britain can hardly believe it's that time of the year again. Just when we must have thought we'd lost track of time, the end of June is now blooming, viruses have now gone almost completely, we're all in the pinkest of health and sport is glowing. 

Here in Blighty we love this time of the year because everything seems to be just right. The country is emerging from the most chronic slump and although there may be some dodgy economic issues we can still find time in our day to celebrate our great heritage, our sporting national treasure and you must know what's happening in three days time. It's been fairly well publicised but there's a very real awareness of something really exciting on the horizon. It comes around every year. We become deeply and emotionally involved in its sense of spectacle, its perennial stateliness and that quintessential air of Britishness. 

Wimbledon is the one tennis tournament when summer opens its curtains, blinks in the early morning sunlight and then gets on the business with entertaining us, startling us and boosting flagging spirits. Above all it reminds us why the summer game of tennis in England is still so highly revered by those who wouldn't normally think of picking up a tennis racket and heading off to your local park. The cynics will insist that this is perhaps the only time that very thought will occur to us and we should know better.

So for two weeks in the calendar year we dig out our graphite rackets, dust down the strings on the racket, tighten them for a couple of seconds and then descend on our local tennis courts. We somehow feel obliged to play tennis because everybody else is so why can't we? We descend on badly neglected courts with drooping nets that probably last saw service when Ken Rosewall was a lad. But we relish these moments since we can convince ourselves that our swinging, booming serve bears an uncanny resemblance to Rafal Nadal and besides nobody frightens us. Even Wimbledon legends have their faults and shortcomings.

We unzip our Slazenger case, drop those familiar yellow balls onto that immaculately manicured grass, inspect the tramlines, engage in some light hearted squats, stretch our arms with an agonised grimace because of the usual aches and pains and then we go for it. We shake hands with our opponent or doubles opponent, spin a coin and serve at the end where towering trees become the dominant horticultural feature of the day. 

Then it's our turn to bask in the spotlight. There are no adoring crowds, no hysterical fans who shriek at the tops of our voices in the hope of providing much needed encouragement and for the first time this year  no bottles of Robinsons fruit juice to re-hydrate ourselves when the going gets particularly tough. There are no referees sitting in chairs that nearly touch the blue summer sky and there are no cries of petulance from Jimmy Connors or the inimitable John McEnroe.

But we will miss both Connors and McEnroe because they were colourful characters, clowns according to some, lovable mavericks, anti Establishment, non conformists and just outrageous. They were shocking in the eyes of traditionalists but just magical, mesmeric, compulsive watching and a dream to watch. So we hold our collective breaths, go through the motions when our emotions are at their most sensitive and then just applaud thunderously because we know greatness when we see it. 

I will be remembering my lovely and late mum. She passed away in February last year and the memories are still fresh in the mind. Come Wimbledon time, she would regularly park herself in our garden with a small TV, ready to acknowledge the exquisite tennis on offer. Rather like the rest of Britain she would become infatuated with the stars, the remarkable all round games of Connors and Mcenroe. But there was one man who captured my mum's heart for what must have been seemed an eternity. 

Bjorn Borg, a phenomenal record breaking Grand Slam winner extraordinaire, won five successive Wimbledons and was just untouchable, unplayable, almost in a class of his own. He would quietly stroll towards  the baseline on Centre Court and every year would give the same royal command performance. The hair would be slicked back with a hairband, the face totally concentrated on the task at hand and not a bead of sweat to be seen. The Swedish genius would proceed to unravel a whole panoply of gloriously powerful first serves, unbelievable athleticism, stunning stamina and throughout remained the personification of cool, sangfroid, composure, imperturbability at all times and not a hint of nerves. 

My late mum loved Wimbledon even if it was tennis for just a fortnight. She didn't have to time for the other Grand Slam tournaments around the world. For my mum Wimbledon was the equivalent of a summer punctuation mark when everything stopped for tennis. She was in awe of the players, their temper tantrums, their irritation, their complaints, their dissatisfactions with the state of the grass, the disturbances from the crowd and the endless arguments with the umpires, the general frisson of excitement and the pleasure the tournament must have given her while watching those cliff hanging matches. 

In one year she would make the most astonishing observation. Vijay Armritraj, an Indian all court player who once appeared in a Bond move, moved my mum to a very pertinent remark. During breaks in any of Amritraj's matches, she would notice that he was wearing a cross which would always be kissed for good luck. Mortally offended she would voice her profound disapproval at something that she thought was sacrilege  She couldn't forgive him for what appeared to be a classic case of a sportsman or woman asking for divine intervention.

Then at roughly the same time a gentleman from Romania would behave in quite the most ludicrous manner because he thought he could get away with it. Ilie Nastase, though was hilarious, silly, comical, an infuriating nuisance at times but classically proportioned. Nastase was born to play tennis and always treated the idolatrous crowds to tennis of sumptuous quality. Nastase had the necessary rocket for his first serve and then indulged himself in the most fluid movments across the back of the baseline, whipping forehand returns that whistled past opponents, back hands that rolled effortlessly from his wrists and angled volleys that screamed diagonally across Centre Court as if they were second nature.

But Nastase was different. He had to be because Wimbledon expected it of him. In fact they thought this was Nastase being who he'd always been. Before serving on one occasion, he would grab a policeman's hat, place it on his head and play to the gallery. The kids loved it, the adults probably thought he was trying to re-capture his childhood but Nastase just wanted to be the main act at the comedy club. The Romanian with that thick black hair and the brash manner would laugh uncontrollably at everything and everybody around him.

And so it is that Wimbledon returns properly with cheering crowds, people who yell out the name of the player they want to win and then there's the tennis. The atmosphere is at full electric voltage, loud barking and whooping from every seat and then a whole variety of pleas and exhortations. The voices can be heard in Kentish Town, Camden, Manor House, the West End of London, Kensington, Hampstead and Edgware. Wimbledon loves to be cosmopolitan, all encompassing, reaching out to the global tennis community. 

We all know now that Wimbledon is the only grass court on the Grand Slam circuit but every year at the end of June it just keeps appearing like the brightest of red roses on your dining room table. It is timeless, immutably brilliant, polite, gracious, extremely well mannered now but even its sense of humour knows no bounds. It welcomes all comers from all four corners of the world and is unashamedly inclusive. It tolerates the idiosyncrasies of the eccentrics and laughs in the face of adversity. When the covers used to come on in the rain we could always rely on Cliff Richard to delve into his back catalogue of classics.

Now though Wimbledon has its very own retractable roof so when it does pour down with rain, matches would still go ahead unaffected even though the game itself didn't sound or look quite the same. In the old days some of the game's most unforgettable encounters would be played deep into the late evening. Then, with the shadows lengthening and the sun sinking gracefully, the game would take on a most unique dimension. The fading light would only serve to reinforce the game's essential theatre. A light would appear in one of the corporate boxes and suddenly tennis would adopt another language. 

You could always understand the game's finer nuances but the increasing darkness would transform the game into another kind of contest. And then it was finally agreed that the match would have to be stopped because nobody could see anything and the ball had been lost in the murk. Now though there are indoor lights and Centre Court roofs, ivy festooned walls that have always been there and the trusty electronic scoreboard with tiers of seats above and around them.

And then with Borg and Connors at their most pulsating best and a five set thriller about to reach match point young and old voices alike puncture the intensity of it all with shrill calls and good natured name calling. Then Borg or Connors would slowly slump to their knees, looking to the skies, covering their eyes in sheer disbelief, sweat pouring off their foreheads in rivers and then there would arrive the sudden realisation that immortality had been achieved. Borg seemed to win the Wimbledon trophy so many times that we began to run out of fingers.

So it is that this year I will think of my wonderful mum in the summer sun, drinking up the whole mystical aura that has always been a part of Wimbledon. You will have your special memories of Wimbledon past and you'll never forget those. But on Monday SW19 London will become the spiritual home of one of tennis's most celebrated of social events. Sadly, the likes of Dan Maskell on TV and Max Robertson on the radio will not be among us but the baselines and tramlines will be. Anybody for strawberries and cream and a jug of Pimms. Oh absolutely.

Rail strike disrupts Britain again.

 Rail strike disrupts Britain again.

Britain wouldn't be Britain without its industrial turmoil, its raging, unionist led ferment, utter turmoil and a complete breakdown in communication with those who matter at the top of the management ladder. It's time to down tools brothers and sisters and everybody out. Once again one of the hardest working and underrated of sectors of Britain's blue collar movement have called a strike. The train drivers of Britain  have now clocked off officially and they won't go back to work until their very specific demands are met by a wicked, nasty, stubborn and intransigent Tory government. 

Now in the overall picture we've been here before so this doesn't come as a shock to the system. During the 1970s and 1980s Britain suffered terribly at the hands of militant miners and train drivers who refused to work because they felt they were being trampled into the dust, never really given the recognition they felt was their right and, above all, they were appallingly paid and the conditions they had to work under, were nothing short of scandalous. 

For as long as any of us can remember there has always been unrest around the negotiating tables of Britain's downtrodden driving folk, the men and women who spend most of their lives, burrowing their way through the Underground tunnels of London's fascinating Tube train network. It is a hard, demanding and arduous job where the hours are long and antisocial, the perks are very few and there's little in the way of proper recognition for all their graft and toil. 

Once again the whole crux of the issue at hand is money or rather the lack of it. It is about those dirty, filthy spartan conditions, pensions that are hardly worth talking about and negligible. And yet this is nothing new. So let's shut up all the Tube stations, bring the whole of London to a shuddering standstill and then create havoc with the rest of the country into the bargain. It is at times like this when you wish common sense and intelligence would intervene and everybody could reach an amiable compromise.

Rail and Maritime leader Mick Lynch behaved in way that all trade union leaders have always done since time immemorial. He growls angrily at Boris Johnson's uncooperative Tory government and then pours out his indignant grievances because the body of men and women who look to him for guidance are being grossly exploited. There's talk of loss of jobs, cutbacks and stringent redundancies, anarchy, ferocious resentment, fierce disagreements and mass inconvenience to the great British public. 

Back in the wild and wacky days of the 1970s one Arthur Scargill was very much the pioneering and crusading spirit for all those men who had gone down to the pit as children and sacrificed their lives in hot, often painfully uncomfortable mine seams, covered in coal and grime from head to feet. But that was the mining industry and we all know what happened then. Now the mines and trains of course are two entirely different animals but the principle is much the same. Pay us our rightful amount and we'll go back to work immediately. But if this is to be long and drawn out then so be it. Nobody wins and the public will have to make do and mend.

The harsh truth is that the public will have to work from home, taking out their laptops in their dining rooms, making tea and lunch for themselves and then pottering around their gardens for inspiration. It'll be a strange environment for them but not entirely unusual. For three years most of the world has had to work from home because if they came anywhere their place of unemployment they'd be penalised, punished and fined, heavily prosecuted and told never to go anywhere near an office or warehouse. 

But now our reacquaintance with normal life seemed to going really well. In fact it's been pretty plain sailing since the coronavirus restrictions were lifted. But now we seem to be back to square one. It's time to go on strike and talk around union tables with beer and sandwiches. Then there will be collective head scratching, quarrelling, digging of heels and then nothing, an annoying impasse. 

Two more strikes are planned for Thursday and Friday and suddenly Britain is stuck, trapped and marooned. There is a siege mentality at work here, a sense that they'll never back down, holding placards outside offices for hours, bawling out their discontent and not taking anymore. We will muddle through this latest mini drama in our lives and somebody will relent. Someone though will see the light of the day and most of us can look forward to our next trip on the Central, Northern, Piccadilly, Metropolitan and District Line. It must and will happen because it invariably does. Union power has to be reckoned with.

Glastonbury next week.

 Glastonbury next week.

It hardly seems possible that, after a three year absence from its natural place in the English cultural calendar, Glastonbury should be rubbing its hands in excited anticipation ready to return stronger, fitter and better than ever. For the last three years or so that glorious piece of agricultural land in the middle of Somerset has remained empty and without any kind of mainstream at times bizarre but always innovative music.

But next weekend Glastonbury opens its rich green pastures to the now customary influx of thousands upon thousands of ardent festival goers. It is now three years since Glastonbury's splendid eccentricities and vast musical eclecticism, were exposed to the world blasting out its good vibes out across this quaint corner of England. Here cider drinkers across the whole of the region will compare notes about when they first traipsed across Glastonbury and, in its early 1970s infancy, the main refreshments consisted of bottles of milk and there was a small parcel of land on which to watch the likes of Fairport Convention, David Bowie and Hawkwind making their considerable presence felt. 

Then, in complete contrast to the way things used to be, Glastonbury was probably heard and watched by herds of Friesian cows, several very reflective groups of sheep and lambs and some very diligent farmers roaming across the gloaming as Somerset awaited with some excitement its new very hip occupants. Now those days of innocence have long since passed into the history books and Glastonbury is a massive, expansive, commercially savvy pop music festival with gigantic tents, marquees, flags and banners. 

Now it is a remarkably successful and yearly pop concert, a global music phenomenon that continues to capture the imagination and mood of the nation. Britain can feel immensely proud of its traditions and golden Glastonbury memories, revealing powerful insights into the whole emotional gamut of music from every corner of the world. Glastonbury displays the very best in modern celebrities, gifted artists and singers, bands you would never have known had existed and the very best in late night music under the stars. But then fate intervened. 

A year before the pandemic you can remember watching Janet Jackson, the sister of the now sadly missed Michael. Jackson who went through the whole repertoire of her hits as if she'd performed them a thousand times. Behind her a well choreographed line up of dancers dug out American soul and disco at its finest. Not for a minute did you think that Glastonbury was about to go into meltdown. When coronavirus arrived, Glastonbury was the first major social TV driven event to be cancelled. It would not be declared fit to go again until this year. 

But once again the countryside is gearing itself for one mighty homage to music. Behind Glastonbury are the rolling hills of the Mendips, green carpets of beautifully manicured grass, gothic castles and, in the distance, camper vans and eco warriors, those environmentally friendly teenagers and adults who can still remember Manfred Mann. They will set up their capacious tents in thick acres of Somerset mud, reviewing their itineraries for the trip and making sure that the small gas hob, paraffin heater and kettle are ready for breakfast the following morning. 

Glastonbury of course is a mammoth military and logistical operation, where initiatives are tested to the full and organisation becomes very much the essential requirement to make it all work. It would be easy to put it into very specific categories until you remember that it also welcomes the whole spectrum of every conceivable strand of music. Glastonbury does heavy rock at its most boisterous and energetic. It warmly invites folk from the most medieval age, harpists and cellists from Eastern Europe, gorgeous jazz and trad jazz and groups with unpretentious, stripped down compositions. It is music at its most all encompassing and, it has to be said, music with a very real air of authenticity. There is nothing fake in Somerset.

About a decade ago, Glastonbury adopted a now memorable laissez faire approach to, quite literally, any kind of music, band or singing artist they could think of. Even now the sight of Shirley Bassey belting out her classics quite emphatically and unequivocally, still brings a smile to your face. More recently, Neil Diamond eased himself onto the headline stage act of the year and Sweet Caroline, even after its recent reinvention and resurrection, sounded better than ever. And who could ever forget Tom Jones, the ageless rocker, irrepressible and once the toast of Somerset?

And yet this year, back after what seems like a three year illness, Glastonbury lives on. To the 1960s hippies and Woodstock nostalgic types, this is the one time of the year when you can be whoever you want to be. This year the wonderful Motown legend who is Diana Ross will finally get the chance to harmonise exquisitely on I'm Coming Out', Upside Down and from her Supremes yesteryear You Can't Hurry Love and Baby Love, standards of timeless beauty and art. 

Finally and perhaps appropriately given the length of time since the festival last graced our discerning ears, one of the greatest singer songwriters of all time, will celebrate his 80th birthday. Paul McCartney is 80 this year and if Glastonbury had written this in its illustrious script it couldn't have picked anybody more famous to crank up the engine and let the good times roll. We of course will be expecting the full Beatles treatment including Hey Jude, Yesterday, Sergeant Peppers, Paperback Writer, Let it Be and the Wings back catalogue of Let 'Em In and Listen to What the Man Said. What a way to announce your return to business Glastonbury. Welcome back. It's nice to have you back again. 

Another heatwave in Britain. It's gorgeous.

 Another heatwave in Britain. It's gorgeous.

It's a week before the longest day of the year and June is shaping up very nicely. Any discussion of the weather in Britain has to be a matter of opinion and completely open to debate. May, depending on your point of view, was both satisfyingly typical without bursting your thermometer. It is impossible to make any valid comparisons with previous summers in Britain because for the last three years most of us have probably been totally oblivious to the climate and far more concerned about our welfare. 

Up until this point we've had the customary menu of rain, sun, wind, hailstones, torrential rain, a tropical monsoon for an hour in Torquay and the traditional schedule of highs and lows. It's safe to assume that most of us are just conditioned to the weather since it becomes the dominant topic wherever you happen to be and regardless of where you are or what you happen to be doing. The weather has been so far both pleasant, acceptable, unpredictable and just glorious when least expected. We love the British weather.

Roughly three years ago we had what proved to bear an uncanny resemblance to Britain's famously sweltering heatwave which seemed to go on for ever. In 1976 some of us spent our entire school summer holiday basking in the blissful sunshine and for a while we thought we'd borrowed some of the Mediterranean central heating system, as temperatures soared into the dizzying heights of the 80s and 90s. Then there were the three or four continuous months starting at the end of April of that year to the August Bank Holiday when it abruptly came to an end with a dramatic thunder and lightning overture from the percussion section in the sky.

That memorable summer of 46 years ago now seems like some magical fantasy that none of us could believe and even now in retrospect, still seems like some fabulous dream that didn't really happen but did. Most of the kids of my generation descended on a open air swimming pool at Valentines Park, Ilford in Essex. At the beginning of that school summer holiday the sun had been out for quite some time and none of us really thought anything out of the ordinary would follow. 

But then by the end of July it was still uncharacteristically warm and hot and we couldn't really understand why. The previous year, although still a vague recollection, had also been sun factor 43 weather for some time if not the same length of time. Now a clear, blue sky hovered beautifully over our wonderful Essex suburb and nobody complained. We took our trunks, bikinis and towels to our respective blue and white lockers and just took the headlong plunge into a pool so cold that it was rather like jumping into a huge expanse of ice cubes from the freezer. 

Our expectations for the rest of that summer were both modest and realistic. And yet with every passing day the mercury went up almost remarkably and before long we were boasting record summer temperatures. We were now informed that a major drought had hit Britain, garden hoses were dug out of hibernating garden sheds and some parts of Britain had to queue up for their water with buckets in hand. Our family garden grass looked like a concrete bowl, parched, thirsty and desperate for just a drop of rain.

Before long we were all crying out for rain. What short memories we must have had. Sometimes there can be no pleasing any of us. So we swam all day, watched from a distance as hundreds of kids screamed, cheered, ran around the edge of the pool like Olympic sprinters, hurtled themselves into the water and then charged around in ever increasing circles. The signs around the pool expressly forbade dive bombing or just behaving irrationally and forgetting where they were. 

At the far end of the Valentines Park lido a gushing fountain sprayed water almost stylishly while around the fountain, hundreds of families laid out their towels and blankets for impromptu picnics and lunches. You can still hear and see the kids lining up to be served at the cafe and the never ending supply of 99 ice creams with a flake. Don't forget the obligatory flake. That was vitally important. 

In retrospect 1976 must have felt like a golden age for those who must have been convinced they were imagining this summer. It shouldn't have been like this. Britain normally got completely drenched in the wet stuff during previous summers, the rain pounding down on our roofs and stopping play at Wimbledon every five minutes. Then the Test cricket we used to make a habit of watching were also rained off for what seemed like ages. The image of the highly respected cricket umpire Dickie Bird getting soaked and standing defiantly in the torrential rain is one that may never be erased. 

You can still see the small lakes and puddles at Old Trafford, Headingley, Trent Bridge and the Oval. Then the covers were whipped on rapidly in the event of even heavier rain. Now they were taken off again and again and the sun came out frequently and intermittently before disappearing cheekily behind dark clouds again and yet more rain would stop play. Then the stoic commentary team of Jim Laker, Peter West and Richie Benaud would endeavour to improvise heroically knowing full well that they'd eventually run out of old cricket archive material. Cue a whole variety of umbrellas, coats and hoods.

So there you are Ladies and Gentlemen. It's June and here in Britain the short term weather forecast is more weather and more of whatever constitutes the same on these pretty isles. The isobars and squiggly lines on the BBC weather chart now look like some modern Google Earth invention. Forecasters are  are tossing coins, predicting the weather with some confidence but terrified in case they're not even remotely right. We'll wake up and smile because we're indifferent and blase about the British weather. We treasure life and don't care any more. It's good to be alive in Boris Johnson's apparently corrupt world where nothing is what it seems. You may call Johnson a compulsive liar, charlatan and lovable rogue but we couldn't possibly comment. Life is wonderfully sweet.

England against New Zealand cricket second test.

England against New Zealand- cricket second test

As village greens and recreation parks across Britain find their first tentative feet in the waters of the cricket season, thoughts turn to umpires with pullovers wrapped around their waist, hardy pavilions with both England and New Zealand padded up for action and the crowds in humorous mood. Everything looked set fair for the second test between England and New Zealand, a contest that used to be a warm up act for the Ashes between England and Australia.

Summer fell beautifully onto the green acres of Trent Bridge, a ground where once Harold Larwood cut his menacing teeth with his club side Nottinghamshire.  Larwood was once the man who terrorised and tormented Australia in the Bodyline scandal of many moons ago. In 1932 Larwood was the man who once created an international incident because his bowling was so lethal and terrifying that even the citizens of Sydney and Melbourne were probably quaking in their boots. Larwood was a demon fast bowler against the Aussies even if the foundations still shake whenever and wherever cricket is played. 

But yesterday England were labouring in the outfield hoping against hope that a Larwood of the modern age would step up to the breach and give New Zealand a bowling masterclass they'd never forget. For a number of years now Jimmy Anderson has instilled fear and trepidation into every batsman he's faced. Anderson can be frightening and intimidating, swinging the ball fiercely, digging the ball right up to a batsman's face with an almost sinister regularity and gobbling up wickets as if they were going out of  fashion.

At the other end Stuart Broad, all headband and boundless energy would perform much the service, pounding the ball down fiercely into the ground before allowing it to drift and then cut back to the batsman in a matter of seconds. Yesterday Broad and Anderson must have felt like gate crashers at a summer garden party or barbecue. They toiled industriously as we always knew they would but  nothing seemed to come their way. 

For most of the day Daryl Mitchell and Tom Blundell stood their ground obstinately, patiently crafting their colossal scores rather like men building a comfortable wooden chair. Every so often the drill could be heard and then a raucous hammering. Mitchell was ruthless, heartless, cool, calculating, bold and then savagery personified. He danced down the pitch to anything loose that fell short and clobbered the ball deep into the Nottingham sky where the destination must have been a local shopping centre. His century just materialised quite naturally, the strokes impeccable cover and straight drives, lofted sixes and fours and clipped ones and twos that were so fluent that you might have taken them for granted. 

Then perhaps the game's dominant figure of the moment, Mitchell was ten short of a double century when his wicket fell. His partner Tom Blundell was the perfect partner and accomplice on this giddiest of cricketing days. Blundell was more cautious, circumspect, analytical and scientific before flinging the bat carelessly when the occasion warranted it and then chipping away at the England bowling attack with perfectly executed ground strokes, cutting, clipping and hooking with supreme confidence.

When the visitors had reached 553 all out, it seemed the New Zealanders had posted an insurmountable target. You remembered one Sir Richard Hadleigh, surely one of New Zealand's greatest of players, a bowler of some repute and stature, unplayable at times. But even Hadleigh would have been swooning at the sight of this current generation. New Zealand had gone for the big total and after losing the first Test at Lords would have been desperate for a way back into this series. 

Then in the early evening light England were set a mighty total to chase. They set about their thankless task purposefully and thoughtfully. Alex Lees and Zak Crawley bounded down the Trent Bridge steps, very much the new kids on the block. Amusingly you recalled another Nottinghamshire favourite son loping down onto the field in an England shirt. Derek Randall was a reliable, trustworthy fielder leaping around with those long legs like a man stretching his calf muscles. But Randall would have been hugely impressed with the efforts of the England 2022 class. 

At close of play, England were nicely placed to emulate the batting feats of the New Zealand attack. Lees and Crawley clubbed the ball ferociously through the covers to every corner of the ground. England finished the day at 90-1 and are now well into the 300s. This could be a match made in heaven with both sides fencing with each other, testing each other's reflexes and hoping that the summer game of cricket can once again produce the kind of quality cricket that we might have come to expect of it.

Sue Barker and tennis commentators

 Sue Barker and tennis commentators

When Sue Barker announced her decision to step down as one of the BBC's most well respected of Wimbledon commentators the summer sport of tennis lamented the loss of a woman who had graced the courts of SW19 so beautifully. Then you were reminded of the role that TV commentators in Britain had played in the development of their respective sports throughout the decades. 

For some of us the one man who had been the definitive voice of Wimbledon for as long as we could recall would always leave an indelible impression on your mind. His was the most distinctive voice of British tennis, the man who conveyed all the drama and tension of those tumultuous ding dong battles between Jimmy Connors and Bjorn Borg, John Mcenroe, Ilie Nastase and Stan Smith, tennis players of distinction and noble breeding, somehow synonymous with tennis during the 1970s. His name is almost carved into the brickwork and ivy of Wimbledon. 

Dan Maskell was one of the most highly esteemed figures within his sport. His commentaries had a liquidity and well mannered gentility that will always be remembered. Maskell's commentaries were spiced with brevity and simplicity, one word reactions to thrilling forehand returns from the finest tennis players in the world. 'Oh I Say' could almost be regarded as tennis's very own National Anthem. Maskell always allowed those epic encounters to flow with very few interjections and only added a notable comment when the occasion thoroughly merited it.  Maskell remained a gentleman for all of his celebrated life.

Even further back there was the inimitable Rex Alston with his rich and fruity sentences that would somehow paint a quaint picture of not only the players but the flora and fauna surrounding Centre Court. Alston came from a generation that valued courtesy and humility, where the values of decency and morality always came first. Alston spoke with that plummy tone which was somehow characteristic of that whole period of 1920s high society partying and good time hedonism, an age of flamboyant Charleston dances and women in Flappers dress.

Then there was Raymond Glendenning who, rather like Alston, could pass comment  on the opening of an envelope given half a chance and also dropped into Wimbledon. His commentaries were vividly lyrical, warmly eloquent and almost designed for a hot summer's day on Centre Court. Glendenning was a word artist, perfectly capturing the mood of the nation at the time with smooth and suave deliveries. At times you felt that both Glendenning and Alston could also describe royal garden parties with perfect diction, illustrating the finer points of the occasion with apt references to verbenas, roses and begonias.

There was almost the remarkable Max Roberston, Wimbledon's radio voice, always painting pictures with words since none had his ability to illustrate exactly what was going on through the medium of radio. For many years, Robertson was the essential guide to those who preferred to listen rather than watch. He was as quintessentially English as strawberries and cream or the proverbial jug of Pimms, red post boxes and village fetes. The voice would rise and fall according to the length of a rally or the sheer brilliance of the tennis that had most of the crowd nodding from side to side, mesmerised. 

Both Barry Davies for a considerable length of time on TV and John Motson on the radio would make the easiest of transitions to tennis from football with their unique style and fastidious attention to detail. But it was Dan Maskell who accompanied us through our adolescence, a man of wit and enormous wisdom, an indisputable authority on the game, entertaining and amusing with the merriest of quips.

Of course Maskell would be utterly appalled and ashamed of John Mcenroe's behaviour because he came from an era when players like Mcenroe might have prompted some  to send him to bed without anything to eat. Maskell would sharply reprimand Supermac's more outrageous antics on court and then despair when Mcenroe would suddenly shout at the umpire with a passionate tirade of obscenities. Perhaps Maskell would be taken back to his playing days when players would jump up into the air with undisguised delight at the point of victory and then respectfully shake the hands of their defeated opponents with an air of dignity about them.

And so another sporting summer is about to unfold before us without Sue Barker who once brought glory to English tennis. It is hard to know who will replace Barker since she seems to have become an integral part of Wimbledon for so many years now. You briefly thought back to BBC Two's late night analyses of the day's play when Gerald Williams would take us gently through the action of the day with marvellously informative and often humorous reflections. We await Wimbledon 2022 with the excited anticipation of those who have always loved its sense of theatre and spectacle. Anybody for tennis.   

Boris back in the hot seat.

 Boris back in the hot seat.

That was a close shave wasn't it? The blond one from Uxbridge and Eton has survived yet again. The cynics will tell us that the result was somehow inevitable given the lack of any real alternatives. How exactly did it come to all this? Somehow Boris Johnson has brainwashed the entire nation into believing that he hadn't really done anything seriously wrong in the first place. So why apologise for any misdemeanours committed since no law was, in essence, broken and besides this doesn't amount to an unforgivable criminal offence and what would be achieved by locking him in a dirty prison cell anyway?

Yesterday there was what amounted to a vote of confidence but just by the skin of Johnson's teeth. The House of Commons or the House of Comedy in the eyes of Johnson's loyal parliamentary colleagues, conveniently brushed this nasty stain under the carpet and just left everything the way it had been before. He hadn't killed or murdered anybody and he hadn't broken into a bank with a mask over his eyes. Masks of course almost led to his ultimate downfall but none had suffered any lasting pain and it was time to draw a line under this farcical farrago. Nobody was hurt so let's just move on and talk about something else.

For Boris Johnson this has been the most traumatic introduction to the role of being Prime Minister that any of us can remember. The late Margaret Thatcher was stabbed in the back almost savagely and mercilessly, leaving 10 Downing Street with blood dripping from every part of her body. She cried openly and then reluctantly left office forthwith. John Major was ridiculed callously by everybody because of his dull, monotonous demeanour, never the most memorable of orators and just a grey looking Spitting Image puppet that sadly lost him the public vote.

The fact is Boris lives to fight another day metaphorically of course. The brutal ridicule and mockery to which he's been subjected in recent months heightened our awareness of all his faults, foibles, mannerisms and vulnerabilities. On an almost daily basis Johnson has feebly apologised to the nation, making it abundantly clear that he knew he'd crossed every line and broken every law in the book. But that didn't make him the evil villain of the piece and bygones had to be bygones. Get over it and move on was the general implication.

Here we now have a flawed, generally despised public figure who may have been given the benefit of the doubt because nobody with the relevant credentials for leading the country has put themselves forward as an adequate replacement. There is now a feeling of damage limitation, repentance and remorse only papering over the embarrassing cracks. So where do we find ourselves now? We have now a Prime Minister who, if this had been a court of law, would have been accused of both perjury and fabrication and therefore sentenced to a lengthy period behind the bars of one of  Her Majesty's prisons.

The decision made by Johnson's simpering colleagues almost feels like a blessing in disguise. He has been supported by some of his fellow Cabinet ministers but a vast majority of Britain are probably seeing a red mist and perhaps furious. Boris Johnson lied to the people who desperately wanted somebody they could trust. The air of betrayal and deceit can almost be felt. Even some of his most zealous backers may well be fuming and simmering as they digest this travesty of justice.

But the fact is that even the likes of Dominic Raab, Liz Truss, his most fervent ally The Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak and quite a number of others, have now built or re-built bridges with a man capable of only selling his country down the river, misleading them, telling us a pack of lies and then squirming with shame because there was no other way of dressing it all up. 

Tomorrow it'll be business as usual. Once again we'll be told in no uncertain terms to behave as if nothing had ever happened. We'll be lectured and patronised, bombarded with excuses and soundbites, platitudes and general nonsense. We may well be informed that regardless of the reprehensible nature of this whole moral maze, it'll be time to just get back to the wonderful distributions of vaccines for Covid 19, reminded of the phenomenal success rate and the apparent return to normality which can't be denied.

Then we'll be side tracked once again with news of the tragic fatalities in the Ukraine, the displaced and isolated people desperate to find a safe and warm refuge. We should be reminded that there are millions of families with nowhere to live, battered and bruised, broken hearted and grieving for the loved ones they've lost in war. Boris Johnson will quite obviously make us feel very humble and privileged in a Britain that is civilised, polite and well mannered. 

And yet this may come across as condescending waffle from a man who, by his own admission, received a classical education at Eton, lived in a posh home in middle class affluence and then got on his bike and found work as one of his celebrated Tory predecessors Lord Norman Tebbitt. Of course he has a social conscience and he is worried about the environment and global warming, the underclass, the people living on the breadline and those struggling to keep their heads above water.

He even worries about those with mental health issues, the state of our education and Britain's global standing. The truth though may not be quite as palatable and now Britain finds itself in a world where the morality of its politicians will remain under the most severe scrutiny. We must hope that the Prime Minister will wake up tomorrow morning and feels ever so slightly guilty and responsible for his mischievous misdeeds. Sadly this may never happen. Keep going Boris. Your nation will try to forgive you.       

The Derby.

 The Derby.

It was something of a coincidence that in the week that horse racing lost one of its favourite sons today's Derby by the Epsom downs should be back on the sporting calendar. In a genteel corner of Surrey and around the corner from where the stockbroker belt meets the riverside pub, the conversation in the local boozers will inevitably turn to one Lester Piggott who recently died. The timing could hardly have been any more impeccable. 

For over three years Britain has been denied one of the great social and cultural institutions on the sporting calendar. The yearly June Epsom Derby has been yearning desperately for the working classes, the middle classes and of course the upper classes to mingle harmoniously at the now customary tea time spot of Saturday afternoon. Of course it'll be the most thrilling, intoxicating and fascinating spectacle and the horse racing community will be down on the Epsom course, scribbling furiously on their betting slips, blinking in the early summer sunshine and wondering how on earth they'd coped without the Derby.

An Englishman or woman without a Derby or Grand National to look forward to would have been the equivalent of the BBC without Peter O'Sullevan or ITV missing the trilby hatted John Rickman or Brough Scott. But for those who have been champing at the bit and just relishing this moment, then your patience is about to be handsomely rewarded. This is not perhaps the time for over sentimentality or emotional outbursts but the Derby was the flat race, the definitive horse race that lit up the sporting landscape and of course we've missed it.

Many moons ago now the Derby used to be held on a Wednesday afternoon, the thinking being that a vast majority of the population would take a day off work, hire out a couple of open topped buses or just roll out the champagne and smoked salmon next to an extremely wealthy looking, corporate tent. Here the punters from all corners of the compass would drink, eat, cheer and generally bellow quite vociferously, exercising their vocal chords while downing several bottles of the most expensive wine.

Now. in their infinite wisdom or not as be it the case, Saturday afternoons seem to have been regarded as even more convenient for all those who could quite happily spend the whole weekend in Epsom. But one man will now be missing from the Derby since Lester Piggott sadly passed away a couple of days ago. Some of us will mourn the passing of a man who became so obsessed with horse racing that when the last obituaries and tributes are paid to the great man, we shall remember a master of his craft. 

There are those of us who could never really grasp the finer points of horse racing and couldn't really appreciate those weekly TV visits to Sandown, Newmarket, Market Rasen, York, Uttoxeter in the sport's heydays. You would try to comprehend the simple pleasures of spending a couple of bob in your local bookmakers on what was known as the ITV seven. But then you gazed through the wintry mists on a Saturday afternoon and found heavy breathing horses cantering around paddocks and then trotting calmly towards the starting gate. It looked interesting but it failed to hold your attention.

Still, you could always get excited at the highly prestigious, blue riband race meetings, the ones that sent the pulses racing and had you in raptures if your horse was particularly successful. This year saw the first Grand National at Aintree with a full house of spectators since the coronavirus lockdown, a seemingly petrifying assault course with fences the size of country estates.

 It was the kind of day that horses may either dread or love. For what must seem like an age for our noble steeds and thoroughbreds, they gallop together in close proximity, hooves powering themselves over Beechers Brook and the Chair. And then there ensues the traditional cavalry charge where the National really comes into its own. There is a timeless splendour in its quintessential Britishness. There can be very few horse races like it in any part of the world. But of course you may beg to differ.

Over 50 years ago ago Lester Piggott rode Nijinsky to victory in the Derby among a whole string of triumphs in the Epsom sun. Piggott was renowned for charging his mount from the back and then driving his horses towards the finishing line like somebody who has to complete the Times cryptic crossword in five minutes. Piggott was indeed driven, intensely and fiercely competitive, focussed and concentrated rather like a world famous chess player. He would deliberately starve himself before a big race because sacrifices had to be made if you wanted to remain one of the most legendary jockeys of all time.

But last week Piggott lost his battle against all of those familiar ailments of old age. The face was sadly more haggard looking than ever, the face pinched and the desire to win had gone. And yet how Piggott must have longed to be associated with being part of the whole Epsom occasion. How he would have enjoyed the light hearted banter in the weighing room, the desultory flick through the Racing Post and  studying the form of his fellow jockeys rather like a university student cramming for their Finals.

And so they will head towards the starting gate, horses elegantly groomed, coats shining brilliantly, poised to race off towards the rural idyll that is Epsom. They will line the railings, betting slips flying frantically in the gentle summer breeze and they will hope that it will be their lucrative day. The ladies will dress with that inimitable air of stylishness and grace while the gentlemen may well don the top hat and tails as befits the occasion.  

At the end of the race where the victorious horse is accompanied by its beaming trainer, jockey, and various members of their family, we will then sprint towards our Ladbrokes or Paddy Power with thousands or perhaps millions of paper money in our respective bank accounts. The Derby was never exclusively designed for the rich hoi polloi, the financially well endowed City traders or those with shares in oil or steel. It is for the people, an event with a much more egalitarian feel about it. Now, the local builder or milkman will rub shoulders quite comfortably with those in the know. We will recognise the Derby's rightful place in our sporting hearts. Epsom will always reserve a special memory for Lester Piggott.