VAMOS.
Rafa Nadal has departed the scene after his defeat to Dustin Brown, disappointing members of the British press who wondered if he would stay on a while in the big house he has been renting with his mother and sister. "I don't have more work here in London," said the Mallorcan. "So if you want to use the house it is going to be free tomorrow"
DOING the bouncy. On the subject of apartments, US player Madison Keys has been hanging out by the pool at the house of her coach Lindsay Davenport, which clearly is owned by a family with children. "I was over there once," she said. "I think I might go over there for the trampoline."
PESKY things, families. They are always stealing your clothes, particularly Madison's sisters. "Somehow, even not living in the same house, my clothes still go missing," a bemused Keys said. If it is any consolation, the younger diarist experiences something similar with his socks.
MORE random house guests. Aljaz Bedene, the British No 2, has been staying at Wimbledon this year with Tessa Wyatt, the ex-wife of Tony Blackburn. His girlfriend Kimalie is also an aspiring musician, who plans to release a pop demo next year. Anyway, now for some Bachman Turner Overdrive ...
IT isn't just pop stars who naturally gravitate towards the glamour of Wimbledon. Devotees of the round ball game will have noticed soccer superstars Adam Lallana and Andriy Shevchenko in attendance at SW19 this year. The Royal Box is always choc full on the middle Saturday, which has been christened sportsman's Saturday. Scott McDonald, who spent last season at Motherwell, was here also. He was here on helicopter Sunday.
SIR Terry Wogan was the most well known name in the Royal Box on Day 5. As far as your diarists are concerned, the real star guest was Nick Bitel, the chief executive of the London Marathon and chair of Sport England. In a previous existence Bitel was a lawyer specialising in sports and drugs litigation, who once took up the cudgels on behalf of Scots sprinter Dougie Walker. "Call me any time," Bitel said the first time we phoned him to ask about his involvement. So many people who say that do not mean it, but he did. Any time, any place - as we found out next time we phoned him. "HELLO! IT'S NICK!" he barked in a fair imitation of Dom Joly doing his giant mobile phone gag. There were sounds of splashing and shouting all around, so we replied: "Hi Nick. Are you sitting beside a swimming pool somewhere?" "NO!" he roared. "IT'S THE MEDITERRANEAN! I'M IN IT!", then, despite being buffeted by the waves, answered all our questions.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article