The title of this post is what some old man down a short brick alley said to me as I was leaving the real tennis court. Uh . . . that's right up there with the without-a-home man who was out in front of the unSafeway in Seattle who said, "if you go in there and buy me a bar of soap, you can take me home and clean me up." Eww. Anyway. Today was a day of all work and almost no play. I missed breakfast again because I was up from 3-5 AM and then went back to sleep from 5-8:40 AM, so I'm getting better at this. Then it was conference in the morning, lunch, and then meeting with Brian Sutton this afternoon. Basically he is a super well-funded top crystallographer at King's College. The PI and lab situation sounds perfect, the project sounds daunting. So, I'm going to have to think about this for a while. He said that my work and experience is perfect for the post so if he has funding for the post (which will take a few months to determine), he's going to fly me back to London in a month or so to visit his lab (no time now since everyone is on holiday). If that goes well, I think they would want me to start as soon as I graduate (January? February?) Uh, remember how I hate making decisions and would much prefer to go mow lawns and teach immunology at a community college in Montana? So, we'll see. No more thinking about that now. Anyway, after we talked in a coffee shop for a couple of hours, he took me on a short walking tour of Oxford. It was incredible, there is so much history here, which I knew, but it is amazing that everything is so understated. He showed me the room where Wilkins and company started the Royal London Society which is basically the beginning of modern science in the western world. The Middle East and the Far East obviously had it down for centuries before that. But, I think the west has done a good job in catching up since then due to turmoil in other regions. Anyway. We stopped by his real tennis club to see a real tennis court. I'm not saying "real" for emphasis, but because that is it's name. "Real" is a permutation of "royal" and it is more along the lines of the tennis game you see in the movie "Ever After" as I should know since I watched that Saturday night. Here is a picture of the Real Tennis Court in Oxford.
As you can hopefully see, it's an enclosed court with slanted walls on the left. Part of the strategy is to serve the ball so that it rolls along that wall and onto the ground with no bounce. It has some extremely complicated rules about points (leave it to the British!) which is demarcated by some lines shown here. Something about hitting the ball closer on the second point means you don't get the point? I don't get the point in either case.
Here is the custodian that let me in after the interview was over so that I could take pictures along with a different view of the court. You also get points for hitting the ball into those rectangular nets on the left.
I stopped and chatted with the custodian there who was wrapping the tennis balls by hand. All of the real tennis balls are made by hand by each court. Then the players pay fees to join the club, about $900 per year for the Oxford court, $30,000 a year for the King's court in London. As a shout out, there is apparently an American who is one of the best players in the world. He's in his early twenties so he hasn't even hit is prime (which is far as I can tell, somewhere around 53 for this game). Anyway, I asked him if I could buy a ball, so he sewed one up that was "a bit small and knobbly" for about 5 bucks. This is my new favorite (and only) souvenir of this trip. Here it is (note the dingy lighting in the room)
Basically, they take powdered cork and then pour it into an old real tennis ball covering. Then they wrap the whole thing up with long strips of cloth about half an inch wide. Then they wrap the thing in precise locations with string, cut some strips of green fluffy tennis ball stuff and hand stitch it on. Each ball lasts about ten days of play and you have to keep the made tennis balls in consistent sets since the balls get smaller as they "age" and you don't want irregularity in play due to different ages in the ball department. On the way back, since I may be mowing lawns in Montana, I took some pictures of the lawns here, reminding me that I wouldn't want to be a groundskeeper here. Well, maybe I would. It looks like fun. Here is some circles of different heights of grass.
And here is one with different heights of grass in squares. Ridiculous! Pretty! Typical!
As you can hopefully see, it's an enclosed court with slanted walls on the left. Part of the strategy is to serve the ball so that it rolls along that wall and onto the ground with no bounce. It has some extremely complicated rules about points (leave it to the British!) which is demarcated by some lines shown here. Something about hitting the ball closer on the second point means you don't get the point? I don't get the point in either case. 
Here is the custodian that let me in after the interview was over so that I could take pictures along with a different view of the court. You also get points for hitting the ball into those rectangular nets on the left. 
I stopped and chatted with the custodian there who was wrapping the tennis balls by hand. All of the real tennis balls are made by hand by each court. Then the players pay fees to join the club, about $900 per year for the Oxford court, $30,000 a year for the King's court in London. As a shout out, there is apparently an American who is one of the best players in the world. He's in his early twenties so he hasn't even hit is prime (which is far as I can tell, somewhere around 53 for this game). Anyway, I asked him if I could buy a ball, so he sewed one up that was "a bit small and knobbly" for about 5 bucks. This is my new favorite (and only) souvenir of this trip. Here it is (note the dingy lighting in the room) 
Basically, they take powdered cork and then pour it into an old real tennis ball covering. Then they wrap the whole thing up with long strips of cloth about half an inch wide. Then they wrap the thing in precise locations with string, cut some strips of green fluffy tennis ball stuff and hand stitch it on. Each ball lasts about ten days of play and you have to keep the made tennis balls in consistent sets since the balls get smaller as they "age" and you don't want irregularity in play due to different ages in the ball department. On the way back, since I may be mowing lawns in Montana, I took some pictures of the lawns here, reminding me that I wouldn't want to be a groundskeeper here. Well, maybe I would. It looks like fun. Here is some circles of different heights of grass. 
And here is one with different heights of grass in squares. Ridiculous! Pretty! Typical! 
1 comment:
Chris,
I'm glad you're having a great time across the pond, and that your potential future colleagues are impressed with you. They have every reason to be, of course.
Have fun.
-stephen
PS - today I go in for my shots. hurray!
Post a Comment