Finally, We Come In Peace

Many of you will be aware of Commander Chris Hadfield. If you don't know him by name then you will have seen his pictures. Hadfield spent a term aboard the Internation Space Station, sharing his astounding pictures of Earth from above with us mere Earthlings via his twitter account. Today whilst conducting my usual morning routine of a cup of tea and flick through my timeline I came across one of his most recent tweets. 

"The Sun is a harsh mistress. Cool to see the flags still standing, despite the relentless effects of UV radiation"  

(@Cmdr_Hadfield)

He also provided a link to an article describing how the effects of the sun's radiation of the 6 star spangled banners that are on the moon. 5 of the flags are still standing with only one, the first placed by Armstrong, Aldrin and their crew no longer flying. All of the flags, however, are completely white. The stars and stripes of the USA have finally faded to white. For some reason this thought made me quite pleased. Whether or not it is because of my 'Inventing the Nation' America literature class and talk of colonialism but I like that the flags, placed as a symbol of ownership are now blank and have reverted to that pure, peace colour, white. Maybe now we do really, finally, come in peace.

Today at Wimbledon: Day 4. I HEART THE CENTRE COURT ROOF AND WANT EVERYONE TO KNOW IT.

Today the roof was used for the first time-hurrah! Unlike most who watch Wimbledon I relish the chance that the roof may come on. Even though it has only been there a few years 'the Roof' to give it it's proper, Sue Barker approved name has already become a peculiar tradition. 

Now, I'm going to jump around a bit here but fluidity has never been my strong point. Do you remember when those pandas arrived from China into Edinburgh and they broadcast the whole thing live on TV as if it was the Moon Landings or a Royal Wedding? They had that BBC News reporter asking all the important questions such as 'do the Pandas understand English?' as we waited for what seemed like an age for the Pandas to get their luggage together, dig around the back of the seat to find their phone and pick up 200 Marlboros in duty free. Well, the 30 minutes or so it takes for them to close the roof at Wimbledon is a bit like that. We get the peculiar sound of John McEnroe trying to commentate on what is, essentially a giant gazebo going up over a rainy bank holiday barbecue. The crowd 'ooohs' and 'ahhhs' at the sight as if it were the pandas themselves parachuting into Centre Court. After the roof is actually shut we then get around 20 minutes during which time someone flicks on the air con switch and we all wait around for some magic to happen so the tennis players feel like they are still playing outside. This is when the BBC cameramen and women on Centre Court have a field day, and personally this is probably my favourite part of Wimbledon. They zoom in on every canoodling couple, children eating scotch eggs, people looking bored and flicking through their Twitter feed. They do a quick round up of who's who in the Royal Box whilst McEnroe or that one of GMTV (may she rest in peace) tries to out-do each other in the 'who reads 'Hello!' the most' stakes. Ace to you BBC, for providing me with a people watching service without having to leave the house. BBC, I implore you to add 'BBC Centre Court Roof' to your extensive red button Wimbledon channels. This will give me something else to get addicted to, like when I spent nearly 5 hours straight watching the 'Chimney Cam' when the new Pope was elected. PLEASE BBC?