I was positively Federeresque in my on court behaviour.
As for the tennis.... nothing like him. I was more of a meteorological microcosm. I was hot when it was hot and as the conditions got milder, so did my tennis. Sadly it stayed cold.
Oh well at least I can go back to Roland Garros to practise with a friend. Problem is finding anyone who is free of a morning to traipse out to the Bois de Boulogne to play on the fabled courts.
I love tennis and I love playing but I have to say even my enthusiasm would begin to wane with regular trips out there, having to lug all my gear on the metro.
As I was preparing for the actual match, my mobile phone rang. It was the headteacher telling me that my eldest daughter had vomited at school.
And could I come to get her. For a moment I thought about telling the headteacher that I was indisposed as I was preparing for a match at Roland Garros.
But then I figured that my child would probably be instantly placed in the care of social services to keep her away from her delusional father.
So I said that my partner would come to take her away.
I did feel that it was almost stepping into the traditional role of woman dropping everything to go and tend the sick child.
But as she was in the local supermarket but five minutes away from school it was logical for her to answer the mayday call.
If she had been at work then I would have sacrificed my match.
The child is better now but she's really rather sad that she's only been able to go to school on Monday and Thursday. By contrast her sister who has never struck me as the natural student is relishing her return.
She brandished her first book at me on Tuesday afternoon. Was so excited that she could read one of the phrases in the tome that she didn't even let me put the shopping bags down.
I think she was just rubbing her sister's nose in it - so to speak - that she had managed to string together two consecutive days without dispatching the contents of her stomach at school.
The five-year-old will have her first Saturday morning at school while I have the first training session with the soccer team.
There's been some electricity breakdown at Stade Louis Lumière — our usual ground. So we're relocating to Stade Pershing in the Bois de Vincennes.
Another day. Another bois.
Friday, 7 September 2007
Thursday, 6 September 2007
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away
I just love it when the newspapers chew over the big issues. Last week in the Guardian’s Notes and Queries column Andrew Brannan wrote in wanting help.
In what sequence should he show his young son the Star Wars episodes?
I quite liked the reply from Neil Rodgers in Beaconsfield in Buckinghamshire. “Would it not be more challenging to consider which order to introduce a young son to the Dr Who series?”
Sharon Shaw, from Tunbridge Wells, probably spoke for millions when she suggested that starting with the Phantom Menace (Episode I) he risked putting the child off.
She said she and her husband planned to unfurl them in the following order. Episode IV (A New Hope); V (The Empire Strikes Back); I (The Phantom Menace); II (Attack of The Clones); III (Revenge of the Sith and VI Return of the Jedi.
“This way they get drawn into the simple wonder of the originals, before being left on the cliffhanger at the end of Empire to watch the back stories,” she added.
Gianluca Newcombe, aged nine, from north London, gave the child’s view: “I watched all the Star Wars films with my twin brother and my father in order I-VI. I advise everyone to so you don’t get confused.
“For example, the Emperor dies in Episode VI but then if you go and watch Episode I after that he is alive again!”
You cannot argue with that.
My conundrum has been that R2D2 has fairly limited powers in the original three and he fair clunks around as the Rebellion is threatened by hordes of Galactic Stormtroopers. But in the prequels, it can zoom about hanger decks and has all kinds of capabilities.
That’s not logical unless machines, like aging Jedi warriors, lose their potency. Watching it in chronological order would lend credence to Luke’s assertion in Episode IV to a sceptical Han Solo that Ben is a great man.
I could go on but then I’d have to go out and buy episodes I-III watch them and then IV, V and VI all with a critical eye.
I haven’t got the time because I have an 18 month old son to get through his first week in crèche and to prepare for my combat on Friday morning in the second match in the journalists’ tennis tournament on the unforgiving terre battue etc etc at Roland Garros.
It’s been a bit damp today and that will slow conditions down. That’s not going to suit my all action game.
On the subject of losers at Roland Garros, I was watching Federer hack up Andy Roddick in the quarter-finals at the US Open earlier. It was a real slugfest.
Roddick, dressed in a black T shirt, black shorts and white socks, was a pumped-up dynamo of aces, crunching forehands and grunts. Federer, kitted out in all black, was by contrast, silent poetry.
I’ll never have his dazzling array of shots but I can at least emulate his on court comportment.
In what sequence should he show his young son the Star Wars episodes?
I quite liked the reply from Neil Rodgers in Beaconsfield in Buckinghamshire. “Would it not be more challenging to consider which order to introduce a young son to the Dr Who series?”
Sharon Shaw, from Tunbridge Wells, probably spoke for millions when she suggested that starting with the Phantom Menace (Episode I) he risked putting the child off.
She said she and her husband planned to unfurl them in the following order. Episode IV (A New Hope); V (The Empire Strikes Back); I (The Phantom Menace); II (Attack of The Clones); III (Revenge of the Sith and VI Return of the Jedi.
“This way they get drawn into the simple wonder of the originals, before being left on the cliffhanger at the end of Empire to watch the back stories,” she added.
Gianluca Newcombe, aged nine, from north London, gave the child’s view: “I watched all the Star Wars films with my twin brother and my father in order I-VI. I advise everyone to so you don’t get confused.
“For example, the Emperor dies in Episode VI but then if you go and watch Episode I after that he is alive again!”
You cannot argue with that.
My conundrum has been that R2D2 has fairly limited powers in the original three and he fair clunks around as the Rebellion is threatened by hordes of Galactic Stormtroopers. But in the prequels, it can zoom about hanger decks and has all kinds of capabilities.
That’s not logical unless machines, like aging Jedi warriors, lose their potency. Watching it in chronological order would lend credence to Luke’s assertion in Episode IV to a sceptical Han Solo that Ben is a great man.
I could go on but then I’d have to go out and buy episodes I-III watch them and then IV, V and VI all with a critical eye.
I haven’t got the time because I have an 18 month old son to get through his first week in crèche and to prepare for my combat on Friday morning in the second match in the journalists’ tennis tournament on the unforgiving terre battue etc etc at Roland Garros.
It’s been a bit damp today and that will slow conditions down. That’s not going to suit my all action game.
On the subject of losers at Roland Garros, I was watching Federer hack up Andy Roddick in the quarter-finals at the US Open earlier. It was a real slugfest.
Roddick, dressed in a black T shirt, black shorts and white socks, was a pumped-up dynamo of aces, crunching forehands and grunts. Federer, kitted out in all black, was by contrast, silent poetry.
I’ll never have his dazzling array of shots but I can at least emulate his on court comportment.
Wednesday, 5 September 2007
I'm keeping the day job
Well the career will last for another 48 hours. That's how long I've got to savour my win. Three sets on the unforgiving terre battue at Roland Garros.
It went on for ages but I prevailed 7-5 1-6 6-0. Not quite sure what happened in the second set. I remember saying to myself stay solid and I promptly lost my opening service game to go 0-2 down.
Managed to get to 1-3 but it went cataclysmic after that. Obviously there was some regrouping for the final set. I just remember saying move your feet and that worked.
My opponent Stéfan missed a few shots that he'd been making in the second set. And that was the difference. He was generous in defeat and I was gracious in victory to the point of remonstrating with him that he didn't play a really stylish forehand crosscourt.
He said he didn't have the confidence to do so. Shame, I said, because when it suddenly emerged in the third set I thought I was playing a Spaniard.
We've exchanged cards and might well do some hitting down at his club on the southern fringes of the city.
I walked around fairly gingerly at the office afterwards. I watched a bit of the Anna Chakvetadze Shahar Peer quarter final at the US Open.
Now they really walloped the ball. I looked on enviously.
Maybe Thursday night's yoga class can help me become as one with the ball.
It went on for ages but I prevailed 7-5 1-6 6-0. Not quite sure what happened in the second set. I remember saying to myself stay solid and I promptly lost my opening service game to go 0-2 down.
Managed to get to 1-3 but it went cataclysmic after that. Obviously there was some regrouping for the final set. I just remember saying move your feet and that worked.
My opponent Stéfan missed a few shots that he'd been making in the second set. And that was the difference. He was generous in defeat and I was gracious in victory to the point of remonstrating with him that he didn't play a really stylish forehand crosscourt.
He said he didn't have the confidence to do so. Shame, I said, because when it suddenly emerged in the third set I thought I was playing a Spaniard.
We've exchanged cards and might well do some hitting down at his club on the southern fringes of the city.
I walked around fairly gingerly at the office afterwards. I watched a bit of the Anna Chakvetadze Shahar Peer quarter final at the US Open.
Now they really walloped the ball. I looked on enviously.
Maybe Thursday night's yoga class can help me become as one with the ball.
Tuesday, 4 September 2007
Court craft
The call has come through to play in the journalists' tournament at Roland Garros.
Wednesday morning at 10.15. I have no idea how to prepare for a match of this magnitude.
It’s probably not a good idea to stay up during the night to watch Novak Djokovic take on Juan Monacao in the last 16 at the US Open.
I might be best served by sleeping.
But I do know that it's probably not worth treating it like a usual game and getting up at 9 and having breakfast and ambling along to the courts.
It would have been good to have had one coaching session before but I've been working, doing my day job. I'm not a professional.
Of more importance is the boy's adaptation to his new life in the crèche. It was something of a saga getting a place. I documented the ups and downs in an article published a few weeks ago on one of the Guardian websites www.guardianabroad.co.uk/family/article/339
And after that tribulation there's an upside for the parent after dropping off the fruit of their loins at the crèche. It is slap bang opposite Chez Prune.
This is a cafe that doesn't try too hard. The food there is OK - not brilliant, not awful. The position — overlooking the Canal St Martin — is marvellous. And most importantly it was in the vanguard. It opened when the 10th was still considered a dead zone and the canal but a dirty and forlorn urban waterway.
Now of course it's a gleaming green canal — the epicentre of the bobo wonderland that has descended. At one of the spruced-up sluices Audrey Tautou ran the gamut of gamine as Amélie Poulain. Local estate agents thereafter chortled all the way to the Michelin-starred restaurants.
Maybe I'll be dining out with them with the earnings from my impending tennis career.
Wednesday morning at 10.15. I have no idea how to prepare for a match of this magnitude.
It’s probably not a good idea to stay up during the night to watch Novak Djokovic take on Juan Monacao in the last 16 at the US Open.
I might be best served by sleeping.
But I do know that it's probably not worth treating it like a usual game and getting up at 9 and having breakfast and ambling along to the courts.
It would have been good to have had one coaching session before but I've been working, doing my day job. I'm not a professional.
Of more importance is the boy's adaptation to his new life in the crèche. It was something of a saga getting a place. I documented the ups and downs in an article published a few weeks ago on one of the Guardian websites www.guardianabroad.co.uk/family/article/339
And after that tribulation there's an upside for the parent after dropping off the fruit of their loins at the crèche. It is slap bang opposite Chez Prune.
This is a cafe that doesn't try too hard. The food there is OK - not brilliant, not awful. The position — overlooking the Canal St Martin — is marvellous. And most importantly it was in the vanguard. It opened when the 10th was still considered a dead zone and the canal but a dirty and forlorn urban waterway.
Now of course it's a gleaming green canal — the epicentre of the bobo wonderland that has descended. At one of the spruced-up sluices Audrey Tautou ran the gamut of gamine as Amélie Poulain. Local estate agents thereafter chortled all the way to the Michelin-starred restaurants.
Maybe I'll be dining out with them with the earnings from my impending tennis career.
Hello Dali
"Your moustache looks so rigid — How does it react to the winds of public opinion?"
"She bends."
Oh that crazy Salvador Dali. Towards the end of the exhibition about the showman incarnate at the Tate Modern in London, there's a series of photographs with a few witty words from the rogue himself.
It was my second trip on Monday to see it. The first was about nine days ago. But that was with the entire family on the August Bank Holiday weekend.
Since the Notting Hill Carnival was frenzying up the western sector, London Underground had laid on a fully functioning network.
That didn't necessarily mean that we could travel any more efficiently, but it was reassuring to know that they weren't making it more difficult.
We met my sister and her chap in the Turbine Hall and after coffees split up. She took the girls round somewhere while Ann, the boy and I went round the Dali & Film.
In the wacky race that is Hollywood, Dali ought to have fitted in a treat. And indeed he did but with some strange bedfellows such as Alfred Hitchcock, Walt Disney and The Marx Brothers.
Actually teaming up in any capacity with Harpo, Zeppo, Chico and Groucho would have to be a zany experience.
But the exhibition showed snippets of Un Chien Andalou and L'Age d'or. I knew about the dream sequence from Hitchcock's Spellbound.
There's the finely chiseled Gregory Peck on the psychiatrist's couch relating his innermost thoughts to Ingrid Bergman.
A man with no face, being chased by a shadow of wings, and wheels dropping.
You just have to love the bravura.
What I didn't know was that Hitchcock was a big fan of Un Chien Andalou and there's a clin d'oeil to the Dali/Bunuel film when a pair of scissors cuts through a photograph of an eye.
The razor blade across the eye in Un Chien Andalou still makes me squirm. Others — such as a bleeding horse's head on a piano — makes me chuckle. Ants on the hand leave me baffled.
I don't recall being overly impressed during my tour of the Dali Museum in Figueres. I went there about 20 years ago. It was during a trip to north-eastern Spain to see a then friend of mine, Nick, whose parents owned an apartment.
And the idea was to meet up with an Australian friend who was travelling through Europe.
The details are hazy now but I'd arranged to be at Nick's on something like July 21.
And told Caroline as much.
I phoned Nick to say there'd be a delay but I couldn't get any word to Caroline. This was in the time before emails and mobile phones.
So after my weekend in Manchester with a new flame, I set off for Spain.
I got there on — let's say July 24 — a few days late admittedly. Nick and Caroline were at the train station greet me.
Once I'd settled in Nick was asking me if there was anything between Caroline and me because he thought she was rather lovely.
I said definitely not, she's an intelligent girl.
Caroline wanted to know why I was late. I said I'd just met this woman and given the choice between travelling to north-eastern Spain and shacking up in northern England, I'd chosen the Lancastrian option.
I thought I was plausible but Caroline didn't buy it. I remember it to this day. "No, come on, why were you late?"
I obviously didn't look the type who could hang out for a weekend with a woman. I was hurt and quite insulted but still had enough about me to concoct a story about Barclaycard not giving me the credit to pay for tickets and being cash-strapped.
She accepted that reason and then she let the matter drop. We went on to have quite a good holiday.
While Caroline doesn't now remember repudiating my masculinity, we can both reconfigure the train trip back to Paris in which some bloke (who Caroline probably fancied) went to light up in the corridor between the non-smoking carriages at the same time as this good-looking woman (who I would have probably fancied had I not been still thinking northern England).
And obviously amid the haze there was a spark. They both returned and were virtually smoking each other by the end of the train ride.
Caroline went on with her Europa tour and I went back to London.
It later went surreal with the girl from Manchester but that's another story. Dali always whips up those memories.
So it wasn't surprising that on the solo visit to the Tate on Monday I found the Millennium Bridge swaddled in a spongy cash and coins carpet.
I wish it swayed as it did when it was opened. But it doesn't and that's the past.
The future, according to the MasterCard PayPass, is cashless.
A card thrust into my hand told me the MasterCard PayPass would change the way I pay for items under £10.
There'll be less waiting, less queuing and no fumbling for change.
To pay with MasterCard PayPass I will simply Tap & Go.
I'll be able to use this facility at around 1,000 retailers with the number rising to 5,000 in the near future.
All I now have to do is check availability with my bank and of course visit a website www.mastercard.co.uk/paypass
I'm not entirely clear I want to contact my bank for another card for the rather lovely wallet I bought in Mulberry while killing time at Stansted airport before the flight to Stockholm.
I quite like my change purse. The chink chink of little pieces of cash link me with my perceptions of being grown up.
When I was a child, adults had change. And people with cars had keys. We once hired a Renault to drive from Paris to visit friends in Burgundy. After I'd done the paperwork, the Avis assistant handed me a rubbery oblong object.
I looked at it, up at her and was just about to ask when I was told that it was the key.
No jingle jangle. No teeth. No way. Have to say the Renault was brilliant. Shame about the key.
I'm not signing up for the cashless future quite yet but I might well track down some Bunuel films on DVD.
It would be absurd not to.
"She bends."
Oh that crazy Salvador Dali. Towards the end of the exhibition about the showman incarnate at the Tate Modern in London, there's a series of photographs with a few witty words from the rogue himself.
It was my second trip on Monday to see it. The first was about nine days ago. But that was with the entire family on the August Bank Holiday weekend.
Since the Notting Hill Carnival was frenzying up the western sector, London Underground had laid on a fully functioning network.
That didn't necessarily mean that we could travel any more efficiently, but it was reassuring to know that they weren't making it more difficult.
We met my sister and her chap in the Turbine Hall and after coffees split up. She took the girls round somewhere while Ann, the boy and I went round the Dali & Film.
In the wacky race that is Hollywood, Dali ought to have fitted in a treat. And indeed he did but with some strange bedfellows such as Alfred Hitchcock, Walt Disney and The Marx Brothers.
Actually teaming up in any capacity with Harpo, Zeppo, Chico and Groucho would have to be a zany experience.
But the exhibition showed snippets of Un Chien Andalou and L'Age d'or. I knew about the dream sequence from Hitchcock's Spellbound.
There's the finely chiseled Gregory Peck on the psychiatrist's couch relating his innermost thoughts to Ingrid Bergman.
A man with no face, being chased by a shadow of wings, and wheels dropping.
You just have to love the bravura.
What I didn't know was that Hitchcock was a big fan of Un Chien Andalou and there's a clin d'oeil to the Dali/Bunuel film when a pair of scissors cuts through a photograph of an eye.
The razor blade across the eye in Un Chien Andalou still makes me squirm. Others — such as a bleeding horse's head on a piano — makes me chuckle. Ants on the hand leave me baffled.
I don't recall being overly impressed during my tour of the Dali Museum in Figueres. I went there about 20 years ago. It was during a trip to north-eastern Spain to see a then friend of mine, Nick, whose parents owned an apartment.
And the idea was to meet up with an Australian friend who was travelling through Europe.
The details are hazy now but I'd arranged to be at Nick's on something like July 21.
And told Caroline as much.
I phoned Nick to say there'd be a delay but I couldn't get any word to Caroline. This was in the time before emails and mobile phones.
So after my weekend in Manchester with a new flame, I set off for Spain.
I got there on — let's say July 24 — a few days late admittedly. Nick and Caroline were at the train station greet me.
Once I'd settled in Nick was asking me if there was anything between Caroline and me because he thought she was rather lovely.
I said definitely not, she's an intelligent girl.
Caroline wanted to know why I was late. I said I'd just met this woman and given the choice between travelling to north-eastern Spain and shacking up in northern England, I'd chosen the Lancastrian option.
I thought I was plausible but Caroline didn't buy it. I remember it to this day. "No, come on, why were you late?"
I obviously didn't look the type who could hang out for a weekend with a woman. I was hurt and quite insulted but still had enough about me to concoct a story about Barclaycard not giving me the credit to pay for tickets and being cash-strapped.
She accepted that reason and then she let the matter drop. We went on to have quite a good holiday.
While Caroline doesn't now remember repudiating my masculinity, we can both reconfigure the train trip back to Paris in which some bloke (who Caroline probably fancied) went to light up in the corridor between the non-smoking carriages at the same time as this good-looking woman (who I would have probably fancied had I not been still thinking northern England).
And obviously amid the haze there was a spark. They both returned and were virtually smoking each other by the end of the train ride.
Caroline went on with her Europa tour and I went back to London.
It later went surreal with the girl from Manchester but that's another story. Dali always whips up those memories.
So it wasn't surprising that on the solo visit to the Tate on Monday I found the Millennium Bridge swaddled in a spongy cash and coins carpet.
I wish it swayed as it did when it was opened. But it doesn't and that's the past.
The future, according to the MasterCard PayPass, is cashless.
A card thrust into my hand told me the MasterCard PayPass would change the way I pay for items under £10.
There'll be less waiting, less queuing and no fumbling for change.
To pay with MasterCard PayPass I will simply Tap & Go.
I'll be able to use this facility at around 1,000 retailers with the number rising to 5,000 in the near future.
All I now have to do is check availability with my bank and of course visit a website www.mastercard.co.uk/paypass
I'm not entirely clear I want to contact my bank for another card for the rather lovely wallet I bought in Mulberry while killing time at Stansted airport before the flight to Stockholm.
I quite like my change purse. The chink chink of little pieces of cash link me with my perceptions of being grown up.
When I was a child, adults had change. And people with cars had keys. We once hired a Renault to drive from Paris to visit friends in Burgundy. After I'd done the paperwork, the Avis assistant handed me a rubbery oblong object.
I looked at it, up at her and was just about to ask when I was told that it was the key.
No jingle jangle. No teeth. No way. Have to say the Renault was brilliant. Shame about the key.
I'm not signing up for the cashless future quite yet but I might well track down some Bunuel films on DVD.
It would be absurd not to.
Thursday, 30 August 2007
Doctor's orders
I was supposed to take the boy for a medical this morning but I had to abandon that idea as I needed to go to the doctor myself to get her signature so I could play in the journalists' tennis tournament at Roland Garros over the next few weeks.
I was quite looking forward to taking my son along for his series of checks. I went with my eldest daughter a few years back and they test everything there is to probe. Ears, eyes, logic and probably ask the parent a few searching questions to make sure the bairn is being reared properly.
So my partner left early to take him off while I had the pleasure of staying with the girls who would accompany me to my 1040am appointment.
To butter them up I suggested tartines at the cafe before. Actually there was quite a lot of butter on the bread. That didn't seem to be that healthy so I scraped about a teaspoonful off. That was easy to deal with.
What's not so simple to cope with usually is the waiting at the doctor. Especially with the baby who either wants to spend the time screaming or clumping around. So the trip with an eight and five-year-old was a joy.
The eldest read her Totally Spies book while the other played with the various toys in the room.
At 1115 it was my moment. The youngest came in with me obviously intrigued by the idea of me going in for a check up.
The doc did my blood pressure. Good. Quizzed me about smoking. None. Knew my cholesterol was low because that was checked last year. I said I was cutting down on the alcohol (in readiness for the new football season in the top flight) and I added that I was going more regularly to the swimming pool.
She pointed at my belly and said running is good for the muscles. Well I guess I was being self-congratulatory.
Everything was whirling along. She asked me to do 30 squats. Mimi started counting with me at around 15.
I completed the task and my heart slowed down in a healthy manner. I got my certificate and got one thrown in for the forthcoming football season.
The entire family came with me over to Auteuil to deposit the dossier at Roland Garros; the cheque for 23 euros; photocopies of the French press card; doctor's certificate and a grid detailing availability.
I left the family at the Serres D'Auteuil - a series of greenhouses holding an array of wild and wonderful plants.
Once inside the Roland Garros complex I was directed to the press centre at Court Suzanne Lenglen.
I haven't been anywhere near the stadium since Rafael Nadal unhinged the machine that is Roger Federer in the men's final back in June.
Could I too conquer my foes on the terre battue and emulate the Manacor Matador?
Unlikely. I'm not a son of the soil. Worse still I'm not even left-handed.
Back in the world of level-headed people. I found my way to the event organiser Michelle Laune. She was seated at a table covered with piles of entry forms.
I introduced myself and asked if there were likely to be any problems with me being away on Sunday and Monday in London and working most afternoons in Paris.
"Actually we're not playing on Sunday," she informed me. "Paris St Germain are playing Marseille and they're locking down the area."
"With good reason," I chimed
"Can you play this Saturday morning at 9 or 10am?"
Given my limitations it seemed churlish to say no. But if I do play on Saturday my limitations will be fairly evident.
I haven't played competitively since my school days and more importantly I haven't played since my knock-up with my godson in Denver back in July.
But this is for the experience of gracing a clay court at Roland Garros. As I went to find the family in the Serres d'Auteuil I found myself chanting: "I'm going out on the court to enjoy myself." Clichéd gunk but I felt like a professional for saying it.
One of Ms Laune's helpers said there were about 170 people down to take part. I'm relaxed about the form of it all as I plan to go out and give it my best shot because I'm a Corinthian at heart and besides I don't have any rivals on the sports journalist circuit whom I just absolutely have to annihilate.
Would PSG and Marseille approach their Division 1 matches in a similarly beatific way. Their rivalry knows no bounds. But it's a pitifully young animosity in comparison to a clash between Rangers and Celtic or Arsenal and Tottenham or even Liverpool and Manchester United.
Why it couldn't really hold a flare to the intricate republican/fascist angst of a Barca v Real Madrid showdown.
Essentially the PSG Marseille squabble goes back to the early 90's, when Marseille was dominating the championship and the TV channel Canal+ bought PSG and made it a big team.
PSG don't really do great things in the league now. No one does because Lyon has usually had the title sewn up before a ball is kicked in anger.
In fact at the moment it's fascinating in France because Lyon aren't 200,000 points clear after five games.
Winning six games is my motivation at the moment. I just have to make sure the opponent doesn't have seven.
I was quite looking forward to taking my son along for his series of checks. I went with my eldest daughter a few years back and they test everything there is to probe. Ears, eyes, logic and probably ask the parent a few searching questions to make sure the bairn is being reared properly.
So my partner left early to take him off while I had the pleasure of staying with the girls who would accompany me to my 1040am appointment.
To butter them up I suggested tartines at the cafe before. Actually there was quite a lot of butter on the bread. That didn't seem to be that healthy so I scraped about a teaspoonful off. That was easy to deal with.
What's not so simple to cope with usually is the waiting at the doctor. Especially with the baby who either wants to spend the time screaming or clumping around. So the trip with an eight and five-year-old was a joy.
The eldest read her Totally Spies book while the other played with the various toys in the room.
At 1115 it was my moment. The youngest came in with me obviously intrigued by the idea of me going in for a check up.
The doc did my blood pressure. Good. Quizzed me about smoking. None. Knew my cholesterol was low because that was checked last year. I said I was cutting down on the alcohol (in readiness for the new football season in the top flight) and I added that I was going more regularly to the swimming pool.
She pointed at my belly and said running is good for the muscles. Well I guess I was being self-congratulatory.
Everything was whirling along. She asked me to do 30 squats. Mimi started counting with me at around 15.
I completed the task and my heart slowed down in a healthy manner. I got my certificate and got one thrown in for the forthcoming football season.
The entire family came with me over to Auteuil to deposit the dossier at Roland Garros; the cheque for 23 euros; photocopies of the French press card; doctor's certificate and a grid detailing availability.
I left the family at the Serres D'Auteuil - a series of greenhouses holding an array of wild and wonderful plants.
Once inside the Roland Garros complex I was directed to the press centre at Court Suzanne Lenglen.
I haven't been anywhere near the stadium since Rafael Nadal unhinged the machine that is Roger Federer in the men's final back in June.
Could I too conquer my foes on the terre battue and emulate the Manacor Matador?
Unlikely. I'm not a son of the soil. Worse still I'm not even left-handed.
Back in the world of level-headed people. I found my way to the event organiser Michelle Laune. She was seated at a table covered with piles of entry forms.
I introduced myself and asked if there were likely to be any problems with me being away on Sunday and Monday in London and working most afternoons in Paris.
"Actually we're not playing on Sunday," she informed me. "Paris St Germain are playing Marseille and they're locking down the area."
"With good reason," I chimed
"Can you play this Saturday morning at 9 or 10am?"
Given my limitations it seemed churlish to say no. But if I do play on Saturday my limitations will be fairly evident.
I haven't played competitively since my school days and more importantly I haven't played since my knock-up with my godson in Denver back in July.
But this is for the experience of gracing a clay court at Roland Garros. As I went to find the family in the Serres d'Auteuil I found myself chanting: "I'm going out on the court to enjoy myself." Clichéd gunk but I felt like a professional for saying it.
One of Ms Laune's helpers said there were about 170 people down to take part. I'm relaxed about the form of it all as I plan to go out and give it my best shot because I'm a Corinthian at heart and besides I don't have any rivals on the sports journalist circuit whom I just absolutely have to annihilate.
Would PSG and Marseille approach their Division 1 matches in a similarly beatific way. Their rivalry knows no bounds. But it's a pitifully young animosity in comparison to a clash between Rangers and Celtic or Arsenal and Tottenham or even Liverpool and Manchester United.
Why it couldn't really hold a flare to the intricate republican/fascist angst of a Barca v Real Madrid showdown.
Essentially the PSG Marseille squabble goes back to the early 90's, when Marseille was dominating the championship and the TV channel Canal+ bought PSG and made it a big team.
PSG don't really do great things in the league now. No one does because Lyon has usually had the title sewn up before a ball is kicked in anger.
In fact at the moment it's fascinating in France because Lyon aren't 200,000 points clear after five games.
Winning six games is my motivation at the moment. I just have to make sure the opponent doesn't have seven.
Wednesday, 29 August 2007
Brave new world
I just hope the reality lives up to the hype. In the soon to be defunct frequent travellers lounge at Waterloo, I notice that Info – the magazine of the French Chamber of Commerce in Great Britain — is leading on Kings Cross: The Construction Game.
Inside the editor Delphine DeWulf writes: “The development represents a wealth of opportunities that many Chamber members have started to grasp.”
And they won’t be alone. For the magazine cites figures from the London Development Agency from March 2006, which reveal 740,000m2 of development; 173,000m2 of residential; 47,000m2 of hotels/apartments. There will be 250 businesses (including the Guardian) and 50 eating places.
Eating places sounds a little vague to me. A fish and chip shop is an eating place. But what the hell this is the largest city centre brownfield regeneration project in Europe.
And just to think in a few short months I’m going to be a regular part of this groovy wonderland.
Richard Brown, chief executive of Eurostar, says that my chums will want to be meeting me off the train.
“St Pancras International itself will be a ‘destination’ in its own right where people will want to go rather than just transit through,” he coos. “Inspired by New York’s Grand Central Terminal, there will be a 90-metre champagne bar – the longest in Europe, specialist shops, restaurants, and a farmer’s market full of wonderful produce.”
Problem is my mates aren’t the champagne bar types. Maybe I could instruct them in such ways. Maybe they’ll come flocking to greet me as I emerge from my 135-minute surge through northern France and south-eastern England.
But I soon realise that friends coming to St Pancras to meet me just because it’s St Pancras is as likely as me arriving at the terminus and making a beeline for the farmer’s market.
It’s odd what constitutes a selling point these days. I’d never have thought a farmer’s market would be the thing to lure people just returning from France or just about to set off there.
While the viability of the outlets is yet to be gauged, what is certain is that a chunky slice of London is on the cusp of renegotiating its own status within the metropolis and within the European context.
If London is 1 hour 51 minutes from Brussels and 2 hours 15 from Paris, then these become daily commutable distances. More so for the Belgian capital. Of course then there’s the chance to link up with the mainland European rail networks.
But there is a word of warning. Jackie Herald, a garden designer at the London-based Extra Room says: “It’s vital that the established international business community and increased values of property do not displace either the strong local residential community or young creative entrepreneurs that give the area its character and potential.”
A look at Herald's website www.extra-room.com suggests this is a person who has a wide range of experience throughout the world.
And this is the dilemma about regeneration. Is it just a stalking horse for gentrification?
At the moment Kings Cross is one of the murkier parts of London. It’s red light district providing the backdrop for many a TV drama and of course Neil Jordan’s film Mona Lisa which starred Bob Hoskins and Cathy Tyson.
If the area becomes well scrubbed where do the elements perceived as dirtier go?
They’re unlikely to be rolling into much of the 173,000m2 of residential development because those pieces of real estate are doubtless going to cost a couple of hundred thousand pounds.
I’ll be intrigued to see the amount of space allotted to the hoi polloi. The Kings Cross we’ve grown up with in London runs contrary to the zone that’s being promulgated.
Eurostar’s glitzy blurb for St Pancras International says France and England are getting closer. True. But what’s it doing to London?
Inside the editor Delphine DeWulf writes: “The development represents a wealth of opportunities that many Chamber members have started to grasp.”
And they won’t be alone. For the magazine cites figures from the London Development Agency from March 2006, which reveal 740,000m2 of development; 173,000m2 of residential; 47,000m2 of hotels/apartments. There will be 250 businesses (including the Guardian) and 50 eating places.
Eating places sounds a little vague to me. A fish and chip shop is an eating place. But what the hell this is the largest city centre brownfield regeneration project in Europe.
And just to think in a few short months I’m going to be a regular part of this groovy wonderland.
Richard Brown, chief executive of Eurostar, says that my chums will want to be meeting me off the train.
“St Pancras International itself will be a ‘destination’ in its own right where people will want to go rather than just transit through,” he coos. “Inspired by New York’s Grand Central Terminal, there will be a 90-metre champagne bar – the longest in Europe, specialist shops, restaurants, and a farmer’s market full of wonderful produce.”
Problem is my mates aren’t the champagne bar types. Maybe I could instruct them in such ways. Maybe they’ll come flocking to greet me as I emerge from my 135-minute surge through northern France and south-eastern England.
But I soon realise that friends coming to St Pancras to meet me just because it’s St Pancras is as likely as me arriving at the terminus and making a beeline for the farmer’s market.
It’s odd what constitutes a selling point these days. I’d never have thought a farmer’s market would be the thing to lure people just returning from France or just about to set off there.
While the viability of the outlets is yet to be gauged, what is certain is that a chunky slice of London is on the cusp of renegotiating its own status within the metropolis and within the European context.
If London is 1 hour 51 minutes from Brussels and 2 hours 15 from Paris, then these become daily commutable distances. More so for the Belgian capital. Of course then there’s the chance to link up with the mainland European rail networks.
But there is a word of warning. Jackie Herald, a garden designer at the London-based Extra Room says: “It’s vital that the established international business community and increased values of property do not displace either the strong local residential community or young creative entrepreneurs that give the area its character and potential.”
A look at Herald's website www.extra-room.com suggests this is a person who has a wide range of experience throughout the world.
And this is the dilemma about regeneration. Is it just a stalking horse for gentrification?
At the moment Kings Cross is one of the murkier parts of London. It’s red light district providing the backdrop for many a TV drama and of course Neil Jordan’s film Mona Lisa which starred Bob Hoskins and Cathy Tyson.
If the area becomes well scrubbed where do the elements perceived as dirtier go?
They’re unlikely to be rolling into much of the 173,000m2 of residential development because those pieces of real estate are doubtless going to cost a couple of hundred thousand pounds.
I’ll be intrigued to see the amount of space allotted to the hoi polloi. The Kings Cross we’ve grown up with in London runs contrary to the zone that’s being promulgated.
Eurostar’s glitzy blurb for St Pancras International says France and England are getting closer. True. But what’s it doing to London?
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