BONK, BONK..

Despite playing the game very badly a hundred years ago, I`ve never really understood tennis.   In many ways it`s one of sport`s more bizarre inventions.   The gist of it seems to be to hit the ball as hard as you can, until it stops coming back to you - maybe, on balance, squash is even more daft because you just hit a small ball against a wall, thereby guaranteeing that it will keep coming back to you.   Speedway`s another - you pay you money, stand around and get covered in grit.

Anyway, back to tennis.   The whole of the country is going bonkers because recalcitrant Caledonian Andy Murray has finally won the men`s singles at Wimbledon.   Good luck to him - no worries.   It`s not Andy Murray I find difficult, it`s the whole Wimbledon thing.   Now being away in Cornwall I was otherwise engaged so I managed to miss the whole of the first week of Wimbledon on television.   This last week has been pretty busy and yesterday was just too good a summer`s day to spend it indoors watching tennis.  But there was no escape - extended news bulletins (even regional news programmes got cancelled,) special programmes being lined up, pull-put souvenir editions of newspapers, endless analysis and triumphalism that must make even Andy Murray wince.

As for Wimbledon, once again we had all the trappings of the `event` - the strawberries and cream, the Henman Hill or Murray Mount, the grunting, the antics, the BBC`s employment of countless, mostly foreign, `commentators;` and yesterday, of course, an audience with their pre-allocated seats and the Royal Box graced by the presence of those such as Alex Salmond and Ed Milliband - the Chuckle Brothers of British politics, Wayne and Mrs. Rooney, Princess Victoria, Jonathan Ross, Rod Stewart and other assorted so-called `celebrities,` many of whom might not know one end of a tennis racquet from the other but who are clearly keen to boost their fragile egos by needing to be seen.

In a day or two, things might calm down a bit, but I suspect the clamour for Andy Murray to join the knights of the realm alongside Sir Reg, Sir Mick, Sir Tom and the rest of that honoured bunch of poseurs will continue.  All for hitting a ball over a net, but to his credit Andy Murray has expressed doubts as to whether such an `honour` is justified.  Well, Dave Cameron thinks it is but, a la Blair/Ferguson, he is at risk of falling into the trap of misguided populism.  Why, even the Queen sent a message of congratulation to Mr. Murray on his victory, something she declined to do when Southampton manfully succeeded in avoiding relegation from the Premier League, the `best league in the world (tm),` at the end of last season.    And you wonder why I`m glad Wimbledon`s over and done with for another year?