Made up facts about Wimbledon

Yesterday the BBC Surrey Breakfast show came live from a picnic bench on the roof of the media centre at Wimbledon.

We interviewed the Chairman of the All England Club, and the BBC's John Inverdale joined us for the last part of the programme, in his cycling kit. Both feature in the last 45 minutes of the programme which I've uploaded (minus the news junctions etc) below. Have a scan through and you'll get a flavour of it:

Wimbledon OB by nickwallis

Because the only people in the grounds at Wimbledon between 7am and 10am (when the breakfast show goes out) are working, I spent Thursday afternoon mingling with the crowd, soaking up the atmosphere and speaking to people from Surrey. I did quite a bit of recording and played the results out on the show. It made for a great couple of days.

Bite-size facts are a great thing to have to hand on any OB, and I duly collected a few, which I have put at the bottom of this post. I also wrote some made-up facts about Wimbledon to amuse myself.

Made up facts about Wimbledon

The only people allowed to use Centre Court outside of the tournament are HM Queen, The Chairman of the All England Club, and his wife.

After John McEnroe's "pits of the world" outburst in 1981, Americans were banned from Wimbledon for 11 months.

Thanks to a quirk in education legislation, the All England Club is still allowed to use corporal punishment on its ball boys, but not the ball girls.

In 2010, the British Comedy Writers' Association voted Mardy Fish the best name in sport. The American actually turned up at the association's annual awards to accept his title.

Strawberries and cream at Wimbledon is known by the All England Club Members as "whisket", which is why you will often hear people in purple and green ties at Wimbledon shouting "Pass the whisket!!"

Small Womble-like creatures are used in harness to power Wimbledon's retractable roof. They push a large, underground wheel attached to cables, which can drag the roof across Centre Court in less than ten minutes.

True facts about Wimbledon

 

This is my favourite: Goran Ivanisevic is the only Wimbledon champion whose entire name alternates consonants and vowels.

The price of a plastic punnet of strawberries and cream has been kept at £2.50, for which you get a minimum of 10 strawberries. 28 tonnes of strawberries are eaten over the Wimbledon fortnight. Most of them come from Kent.

A large cup of Pimm's will set you back an eye-watering £7. 200,000 will be sold over the fortnight. So the All-England club gross 1.4million pounds on Pimm's alone.

The name 'tennis' is thought to come from the French 'tenez!' ('take' or 'receive'), a server's warning shout.

Rafael Nadal is actually right-handed. His coach made him play left-handed to improve his two-handed backhand.

Chairs were only provided for players to rest when changing ends in 1975.

In 2001 Roger Federer became the first man to beat Pete Sampras at Wimbledon in nearly five years. Federer beat Sampras in the 4th round. Federer then lost to Tim Henman in the 5th (who lost his semi-final to the eventual winner - Goran Ivanisevic).

The yellow tennis balls have only been around since 1986. They replaced white balls because they are more visible to TV cameras. One ball is only in play for about twenty minutes of an average two-and-a-half-hour tennis match.

 

Lady Gaga ate my Hamster

Been reading some fascinating blog posts about content farms and SEO and all that. I had no idea.

If you have any interest why and how you come to read the things you do on the internet, please do click on the above links.

Thanks to @briancathcart for the latter and some other nice person on twitter (sorry - forgotten who) who linked to the former. Both blog posts are excellent, if lengthy, reads.

I powered up the computer because I was going to write a sappy post about how much I love Caitlin Moran and David Hepworth, but it's too late in the day now and my brain hurts.

Instead, here is a welcome to my three week old son which I put up on my BBC Surrey Breakfast blog a week or so ago. It is slightly less grumpy than the one I posted here a couple of weeks back. It contains an explanation for the name Duffus as well as an audio rendering of Amy and Abi's diary, now I have finally discovered Soundcloud.

I promise I will stop boring on about my kids soon.

(Copyright ownership info/permission on pic being sought. Will remove on request. Good though, isn't it?)

Family Guy

This is James Duffus Wallis*. He is 10 days old. I put him in his chair so I could write this blog post, but he has woken up, so he is now attached to me on a sling.

Whilst it is nothing special to produce and provide for three children, right now it feels a big deal. The thing that struck me about the preparations for this latest addition to the family is the parental division of labour.

Before our eldest was born, six years ago, it felt as if we were embarking on a great adventure, throwing the cards up in the air to see how they fell. We had no idea how it would work out.

This time we knew exactly what we were doing, and as the pregnancy progressed we split into the parental roles we have been occupying for some time. Mrs W dealt with the domestic sphere (bringing the baby clothes down from the loft, re-joining the NCT) and I bought a new car.

Before James was born I was amazed at the number of people who told me I was probably secretly hoping for a boy. This irritated me intensely as they were effectively suggesting I would be disappointed with a daughter.

Since the wee man arrived at least three people have offered variations on the "Get in! Just what you wanted!/You can stop trying now!" theme, which is even more insulting, as it suggests the only reason we had decided on having three children was because I wasn't satisfied with two daughters.

I doubt such sentiments were genuinely held - people just feel the need to say something when they hear your wife has had a baby, and often it's just that, something to say.

Because we didn't know the sex of our child before he was born, I hadn't really thought about the implications of having a son, and what it would mean for me. So far the girls have shown little interest in football and other "boy" things, and it has seemed natural for Mrs W to take the lead in their development. I don't know how to plait hair, and I'm afraid I never will.

Of course, there's no guarantee James will care for blokey pursuits, but he might and I expect he will require me to extend my parenting skills to areas I may not have done if he hadn't come along.

Because my daughters produce a ninety second audio diary once a week on BBC Surrey (well - I produce it, they are the talent) and because I occasionally talk about my family on air, quite a few listeners have been following Mrs W's pregnancy.

Last week the stand-in presenter on the BBC Surrey Breakfast Show called me up on air to see how things were getting on, and this weekend we recorded a special Amy and Abi's diary which is about James and the impact he is having on their lives. In this James makes his broadcasting debut. I think he's got a good broadcasting voice, but then, I'm biased.

*currently mainly addressed as "Jim-Bob" (or when I'm particularly tired, "Peter" or "Robert", which are his cousins' names)