Tuesday 8 July 2008

The Wimbledon experience


Although this is a little belated I thought Sunday's Wimbledon final was fabulous. We had two players who are true sportsman, gracious whether winning or losing and respectful of each other and the Wimbledon traditions. We had rain, we had sunshine, we had gusts of wind and failing light.

But what I wanted to talk about was the next day and and the feeling of collective consciousness that came from everyone having watched the tennis, whether they initially tuned in for it or wanted to watch Songs of Praise/ Last of the Summer Wine/ George Gently and found themselves screaming at the tennis.

With digital, i-player, Sky plus and dvd box sets it's very rare that you get a real water cooler TV discussion these days. Sure many people will have watched the final Soprano's or the Apprentice but the difference on Sunday was that everyone was watching the tennis at the same time, they didn't save it to the hard drive or wait to buy the dvd.

I am a total box- set and repeat whore but I think it's a real shame that we have lost that collective excitement about a lot of popular culture and really enjoyed my water cooler tennis related chats the next day- the sporting ones with the chaps an the Nadal or Federer ones with the ladies.

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