... it's really very simple. An occurrence of almost monotonous regularity. Reliable. Set your watch by it, sort of. Night follows day follows night follows day, probably until the day (or night) that the provider of light, our sun, goes 'nova and our little planet is caught in a final fiery embrace.
During the day the light from the sun affords us a good view of the world. Helps us avoid falling over things, appreciate the beauty of a flower, read a book. Or see a fast moving tennis ball. The night is a lot less helpful in that respect. Sure, moonlight has inspired many a poem and song. It has lent atmosphere to movie scenes and photographs. It's fairly useless though if you want to play a game of tennis. And yet last night the tennis finished later than it has ever done before. The concertina fabric roof on Centre Court allowed play to continue until nearly 11pm.
When the club mooted the idea of adding a roof it was to combat the bad weather, to enable a match to continue if it rained. Yesterday it didn't rain. It wasn't going to rain. The roof was closed because of bad light.
Now, forgive me for being picky, but of course the light was bad. It was night. THE NIGHT.
I was under the impression that the AELTC had said that the roof wouldn't be used in that way. It was to ensure completion of matches that would normally be interrupted by rain, to keep the tournament on schedule. It will be interesting to see what they say about it today, if anything. I just hope that they compensate all their workers who tirelessly toiled far later than usual. I wonder if it was just a desire to keep the tennis going, or whether the kerrching of the cash registers proved far too compelling a siren song to those with the power of veto.
Cynical, me ;)
Oh, and if this post is littered with grammatical errors, or sounds a little jaded for only the morning of the second day here at Wimbledon then please accept my apologies. But, we didn't get back 'home' until well after midnight. And that is of course down to the wrong sort of light. The dark sort. The kind of light that makes you close your stretchy roof, switch the mini suns on, and carry on with the tennis...
During the day the light from the sun affords us a good view of the world. Helps us avoid falling over things, appreciate the beauty of a flower, read a book. Or see a fast moving tennis ball. The night is a lot less helpful in that respect. Sure, moonlight has inspired many a poem and song. It has lent atmosphere to movie scenes and photographs. It's fairly useless though if you want to play a game of tennis. And yet last night the tennis finished later than it has ever done before. The concertina fabric roof on Centre Court allowed play to continue until nearly 11pm.
When the club mooted the idea of adding a roof it was to combat the bad weather, to enable a match to continue if it rained. Yesterday it didn't rain. It wasn't going to rain. The roof was closed because of bad light.
Now, forgive me for being picky, but of course the light was bad. It was night. THE NIGHT.
I was under the impression that the AELTC had said that the roof wouldn't be used in that way. It was to ensure completion of matches that would normally be interrupted by rain, to keep the tournament on schedule. It will be interesting to see what they say about it today, if anything. I just hope that they compensate all their workers who tirelessly toiled far later than usual. I wonder if it was just a desire to keep the tennis going, or whether the kerrching of the cash registers proved far too compelling a siren song to those with the power of veto.
Cynical, me ;)
Oh, and if this post is littered with grammatical errors, or sounds a little jaded for only the morning of the second day here at Wimbledon then please accept my apologies. But, we didn't get back 'home' until well after midnight. And that is of course down to the wrong sort of light. The dark sort. The kind of light that makes you close your stretchy roof, switch the mini suns on, and carry on with the tennis...
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