As a home-worker of some 20 years’ standing – well, sitting – the arrival of Wimbledon provides an annual jolt to my already unstable work/life balance. I’m usually there in front of the TV the moment coverage begins. At no other point in the year do I use my time so poorly. Honestly, I get more work done on holiday than I do during Wimbledon fortnight.
I’m not even a particular tennis fan; it’s just that the tournament provides constant, live, office-hours distraction. It feels tailor-made for people like me. Each morning I plan my day around deadlines, admin and emails. Then, after a couple of hours, I forget about all that and turn on the TV. I feel like the New Jersey governor, Chris Christie, stretched out on a closed state beach, alone and inert, enjoying a privilege I don’t deserve but which I nonetheless appear to be entitled to.
Imagine, then, my opening-day disappointment, when instead of being sprawled on the sofa with the blinds pulled I find myself on a sweltering tube train, heading for an appointment on the opposite side of London. This is not how it’s supposed to go, I think. I’m a freelance writer – I’m not supposed to have to be anywhere.
I was trying to keep tabs on Andy Murray’s opening match, but this is no mean feat on a tube train: the live scorecard page refreshes only sporadically; the phone only connects to wifi when the train is in a station, sometimes not until it’s already pulling out again. If you miss your chance to retrieve the information, the scorecard doesn’t shift. It is, in short, immensely frustrating. Once the third set was under way, the score refused to change for five minutes, then 10, then 15. Why is this happening? I thought. Why to me?
After all those years of watching the coverage of SW19, I should have guessed why: It was raining.
New calls, please
Another dispiriting feature of the fortnight, according to players interviewed by the New York Times, is the Wimbledon groan: the sigh the crowd emits after a double fault, just to show how let down by you they feel. Not angry, just disappointed.
Whereas outright hostility might be invigorating, this muted disapproval can be positively life-sapping, like an audience of 2,000 mothers who have all been handed a copy of your school report. It can be so debilitating to morale that Pat Cash had to consult a sports psychologist about it. And while the collective groan that follows an easy mistake is not unique to Wimbledon, it’s apparently easier to hear on Centre Court because everyone is so quiet before a point.
As an American living in these isles, I have long borne witness to the awesome destructive power of British courtesy. I will watch this week’s most disappointing performances with renewed admiration.
A midlife muddle
A study suggesting that memory lapses may be necessary for keeping the brain working, and not just a symptom of old age, is meant to be heartening, but it threatens to restore my culpability for something I’ve only just started getting away with.
All my life, a failure to remember someone’s name, or their face, or what you talked about the last time you saw one another, was regarded as a sign of an insufficient interest in others, either because you didn’t think they were important enough, or you just didn’t like them. If you tried to explain that you needed to forget their details just to keep your brain running smoothly, it would only make the lapse seem more insulting.
But I’ve reached a point where people have begun to forgive each other for this sort of thing. It’s socially acceptable to answer the question “Haven’t we met?” with the word “probably” and a perplexed smile. It’s made middle age a great deal easier. Please don’t take it from me now.
