O2 and WW1

Sometimes London is so much fun and sometimes it can be moving.   The visit to see live tennis for the first time in forty years was the former, whilst the Shrouds of the Somme was definitely the latter and definitely worth seeing. All set against the weird backdrop of Teresa May fighting to see if she would still be PM by the end of the day.

Murray and Soares about to go into action. 

The O2 was not that welcoming when I went before to a concert - which was just okay - but it was much more alive for the  World tennis tour. .  My seat could not have been further up and I still do not know how most people just ran and up and downstairs that looked like they would fling one to the centre, but the view was brilliant.  Poised over the net, whilst most of the tennis was not of the greatest quality, (Thiem beat Nishikori, but after a poor performance Murray and Suarez surprisingly won), it was just wonderful to be able to focus on all the detail and just see everything.   It was also interesting to be able to look down and see Sue Barker a dot far below, spending quite a lot of time not watching the match as she sorted out her paperwork.    Food there is astronomically costly, but it goes with the territory.  Having just found a venue where I can see tennis it is disappointing to realise that the future of the event at the O2 is not guaranteed, so maybe this year's visit will turn out to be a one off.

The last four years have seen some astonishing reminders 100 years after WW1,  from the poppies at the Tower, to special films, special broadcasts and haunting figures appearing in unexpected places like Alnwick.   Shrouds of the Somme started out as a therapeutic act for the creator of the first 19000 or so action men laid to rest to represent the fallen on the first day of the battle but then Rob Heard found he just could not stop until he had honoured all those who died on the Somme.   Apparently he got no funding for his "art work" but now in one of London's most modern locations - the revamped Olympic Park a silence falls as people take in what his work signifies.   It is very powerful.  And the once white figures are turning greyer and muddier in the elements.    Each of the names are read out Gledhill (one of my friends relatives) Goodall Groombridge, Christmas,  and in a separate tent the day they died and their age is detailed.    WW1 ended just 20 years before Krystallnacht, a pause in the fighting, rather than the war to end all wars. There have been so many genocides in my life time - we did not learn from the carnage of WW1 yet somehow it speaks to people incredibly powerfully still.