Some are more equal than others. You would think that queueing overnight on the pavement for the tennis would be a great leveller. Think again. Walking along the length of the queue after the camp is struck reveals the fact that the nearer the front of the queue the better the booze. In the gutter near the courts there are champagne corks, a few hundred yards away only plain corks are visible and after the quarter mile mark there are cans and beer bottles. The only common factor appears to be a poor level of civic responsibility.

Anyone for insults? It has occurred to me that the last two posts might be considered chauvinist, sexist, feminist, snobbish, inverted snobbery or just plain rude. To those sensitive souls I offer this post as my attempt at a hat-trick.
Wimbledon Park. Baby in buggy, the sort where the baby faces the person pushing. Mother talking to infant. On the grass is the crocodile of enthusiasts queuing for Wimbledon. They have about a mile to go. A small group are fooling around for their own and others' entertainment. A loud cheer goes up. Must have alarmed the baby. Mother's reassuring, soothing remark? 'It's all right. They're all mad. They're queuing for the tennis.'

Primitive Woman in Wimbledon. A walk in the park. Very smart casual. Quality baby buggy. Terribly well-behaved three year old boy. Golden haired sheep dog that would make Lassie look like a mongrel. Probably drives a top of the range people carrier.
So what is the ultimate accessory for this vision of 21st Century sophistication? It's a two and a half foot long purple plastic adaptation of the cave-man's spear stick or atlatl. The business end is shaped like a cupped hand and can pick up a ball without the need to bend down. Throwing the ball was equally effortless and there was the added benefit of not actually coming into direct contact with a dog-slobbered ball.
Isn't ancient science wonderful?

Primitive Man in Wimbledon. Horse Close wood is a couple of acres of ancient woodland at the northern end of Wimbledon Park. It was left au naturel when the park was designed by 'Capability' Brown a couple of hundred years ago in order to terminate the view from the great house near the top of the hill at the southern end of the park. The park's western perimeter is formed by Church Road on the other side of which lies The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club. They hold a tennis tournament there every year which usually gets a lot of TV coverage so you might occasionally catch a glimpse of the wood from the cameras mounted on cherry-pickers. Between the wood and Church Road is a small carpark and at the edge of the carpark, in the mown grass area, are a pair of English Oaks about eight feet apart. They are about 4 feet in diameter so must date from the early years of the park if not before. One trunk is straight and true for the first 12 feet the other forks at about 9 feet.
The weather is glorious English summer at its' hottest and best even at 10 in the morning. Not many people about. The car is a typical Boy Racer's machine. Doors and sunroof open, parked in the shade of the oak trees, stereo pumping out 100+ decibels. The epitome of urban cool even with no girls around. One of the two, twenty-something, male occupants is repeatedly trying to climb the forked oak. Poor technique. The Alpha male is esconced in the fork, shouting the equivalent of 'I'm the king of the castle'.
The cream of Homo Sapiens youth hasn't progressed far from the school playground nor pre-Homo erectus. What worries me most is the fact that this older specimen can't suppress the instinctive urge to show that he is better than either of them. Maybe early one morning when no ones about.....

Farrago's Syndrome is spreading. Mid-morning, Monument Underground Station. Two take-away coffee containers untidily abandoned on a convenient flat tiled surface. One the standard Bartsucks brown the other a bright pink with a slogan on it. Eighteen inches away crouches a twenty-something Japanese tourist, multi-megabit high-quality-optical-lensed digital camera in hand. Beep. A highlight of the trip to London has been captured.
I would have stopped to ask for her URL but this is London. Don't feed the animals. Don't talk to the tourists. If anyone comes across the shot in a blog please let me know.

People like that should be locked up. Monday morning 9:00am. 70 degrees plus. Summer has finally arrived in London. Can of Strong Brew in hand, strolling along wearing enough clothes to survive an Arctic winter, topped off with red knitted hat. Probably sleeping rough, out of touch with family and reality, definitely endangering his health and likely to be a danger to civilised life in London. His crime? He is smiling and looks utterly contented with his lot .

It aint happening here. Changes and posts still not showing.

Minor changes to the headers. No apologies to Eye Contact or Mandarin.

Life can be so cruel. There was I fully prepared to misbehave appallingly in Eye Contact's comments only to discover that they aren't available.

Blogger's slow this weekend. I just checked and discovered the previous item hadn't shown up yet.