In other news...

I thought work would become unbearably busy in the school holidays, but bizarrely my life has become easier. Most people are just turning up and getting on with it, and with the lifting of most of the Covid restrictions there aren’t so many protocols and procedures for us to negotiate.

I had a little bike ride tonight, and I have to say it felt more like the end of August than the end of July. You know those cooler, fresher, duller, almost-time-to-go-back-to-school vibes you used to get when the calendar ticked over into September? That’s what this evening felt like.

For some reason, I am writing this blog posting as a series of small paragraphs. I guess it’s the habit I’ve got into, after a week of doing my Olympics Updates.

I do love the Olympics, and it gives me a nice tingly feeling to know that we only have to wait 3 years until the next ones come around. (That’s assuming we don’t succumb to a variant called Epsilon or Anus or something, or another new virus that makes the leap from bats to humans and gives us even more of a kicking than Covid has).  I even enjoyed watching a bit of badminton, which as you may remember is Philippa’s Sport Of Choice. There aren’t many things she and I can watch together, but somehow it worked. Maybe because she was giving me insightful information about the game, rather than prattling on asking inane questions or guessing what the end of a scene will be like, the way she does when we watch a film.

Apologies for mentioning the Games again. And the virus.

RC 31-7-21
2205 BST

Olympic Thoughts ENCORE

If I was a Rugby 7 player, I would leave my legs unshaved for a few days, so that when the opposition dive in to tackle me, they end up with nasty stubble rash.

It’s good to see how much an Olympic medal can mean, even to millionaire tennis players who are used to playing for personal glory rather than national pride. Pablo Carreno Busta beat Novak Djokovic to claim the bronze and celebrated like he’d won a Grand Slam.

It made me laugh that the team on the starting line for the 100m heats (the guys who rule whether athletes had jumped the gun or not) were all overweight and looked generally unfit and unhealthy. It’s a bit like a painter and decorator judging whether Picasso is using his brushes properly.

Dina Asher-Smith must have given the BBC hierarchy an instant orgasm, the way she broke down in tears during her post-race interview. It’s EXACTLY what the nappy-wearing graduates running that corporation these days are looking for – an emotional clip they can use as click-bait, rather than decent sporting competition.

Sticking with Dina – I understand her determination to appear at Tokyo, despite a hamstring problem, but if she knew she was injured and wouldn’t be able to perform properly, shouldn’t she have withdrawn weeks ago to allow someone else to step in and fulfil their own personal Olympic dream? Hate to call her selfish, but……

RC 31-7-21
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Olympic Thoughts 31.7.21

BMX Racing is bizarre. It’s like watching a live-action, multiplayer version of the old arcade game ‘PaperBoy’. Why do they have their seats set so low to the ground? I’m guessing it helps avoid impact-induced testicular injuries, but it may be a technical issue I’m not aware of.

Speaking of the BMX – I thought BBC Radio 5Live went a bit over the top with their emotional reaction to Beth Schriever winning Gold. Yes, it’s an amazing achievement that she had her lottery funding cut and still managed to make it to the top of the podium, but you have to remember that there were countless other athletes in multiple sports who were in a similar situation and ended up nowhere. If you’re going to launch into “Never give up on your dreams, kids” rhetoric then you have to also point out the reality that it’s rare.

Rugby Sevens is a perfect example of how a successful sport can be tweaked slightly and made much more exciting and watchable. I like Rugby Union, and will tune into the Six Nations and World Cup and enjoy myself, but sometimes the matches get bogged down into a scrum-fest and look like an hour-long game of ‘tactical shoving’. The 7s has all the best elements of the sport, but is faster, more skilful and more thrilling.

I’m still not sure about ‘dressage’. It’s good that all athletes in all disciplines get a chance to appear at an Olympics, but there’s something about watching posh twits riding dancing horses that doesn’t really seem like sport to me.

The archery competition has been awesome, but I’d like to see it taken back to basics, where everyone has to shoot using a bow they’ve made from a nearby tree. Nowadays it looks like they’re using scientific instruments from CERN, and I wonder if it’s taken away a bit of the skill. It’s become a bit like Formula 1, where the cars are so good that literally anyone with a driving licence can win a Grand Prix. The technology in archery is so exact that whichever country can afford the best equipment will take Gold, regardless of who is standing behind the bow.

RC 31-7-21

Olympic Thoughts 29.7.21

I’m aware that this blog has basically become ‘Rory’s Olympic Journal’ but I don’t care. It’s been 5 years since we had the Games to enjoy, and I’m determined to enjoy them to the fullest.

Hazel Irvine is yet again proving that she is the best sports anchor person in Britain. I particularly enjoyed her getting tearful when the GB ladies won bronze in the all-round team gymnastics. I think her maternal instincts kicked in and after seeing the girls’ interview after the medal ceremony she couldn’t help herself and for the first time in a 30-year career she let her professionalism slip and showed her emotions. I loved it.

Archery is something that really needs to be on television more often.

I don’t think I’ve mentioned the surfing yet. When it was announced, I had no idea how it could possibly work as a televised sport, but that shows you the futility of making judgements based on your own interpretations and expectations, rather than waiting to see and having faith in the experienced professionals planning the broadcasts.

I watched the whole thing on Monday night and it was my favourite event of the Games so far. Exciting, thrilling, spontaneous, skilful and brilliant, and the commentary on Discovery+ (sorry, I didn’t note down their names) was exceptional.

You know what I wrote about Archery? Ditto for the canoeing.

RC 29-7-21

Olympic Thoughts 26.7.21

It’s a great feeling to wake up, turn on the TV, and find out that GB won THREE gold medals overnight! But it also disappoints me a bit that I wasn’t awake to watch them all in real time. Insomnia never strikes when I want it to.

The scheduling is very annoying. The good stuff starts as I’m going to bed, and the later finals happen when I’m already at work. Roll on 2024, when the Games are in Paris and it should be easier to watch it all. Hell – I may even try and get tickets and hop across the Channel to watch it!

Table Tennis is the weirdest sport to try and watch on telly, and must be the hardest thing to cover as a broadcaster. It’s all so fast and so closed in. It’s like trying to show a chess match, but a version of chess where they throw the pieces at each other. If you copy the camera angle they use for real tennis, the players get in the way. If you set the cameras to the side of the table, it’s impossible to see where the ball is going when they spin it.

In this world of over-practiced post-match interviews with media-savvy professionals, it’s nice to see someone win an unexpected victory and be so overwhelmed that they forget how to speak English. Tom Pidcock – who no-one outside the world of cycling knew existed at the weekend – won the Mountain Biking Gold Medal and was so emotional he couldn’t put three words together. Wonderful stuff.

Lutalo Muhammad (the taekwondo summariser) is a brilliant pundit and brilliant ambassador for his sport. I hope we see loads more of him post-Olympics because he’s terrific and so much more engaging than most of the television ‘personalities’ we see polluting BBC screen time.

RC 26-7-21

Olympics Thoughts 25.7.21

When Simone Biles performs gymnastics, she looks like every tendon in her body has been replaced with springs.

Taekwondo is a weird thing to watch. The fighters face each other and never seem to bend their backs. They stand bolt upright trying to kick each other in the head. It’s like Riverdance mixed with the High Jump.

I can’t watch the weightlifting. I keep worrying their eyes will pop out with the strain, or they’ll drop the bar on their head and their skull will crack open like a dropped egg.

Good to see the perceived perfect playbook thrown out of the window by a cyclist with no professional team behind her, leading to her pulling away and winning the most unexpected Gold Medal for decades. Just goes to show – years of planning, every fine detail computed and algorithmed, and it all goes to shit when someone just breaks away and does it all on instinct. Shove that up your hard drive, Brailsford.

It’s weird that the medallists have to present themselves with their prizes from a tray. I understand why the Covid regulations forbid one person from placing a medal around the neck of another, but it’s a bit like someone buying you a bunch of roses for Valentine’s Day and you having to pick them yourself.

RC 25-7-21

Olympic Thoughts 24.7.21

After the delightful madness of the Opening Ceremony, it’s great to get on with the sport!

I have no idea what is happening in Judo (or ‘dressing-gown wrestling’ as I like to call it) but I’m amazed they don’t end up with broken toes every time.

God, I love watching hockey. It always has the air of a game that could cause someone a very serious injury.

The boxing schedule is a bit brutal – 7 fights in 2 weeks to win a Gold Medal? Ouch!

Beach volleyball, it has to be said, really struggles to be interesting without a crowd. Maybe when the women’s tournament starts, I’ll change my mind….

RC 24-7-21

feeling fine on friday

I have to say that the week has been a pleasant one. Obviously, the Summer weather helps. But also, my fears of a ‘Freedom Day’ related onsite apocalypse has not materialised, or even seemed a threat. The British public – or at least, the ones I’ve been dealing with – are all being very cautious and sensible, rather than the let-loose, genie-out-of-a-bottle, cat-out-a-bag, teenagers-out-of-a-grounding lunatics I expected them to be.
It’s rare for me to expect the worst of people, but perhaps I was guilty of it on this particular occasion?

Anyway, if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll watch the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics. Or – to give them their proper, official title – The Games of the XXXII Covidiad.

RC 23-7-21

Olympics a-Go-Go

A year later than planned, but here we go again….
The Olympics are back, and this will be the FOURTH edition of the Games since I started this blog. That’s amazing.
Things are very different this time around, obviously, and there’s been many discussions about whether or not they should be allowed to take place at all (thank you Covid). I will not be drawn into the debates and over-ethical handwringing, but I do find myself conflicted. It’s great that The Greatest Show On Earth is refusing to be defeated by something that can’t even be seen without a microscope, but it does seem ridiculous to throw tens of thousands of athletes from all over our virus-ravaged world together in one small man-made village and get them to compete at close quarters.
With that in mind, here is a List Of New Events I Think Should be Included In Tokyo:

Synchronised Coughing.
Modern Pentathlon – comprising of i.conducting a lateral flow test, ii.self-isolation, iii.making yourself a mask, iv.repetitive hand-washing, and v.ignoring rules in supermarkets.
Diving, into a pool of hand sanitizer.
Socially-distanced boxing. (good luck punching someone 2metres away…)
Predicting the final transmission rates.

RC 22-7-21

HOTTER and Harmonicas

It was so hot walking around the site today I felt like my kidneys were boiling inside me. Being too overheated and exhausted to concentrate on writing a good blog, I thought instead about some of the best uses of the mouth organ I can think of from popular music tracks:
Such as -

“THERE MUST BE AN ANGEL” by Eurhythmics (played by Stevie Wonder)
“COME PICK ME UP” by Ryan Adams (especially in the BBC Songwriters Circle live version)
“BRIGHT SIDE OF THE ROAD” by VAN MORRISON
“THAT WAS THE DAY” by The The
And Bob Dylan has to be in there somewhere, but there are so many options.
Sod it – I’ll go with “DON’T THINK TWICE, IT’S ALRIGHT”

Stay cool, hepcats.

RC 21-7-21

Moondom

Am I going to do my annual ‘Rory Reminisces About The Lunar Landings And Waxes Lyrical About Mankind’s Greatest Scientific Achievement’ blog?
Nah – it’s too hot for all that. I’ll just point you in the direction of the ones I’ve written previously and get myself another cool drink.

RC 20-7-21

Hotter and Hurtier

The best decision I made today was putting up anti-insect fly screens on all our doors, so we could have them wide open without being invaded by houseflies again.
The worst decision I made today was sitting in the garden with a book but without applying sunscreen. “It’s late afternoon,” I thought, “the sun has lost its strength by now.” Consequently, my shoulders now feel like a practice mat they test scouring pads on, and my neck is redder than a redneck’s reddest neckerchief.
The second worst mistake I made today was deciding to cook pie and chips for tea. The temperature was already topping 28 degrees in our kitchen when I thought it made sense to start warming the oven for supper. Philippa doesn’t swear at me often, but she walked in and remarked “What the f**k are you doing, you lunatic?” before turning everything off and making us a feta salad.
All in all, a steaming but satisfying Sunday.

RC 18-7-21

Hot and Humble

Thank God we’ve made it into Summer!
Lovely to be walking around and worrying about sunburn, rather than worrying about wind chill.
I’ve realised this week that a lot of my work woes are based around the fact that I am still in the mindset of working for a supermarket chain. The weather improves and I instantly start thinking “Oh, Shit” because I know we’ll be inundated with people buying beer and barbecue goodies, and the garage will be busy with the extra traffic heading for the beach. But of course, I don’t have to think like that, because nothing in my workday today will be affected by the upturn in temperature. It takes time to adjust, I know, and it’s frustrating that I keep returning to the same topic – the fact that I have not yet mastered everything about my ‘new’ job. I keep having to remind myself that I need to go easy on myself and let myself learn as I go, rather than expecting myself to know everything and get everything right without even experiencing the reality of the job post-lockdown.

I have a feeling that last paragraph made no sense, but it helped get my head straight, so I’ll leave it as it is, and try and clarify my thoughts henceforth:

I am working this year in a completely new role in a completely new industry. The nature of that industry means I will not be able to learn all I need to learn to do the job efficiently until I have worked there for a full year and taken in all that the seasonal nature of it entails. In the meantime, I can just do my best with whatever I am confronted with, and draw on my work history from my previous positions to find habits and practices I can apply to current situations and therefore fulfil my duties despite being a relative newcomer. I have all the support and help I can need, countless people to call on if I’m confused, and a boss who headhunted me deliberately because he liked the way I managed the garages and who is putting no pressure on me and allowing me to take as long as I like to get the hang of things as I go. Certain things will remind me of my old job and bring up emotions connecting with those things and that job, but I don’t have to react to them with panic or insecurity because they are irrelevant to where I am now. So I can relax and learn as I go, not worry and be overwhelmed. It’ll all fall into place eventually, and I’ll feel more comfortable and confident as the days, weeks, months and years go by.

Well, that paragraph made much more sense….

RC 17-7-21

Sports Thoughts (12.7.21)

I watched highlights of the Big Final on Sunday.
(I’m talking about the Copa America, of course…)
It made me laugh to see Lionel Messi trying to lift a trophy that was the same size as him. 

Thank God the Duke of Kent is retiring from his duties at Wimbledon. He’s looked like a cadaver since 1979 and watching him dodder onto Centre Court is like watching an old woman about to cross the road at a busy junction. They should have brought him out on a mobility scooter. Wimbledon is all about tradition, and the same things happening at the same time every year, and that’s great, but one thing I will not miss is seeing him follow the exact same path and the exact same routine as he has done every year since the 60s.
I’m not exaggerating – put on clips of his entrances when he comes out to present the Men’s Champions with the Gold Cup and he always stops at the exact same spot for some tired small talk with some tired ball kid or other.

The Men’s Final was so good because the crowd made such a great atmosphere. Too often, these showpiece matches are dulled by a group of entitled rich twits acting like they’re attending a sermon in church. But having been starved of their beloved Wimbledon for two years, they were all determined to enjoy it, and it lifted the whole occasion.

And, ok, I’ll mention the England – Italy game. I’m not a huge fan of football so I don’t think my opinion counts for much, and there’ll be dozens of online articles and millions of social media posts about it already without me polluting and diluting things further.
But….
I watched it, I got into it, I thought ‘our boys’ were great. To me, Italy were by far a better team and our lot did a bloody good job just containing them to one goal and holding out for a draw. Penalties strike me as the most ridiculous way of settling a sporting final, by the way. I think, in the future, they’ll be seen as archaic, stupid, and not reflective of the team nature of the sporting events they settle. It’s 11 v 11 for 120 minutes, then 1 v 1 in the shootout??? Daft.
But they were absorbing to watch, up-and-down like a see-saw, had more twists and turns than a Norfolk by-road, and left me feeling drained and, yes I admit it, disappointed.

RC 12-7-21

Sports Thoughts (11.7.21)

How nice it was to see a woman’s tennis match that was more about skill and less about screaming.

Will Novak Djokovic ever be given the credit he deserves? He is one of “The Big 3” but he’s the one who arrived late and had to raise his game to meet the standards of the 2 who were already established. Federer may be the more graceful player, but he also turned up first and was able to dominate the Men’s game for half a decade, amassing a large chunk of his Grand Slam titles in that time. Nadal, as talented as he undoubtedly is, has won more than half his Majors at one event – the French Open. Djokovic has had to break their duopoly, learn to excel on all surfaces, and do all that while being seen as unpopular and unworthy of the praise heaped upon his peers. Every story needs a villain, and Nole has had to be the pantomime baddie to Roger and Rafa’s Ugly (one of them) Sisters, even though he doesn’t act that way. He’s cold and calculated, sure, but he’s had to be. But making him out to be the Evil Triplet is ridiculous casting. He is easily The Best Of The Bunch and future hindsight will deem it so.

In less than 12 hours, England may be European Football Champions.
I shall rejoice in their victory, even though I’m not exactly “Mr. Soccer”. I’m not a huge fan of cricket, either, but it’s lovely to know we are currently World Champions. It gives one a sense of national identity and pride. I felt the same when we won the Rugby Union World Cup back in 2003 – very little interest in the sport, but a huge feeling of joy when we won it.
So, I won’t do this sort of thing very often, but from the bottom of my heart – “COME ON ENGLAND!!!”

RC 11-7-21

Saturday Stuff

First of all, I hope my last blog made sense. I wrote it in a bit of a hurry, in between meetings. I had thoughts in my head that I felt I needed to express, and didn’t worry about taking the time to filter or edit them. But isn’t that exactly what blogs are for???

Today we are football-ifying the entire site, in readiness for the final of the Euros tomorrow. Gavin has gone big with the purchase of bunting, pennants and flags, and I doubt there’s a beach ball available anywhere in Suffolk after he snapped up a whole vanload of them yesterday. Our maintenance guy is inflating them all tomorrow, with the plan being to fill the ballroom with them for kids to kick around while their dads drunkenly shout at the big screen.
It’s called ‘The Ballroom’ but I don’t want you to envisage something akin to the one at Blackpool Tower. Ours is only slightly bigger than our main bar, but it has a dancefloor that is approximately 65 metres square and a few disco lights, so they gave it an elaborate name in the hope that people would pay more for their drinks without complaining.

I genuinely do hope that England win the match, as I think the whole nation would be in a great mood for the rest of the Summer (and that could hopefully be carried on into August thanks to the Olympics) but I worry that Ted will die on the spot if they do. He was on the phone in tears after the Denmark semi-final, and Beryl told me she had feared his heart would give out when the game went to extra-time. I’d love to see him enjoy England lifting another trophy before he shuffles off this mortal coil. Not that I’m expecting him to drop dead any day soon, but soccer successes for our country do not come around very often and I can’t see him being alive for the next one.

RC 10-7-21

Sore heads and smiling faces

Well, well, well. Who would have thought it? England fans expected and the players delivered, rather than disappointed. At work, we allowed people into the onsite bar to watch it and we took an incredible amount of money through the tills!
I’m not quite as euphoric as everyone else around me seems to be this morning. I’m not a huge follower of football, and I’m not someone who will jump onto whatever cultural bandwagon is currently rolling past and dominating social media, but I must confess to feeling a strange amount of pride and a certain swelling of enthusiasm. As Ted eloquently put it to me – “Those f**kers have been letting us down for years. I’m probably one of the only people in the country who remembers a f**king final with England in it.”
It has reminded me a little of my own experience with the Super Bowl in 2013, and again in 2020.
Yes - sorry – I’m going to make this all about me, because that’s what modern people do. (I refer you again to the aforementioned social media).
I love the NFL, and my team is the San Francisco 49ers. They are historically one of the most successful franchises in the sport, but all that success happened before I was able to watch it and involve myself in it. I started following the team more passionately and being able to watch them on British TV during a long, horrible, uninspiring lean spell for them. So when they made it to ‘The Big Game’ 8 years ago, I was ecstatic. It was a chance to prove themselves as the best team playing that year, but also a chance for me to ‘revisit’ glory days that I had been too young to feel a part of when they happened. In the end, at the final whistle, they fell short, but that didn’t bother me too much, because I was so proud they had made it that far in the first place.
Now I would never make so bold as to tell fans of a sport I’m not interested in how they should behave, but maybe that’s the attitude England should have on Sunday. It would be such a terrible shame if Southgate and his players were deemed to be ‘failures’ just because they lost their last game in a tournament. That would completely detract from the wonderful achievement of getting themselves to that game; something no-one under the age of 60 in this country can ever remember happening before.
I’m not saying you should just turn up and enjoy the occasion, and be happy to be there, but if you can approach it with the opinion that you’ve already reached a goal very few people believed you would reach, then you can feel less pressure and enjoy every single minute of this once-in-a-lifetime event. And – win or lose – the feelings of pride and elation can continue.

RC 8-7-21

Smile, and the R smiles with you

I’m not a fan of football, as you know, but I have to say that even I am getting a bit swept up in all the feelgood vibes circulating around the England team and their achievements at the Euros. (or should it be Euro’s???)
Although not affected directly, I can fully appreciate the joy on the faces of my work colleagues, so I’m getting a nice lift of mood by osmosis (sort of).

I’m not sure how I feel about the whole “Freedom Day going ahead despite advice to the contrary” debate going on at the moment. You would have thought that an announcement from the Prime Minister that almost all restrictions will disappear mid-July would have us all dancing in the streets with joy, but I think we’re all a bit reluctant and uncertain.
Personally, I have the feeling that I’m on a bus that is being driven over a cliff, and while the experts on the bus are looking down and saying how bad the fall is going to be, the driver at the front is keeping his foot on the accelerator and telling everyone how lovely the view is.
But, what the Hell? I’m just going to follow the masses and go along in blind ignorance, hoping the vaccine programme will outrun the exploding number of infections.

A prediction for tonight’s ‘Big Game’? Oh, go on then – England 3-1 Denmark.

RC 7-7-21

Poor Emma

I love watching women’s tennis, but I didn’t enjoy watching it last night, because I wasn’t watching a tennis match, I was watching an 18-year-old girl getting bullied into a panic attack.
There is an over-used and under-appreciated phrase in this country, which is ‘duty of care’. It’s a term that looks great on company policies, but as a concept, it is misunderstood by employees and poorly executed by most bosses. At its heart, though, is the idea that we are all supposed to look after each other and not do anything to damage anyone else’s welfare, especially those we have a degree of responsibility for. Emma Raducanu was failed horribly by everyone who should have been protecting her best interests. Instead of putting their arms around her and giving her their support, they pushed her out onto Court No.1 and hung her out to dry.
At the time I am writing this, there is not yet an official announcement about what may have been wrong, but as someone with a personal understanding of anxiety, I am pretty sure I know what was happening to her. And I’m really not surprised.
Earlier yesterday, Novak Djokovic had answered questions about his easy win against a lowly-ranked opponent, and he pointed out how overwhelming an appearance on Wimbledon’s show courts could be. He explained how simply walking out onto the grass at a venue you have watched for years on television can do incredible things to your mind. Your head, if I may be permitted to paraphrase him here, can go haywire.
All the top players have said how you have to learn to be a top player. It’s not just about being good at tennis and beating the person at the other end of the court, it’s about dealing with the whole set of circumstances that surround the match. The media, the traditions, the protocol, the nerves, the drug tests, the travel, meal schedules, rain delays. There are enormous amounts of outside factors to negotiate and rise above, and it takes a long time to get used to it, and still be able to compete.
Emma Raducanu, who only recently joined the WTA Tour and is ranked outside the Top 300 in the World, had to simultaneously deal with multiple firsts - her first win at a Grand Slam, playing in front of a big crowd, speaking to the media, being recognised, known and admired – without any thought being given to how well she might have been coping. The BBC and Wimbledon conspired to make her the centrepiece player on a show court at a time they could get peak viewing, which meant she had to wait around for hours on end, trying to keep herself mentally prepared for a match that two weeks ago no-one would have given her a chance in.  She has gone from being a complete unknown to a national celebrity in the course of a week and was expected to carry the hopes of the whole UK, completely on her own, live on prime-time television.
And it’s only a month since she finished her A-levels.
At 18, I had received top marks in my year for a practical chemistry exam. My teacher described me as ‘competent beyond my experience’. But if you had made me do that experiment again, in an arena containing 10,000 people, and kept reminding me that millions more were watching from home, and that their happiness depended on my success, I’m pretty sure I would have gone to pieces. My hands would have shaken so much I’d have ended up spilling acid all over myself. Or I might have felt violently sick to my stomach. Or I might have had difficulty breathing.

My main worry in all this is that it’s not something she can easily move on from. It’s all over the media today and will be replayed, analysed and scrutinised by experts and laymen alike, and given more importance than it ever needs to hold. And however the rest of Emma’s year pans out, she faces the prospect of returning to Wimbledon next year and having to ‘face her demons’. Anyone who has ever had an anxiety attack in a shop (for example) will tell you how incredibly difficult it is to return to that same location again. The mere thought of being back in that same place physically is enough to take you back to that same state mentally. The familiar surroundings can bring on the symptoms, because your mind associates that location to the way you felt when you were there, and your body reacts accordingly. The thought that panic might happen again is sometimes enough to cause that panic to arise.
And even if she comes back stronger and calmer, you just know that the newspapers will take great delight in 2022 in reminding her about what happened on 5^th July 2021. Because that’s what they do. A relatively minor incident in her young life will become a millstone around her neck that will be brought up repeatedly and therefore kept in the forefront of her mind, no matter how much she tries to move on from it.
Think I’m exaggerating?
You only have to look at what’s happening with the current England football manager Gareth Southgate. He is helping lift the spirits of a nation and he is leading his young charges to unprecedented levels of international acclaim, but every day he is asked about an incident from 25 years ago. Redemption stories sell papers, and Raducanu’s trauma last night will be used as a stick to beat her with until she wins again at Wimbledon; probably even beyond that. And I suspect, being a very bright young woman, she knows all that, and it is probably adding to her woes today.

We’re supposed to be getting better at this mental health stuff. We’re being told that companies are taking better care of their staff, and that as a society we’re treating each other with more understanding and support.  And then one week into Wimbledon we all buy into the hype and hyperbole and force ridiculous expectations on the shoulders of someone young.
We have gone nowhere but backwards.

RC 6-7-21

The Death of Rory's Bet

Well – my prediction that today would be the day that restriction lifting would be thrown into reverse doesn’t appear to be coming true. Mind you, the day isn’t over yet, and there’s still the chance that the leaks about the PM’s News Conference later are all wrong and he’s going to announce another lockdown, but I doubt it.
I’m not sure how I feel about it all, really. The number of cases and the advice from the science and medical bods seems to be indicating its too early to throw everybody’s masks in the bin, and I’d hate to see a bright future derailed just to prove a political point. I think most of us would rather put up with a few ongoing curtailments than risk a return to the horrors of the first few months of the year. What’s the rush? We know the vaccines are working, but we’re nowhere near being in control of Covid so why not keep our foot on its throat (as Mr Johnson has said before) until a few more million doses have been dished out? Seems silly to risk developing new variants by allowing the virus to spread among the unvaccinated, rather than hold off for another month or so and really back it into a corner.
But what do I know?
I’ve got enough on my plate gearing up for 19^th July and an onslaught of incoming holidaymakers who are not restricted on arrival times or movements (assuming ‘Freedom Day’ goes ahead), I don’t need to be taking on the government’s role as well.

RC 5-7-21