THE WRONG KIND OF SEEDS..

Oh, dear. It seems that I will be deprived of the leafy oasis of Gardeners World on BBC2 for four weeks because of...........Wimbledon!

Now I realise that it is official BBC policy to squeeze as much junketing as possible from every social event going, so we can look forward to hour upon hour of uninterrupted tennis, legions of commentators and analysts (with luck, one or two may be English?) highlight programmes, repeats, reports on every news bulletin from yet another BBC `department`....and all the while the gentle, informative, earthy grittiness of Gardeners World will be denied to me.

As to Wimbledon, frankly my dear, I don`t give a damn. It`s just so far up itself what with the social snobbery, the patronising, the endless hitting the ball over the net only for it to keep coming back again, the strawberries and cream, the `ladies` now being paid as much as the men even though they don`t play as much , Henman Hill, the overnight queueing, the interminable grunting....I could go on, but you get my drift. I quite expect some misguided oaf in the crowd to shout out, "Get in the hole!"

Mrs. Rusedski comforts campers

Apparently, the sad news for Britain is that Andy Murray has cried off with a dodgy wrist, Tim Henman may not progress all the way, despite his epic victory over Carlos Moya in Round One and, of course, Greg Rusedski is no more, so we will be denied the uplifting prospect of Mrs. Rusedski dispensing comfort and joy to the overnight campers.

But there is some good news as I write - it`s raining....and the forecast is for more and more as the week goes by. Maybe they`ll restore Gardeners World to it`s rightful place, but my money will be on Wimbledon repeats. Cliff Richard anyone?

Time for some more strawberries and Pimm`s.