My mate won the Wimbledon ballot and I spent the whole day as unpaid moral support with nothing to show for it
A mate of mine won the Wimbledon public ballot this year, and being a genuinely good friend, or possibly just bored, I agreed to join her in the queue at four in the morning purely for moral support, a decision I regretted somewhere around hour six and fully committed to regretting by hour eleven.
What The Queue Is Actually Like
Nobody prepares you for how strange the Wimbledon queue culture actually is, a genuinely enormous temporary village assembling itself in a park overnight, complete with its own rules, its own quiet camaraderie, and an unsettling number of people who seemed to have brought considerably more elaborate camping equipment than I have ever owned in my life.
The Strawberry Betrayal
Here is the actual outrage of my day: my mate had a ticket. I did not. Which meant that once we finally reached the front after eleven straight hours, she went inside to watch actual tennis and eat actual strawberries and cream, and I went home on the tube, alone, tired, sunburnt, and completely strawberry-less, having contributed literally nothing to the day except company during the boring bit.
A Word On What I Actually Got Out Of It
To be fair, the queue itself was strangely lovely, strangers sharing tea, a genuinely warm collective delirium building as the sun came up, the kind of temporary community that only forms around something this specifically, gloriously pointless. I would almost do it again. Almost.
What The Rest Of The Internet Made Of The Whole Institution
NewsBiscuit had some genuinely sharp commentary this week on the broader absurdity of British institutions that run entirely on people’s willingness to suffer politely for a modest reward, which felt uncomfortably relevant to my entire day.
Gig Update
Missed rehearsal entirely because of the whole strawberry disaster, which the rest of the band found extremely funny given I am usually the one moaning about punctuality. Fair enough, I suppose. We rescheduled for Thursday instead, and I have promised, under some duress, not to volunteer for any more early morning queuing commitments before a rehearsal ever again.
A Small Update On The Scene
One of the newer bands on the circuit played their first proper show this week at a tiny room above a pub near Dalston, genuinely promising, properly loud, the kind of chaotic energy that makes you remember why you got into any of this in the first place, and I am already looking forward to seeing where they end up in a year.
Closing Thought
No strawberries, no cream, eleven hours of my life gone, and somehow still a better use of a day than most things I do on purpose. More diary chaos at my page on The London Prat.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com
