So, Nadal and Boris Johnson both went out on the same day! The former has withdrawn gracefully to go and try to put his health to rights. The latter seems to be trying to hang on as long as possible even though he has said he is resigning - not by his choice but because the “herd mentality” of his party wants it that way apparently.
Much speculation is already underway about who will replace him as leader of the party. Some wag on social media, in the Campaign to Rejoin the EU has posted this’
“My prediction:
Priti Patel for PM
Truss for Chancellor
Nadine Dorres as home Secretary.
Who will then accidentally deport all three of them.”
A good friend of mine is rather upset about Rafa, someone she would really like to adopt, I think. So is a former student of mine. Back when she was sixteen-going-on-seventeen, I made her read articles in Spanish about a then quite young Spanish tennis star. She’s followed him ever since.
I heard a Conservative MP describe Johnson as a “good man brought low” but I suspect that the person most upset by his fall from grace is Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
We all await developments!
Meanwhile, we have been promised a heatwave but I suspect that once again the weathermen mean mainly in the southeast, not the northwest of England. We have cloud with intermittent sunny spells! I have hung out the washing in hopes of more sunshine. The pub next door, in similar optimistic mood, has started up its wood-fired pizza facility in the carpark, abutting our side garden. I have closed windows on that side of the house to avoid smoke!!
As regards Wimbledon, I came across this article about an allowance offered to tennis stars.
“Wimbledon stars have been asked to be “judicious” about maxing out their daily food allowance so supplies do not run out.
Competitors are given a £90 a day allowance to spend on food and drink in dedicated restaurants across SW19. Coaches are allocated about half that amount, with the funds available on accreditation tags that can be scanned at checkout.
Players can access six different outlets – two restaurants, two sandwich bars and two coffee shops – so that they do not need to worry about bringing their own meals to Wimbledon.
But some people have reportedly been treating the allowance as more of a target and have been trying to max it out each day, leading to concerns about supplies.”
That’s an aspect of Wimbledon that is probably little known.
In my Italian conversation class we have been reading about Torino/Turin, which turns out to be a much undervalued Italian city. Among other things it has a “borgo medievale”, not a mediaeval village at all really. Like the Eiffel Tower in Paris it was built for an exhibition back in 1884 with the idea that it would be demolished afterwards. But it has remained, like the Eiffel Tower, as a tourist attraction. And now it seems that the Eiffel Tower is in a sorry state, with rusty joints and seriously in need of repair - poor old lady, the €60m being spent on a repaint job before the 2024 Olympics is purely cosmetic, apparently!
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone.
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