h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I clicked through over 100 channels but couldn't find any tennis. I don't watch TV, and I think we would have to have Sky to get any Wimbledon coverage.

Oh dear Bob, that'd be awful. Apart from being part of the Dirty Digger's empire their sports coverage is even worse than ITV's (more on that below). When I couldn't get any of Channels Five's cricket highlights I watched some of Sky's. Oy Whenever there was a boundary they immediately cut away from the field and the players, and pointed the camera at a handful of people in the crowd. They seemed to have a knack of choosing spectators whose reaction on noticing they were on the big screen (which I guess takes its feed from the TV cameras) was to scream like a bunch of five-year-olds and pull faces

I may be doing ITV a disservice with all this criticism of their sports coverage. Given the choice between watching the same live event on either BBC or ITV I'd invariably go with the former, but I used to watch World of Sport far more than Grandstand, and I have nothing but praise for their Tour de France coverage. I've been watching it since... 2007, and that theme tune, plus Gary Imlach, Chris Boardman, Ned Boulting, Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen, has become every bit as much a part of my summer and something I look forward to every bit as much as the Wimbledon theme tune used to be, and Soul Limbo still is.

I watch Wimbledon on Sky, but the TV coverage is the one that comes from the BBC, I think. I think it works like the world cup where there is only one TV feed but each country sends reporters.

What I would wish for is that when they do the interview afterwards that the commentator then didn't do a (semi)simultaneous (semi)translation because they're not that good. But I can't switch it off so I spend the time trying to hear the English, then noticing the rubbish translation then getting cross about that and missing what's being said in either English or German.

We got Sky for the Footy. Coverage is blanket and good. There is one commentator that we always hope not to get (when we're not actually in the stadium and are, therefore spared the piffle they talk) but we're not always lucky.

Anyway my peeve with Wimbledon has now reached epic proportions, as those of you who saw me tweet will know. Two words. Gendered. Towels.
That is all.

I was thinking one two other words: Sharapova, screaming

Okay, so now, not only am I missing words out of sentences, I'm changing one word two another (not the first time I've done this but the first time I haven't caught it)

Thinking *of* two words.

Oh I give up.

Oh, yeah the gendered towels

If I'm being generous, I hope it is just so that the spectators know that the game they are watching is in the women's event not the men's, but are towels really the way to do that?!

I've not seen much of the 2day thing, as many of the matches fortunately went on into the evening, so I could see live tennis after work instead of highlights, and now this week when I'll probably need it, the coverage looks to have improved.

Oddly enough, this association between the color pink with girls and blue with boys is fairly recent, post WWII. As recently as 1915, pink was a "boys' color" and blue was considered more "daintily feminine". (Short hair on men is also a modern phenomenon starting with the short hair requirements for soldiers.)


http://www.npr.org/2014/04/01/297159948/girls-are-taught-to-think-pink-but-that-wasnt-always-so

It's what some people want, like the woman I used to know - a tennis pro, a lesbian, and butch. She begged me to try and get her a pink ladies Wimbledon towel; didn't want the green and purple one. Chacon a son gout.

I think that should be Chacun, shouldn't it. Can I go back to bed and start the day again please?

How the hell would I know?


The only French I know is "Qui a coupé le fromage."


http://youtu.be/yGqxb3vLL1A

if she wants a pink towel because she likes pink, it's a whole other ball game.

I was going to give them the benefit of the doubt with the pink, until I saw a mixed doubles match. They had laid out one of each towel on the seats for the players. and the men were using the pink ones - and i SO SO SO wish it was in protest.

So we know that, indeed, at Wimbledon if you're a woman (a Miss or a Mrs but never a Ms) you get to have a pink towel. Because otherwise your uterus might fall out or something.

Sharapova. Makes. Me. Want. To. Stab. Her. In. The. Throat. With. My. Pen.

She wanted a ladies towel because that's the one the ladies get. I don't think the colour was important.

As for Sharapova, join the queue

my point being that there is no reason for the ladies to get different towels. Maybe they're softer to prevent their uteruses falling out...

If I was a lady playing at Wimbledon, I would be glad to know that I wasn't being given a towel that a sweaty, snotty man had used. Even if it had been washed since.

And my point being, Sho, that not everyone feels the same way about everything, even issues that seem as plain as day to some.

I do hope you forgot to put the smiley there TC. Cos that would be a sexist comment otherwise. It'd certainly be seen that way if a man said it about women

I realise that not everyone feels the same way. The point is that I am really really sick and tired of being pigeonholed just because my reproductive organs are on the inside. Sure, make different coloured towels, but let the players decide which ones to use. Stopp with the Miss/Mrs tripe. It is of no consequence to anyone if Serena Williams is married or not. (which is a wider issue than Wimbledon but there it is)

Because it also pigeonholes men too. And I'm not happy about that. Sorry if it's irritating or boring, but it is a big issue to me which has translated to work opportunities (or lack thereof) and so on.

here endeth the rant. I'll unsub so I'm not further tempted

Absolutely no , Gosho. I even put my men's undies and towels into the washing machine with a pair of tongs.

However, I would quite understand if men had problems with women's towels, too.