OUR old pal Mark ‘Donkey’ Donaldson, formerly of Forth FM but now a luminary of the mighty CNN, has been a-Wombling around the All England estate in search of unusual tales that have escaped the notice of every day folks and shared with Hawk-Aye an encounter with an Indian family he met the other day. Last week none of them had passports, but had applied and they knew they were on their way. As soon as they came through them they immediately got themselves visas to come to the UK. They then boarded the first available flight to London and headed directly to Wimbledon and ‘The Q’, where they stood in line until they managed to acquire Centre Court tickets to achieve their ultimate goal, to see Roger Federer play tennis live. That’s what you call a tennis pilgrimage.

ROGER Federer hasn’t just played less tennis than usual recently. He no longer plays ping pong in the press room. Asked why he sounds more philosophical, the Swiss legend had an answer prepared. “Maybe I’ve been asked the same questions also for too long that I feel like I need to bring in some variety. Then we actually have a good time rather than this being sort of ping-pong that it always is.”

OUT on Aorangi Terrace, rules is rules. The man sitting with one part of his anatomy fractionally the wrong side of the black line denoting which part of the stairs are sittable on and which are not was politely then firmly told to budge up by a steward.

When, such was the crush, he failed to get all of himself across the dividing line reinforcements were called for and a rather larger member of security personnel tried his luck.

Still unpersuaded he was then told a higher authority would be sought if he did not move and finally cut his losses as two burly policemen hove into view.

The cheek of the fellow…