Second Shot

Henman! Heeenmaan!!!

It was truly something that you could only fully appreciate by being there. For the past two days, I’d been to Wimbledon to watch Great Britain try and ultimately succeed over Croatia in getting into the World Group of the Davis Cup.

Having booked the tickets a long time ago, the idea of playing tennis in September is usually not a promisingly one. But the Great British weather was up to its old unpredictable tricks again and provided absolutely superb tennis conditions.

It’s the first time I’d seen Andy Murray play in the flesh, and I have to say his style is quite slow. Quite clearly a baseline player, Murray kept with the slices and cross-court shots for the majority of his game. (I guess, playing against another baseliner doesn’t help in the game’s speed.) Still, he showed his skill and made it through after a five set match.

Next up was Tim Henman, playing quite possibly his last match before his retirement. It was all rather fitting, finishing it back on home ground. And he played the classic serve-volley style that made him who he is, and that was so many time faster than the Murray match (quite possibly because of the rather top heavy forehands). And because of the last minute switch for Croatia from their No.2 to someone else, Henman convincingly won the second rubber in three sets.

But what was more amazing than the wins was the crowd. I forget how different it is hearing the crowd on television compared to live, right in your ear. For one, the chanting is so much more, so unified. And then you have the random shouting and slight annoyances from some individuals (although for a Davis Cup match, there didn’t seem to be much of this – shame). And there’s a huge difference between a Wimbledon game and a Davis Cup one. There is just so much more love for every point won, and at times the Croatian crowd really made sure that everyone knew they were there.

And today, as we know, it really was Tim’s final professional game of tennis (doubles with Jamie Murray). He may be playing on Sunday for the one of the dead rubbers, but I don’t think that he’ll get as much love from the crowd as he did today, after he hit that winning forehand cross-court. His final shot of his final game; superb. It was very nearly a classic Henman game; loud cries and cheering and chanting suddenly cut to a hush with the crowd on the edge of their seat. How he manages to command thousands of people just by standing on court is amazing.

And although you may never be able to see Tim Henman play ever again or the Henman Feet Shuffle(tm) – professionally, at least – any future Davis Cup tie is one not to be missed.

It certainly has a been a rollercoaster ride of a career, and one that’s ended as well as it could have done. Here’s to Tim.

Gaming has always had it’s (unfair) share of put-downs with being somehow childish or related to it. Otherwise, they are considered the polar opposite where any violence is seen as some sort of teaching aid to maim and kill.

BioShock has the fundamentals of the latter, but uses it in a way that must really be praised. It is, without a doubt, a properly made horror story first and foremost. It’s not quite the perfect creation, but it’ll damn well do.

I don’t think that I’ve ever before felt crunch time like I’ve felt it at work. There seems to be more instances of trying to get final figures, words and documents ready for issuing to clients than I’ve experienced for university work.

We’re trying to win some work for the future of a large landmark tower out in Doha, Qatar (I may have told this story before). And as well as getting the right amounts of information for the presentation slides, there’s also the matter of compiling and designing a handout booklet. Now, I’m not really fussed about doing it, but it doesn’t help when people can’t decide on whether to do one or not and then say ‘yeah, we need one.’ I’d been harping on about doing one for the past week, because if you’re being paid big bucks on a project you’d expect a decent (sense of) return.

So it was pretty damn hectic the last couple of days, throwing pictures and text into Word documents, trying to get it formatted nicely, and making changes in the very last minutes, up til the closing time of our office printroom.

And I’m pretty amazed that we managed to do it in time (thumbs-up to Edd for doing a sterling job under my ranting pressure). There were so many little changes, the things that make it perfect, little niggles and changes in text (I spotted a few formatting issues but that was the fault of PDF995 – although a damn sight faster than Adobe PDF, it couldn’t do superscript text), and after a while it really was taking far too long. Thank god that the printroom guys didn’t work on a super-strict deadline…

Worth the stress? No idea, but the handout looked damn good in the end. It’s all going to repeat itself in 4-weeks time for the final big push to win the project, so hopefully we might actually plan it properly next time.

It’s been a couple of weeks of chop-and-change at work. A couple of undergrads have been working with us (last week, one finished for the summer; cheers for all your help Helen, have a good time in Italy), and Ed (or should that be Edd) has a couple more weeks.

And it’s all in time for the old switcharoo; we’ve already got two new graduates (last week), this week one other, and I’m sure there’s supposed to be another one. It’s a little odd teaching these young’uns, because there doesn’t seem to have been enough time (and experience) passed for me to start dishing out the work.

But it’s all helping, what with suddenly everyone wanting work to be complete by the end of this week. Why they couldn’t have given it to me early last week is anyone’s guess. Still, mustn’t grumble as I prefer to be busy off my feet than sitting around dossing (one, because I can’t doss properly, and two, I get to be slightly ticked off and expose my short fuse when I feel even slightly pushed for time – ah, to work for me you’ve got to be crazy, probably explains why the potential grads who’ve come to chat with me don’t actually accept the job offer…)

Ah well. Bring it on, I say.

Why is it that having the opportunity not to go to work due to the Tube strike that I bother and try to get into work? And actually succeed quite well in doing so? Geez, I’ve got such a conscience.

And the resultant walk this morning between Kings Cross and Russell Square (and slightly less so the bus ride yesterday) for my travel connections made me remember why I’ve always wanted to work in London. I guess it helped being a decent, sunny day, but it was also good knowing a little bit more of the streets and getting between places on foot.

This is London, and it’s the exploration that really makes it all so grand.