Olympic tennis

what a luxury - centre court tickets on the first day of the olympics, and 4 great matches to get swept up in. So I had agreed to meet Hilary and David at Southfield station - we then followed the crowds to the All England club and queued to get in, through the full on security - we had to empty our 100ml water bottles (who knows why) and experienced a full body search, greater than any airport search I have experienced.

We then looked for a programme - I bought both versions, which were essentially marketing spreads printed weeks ago without any reference to daily events - why they were able to be called programmes, I don't know! Anyway after watching the start of the Australian ladies doubles team losing to the Russians, I headed off to centre court. I watched the mens no 6 seed Thomas Berdych beaten by an on form Belgian, Steve Darcis. I watched this game from halfway up the tiers, above the middle of the court.

Then Serena Williams came on to play and beat Jelena Jankovic. For this match, David offered me his ticket in the second row - where I could see every muscle and facial expression. She is a large and very dark skinned lady who moves and predicts the game well. It was amazing to watch her use the time when her partner was getting ready to serve to visualise her next move. She was so focussed and always kept her back to the court until she was ready to play. It was also great to see Michelle Obama sitting with Venus in the box just above where I was sitting!

The next match was between Rodger Federer and an enthusiastic Colombian, Alejandro Fallo. He was totally on fire and actually broke his serve twice to win the second set. We were all ok about watching Roger play into the third game, and mostly were confident that he really could get it together, which he did! He is such a strong player - he just moves everywhere and his strokes have so much power.

The final match was between the 8th women's seed Caroline Wozniacki and the young local English player Anne Keothavong. Although she won the first set and the entire centre court audience was behind her, Anne could not hold out against the very consistent big hitter of Caroline against her. So this was another great 3 setter - and it was after 7pm when I left centre court! so by the time we caught the tube back to Woodford and prepared a quick dinner, we ate around 10pm and watched the day's activities being summarised for us on the BBC.

the Merchant of Venice atop the Said Business School

I totally enjoy the fact that anyone in Oxford can see at least 3 alternate plays, written by the famous William and enacted in various outdoor settings each summer. This year, I started with The Merchant of Venice, performed by the uber creative Creation Theatre company, atop the Said Business School. We took our seats on the cement steps using our pillow seats with backs. It was such a luxury to sit outdoors in warm sunshine and we quickly relaxed into the very natural Shakespearian english. I love the way this troupe genuinely enjoy acting, singing, dancing and entertaining. The set was particularly sparse but very versatile and the rotating stage created the perfect Venetian gondolier at one point. I must admit I have never come across this particular play, but as always with Shakespeare, it is impressively contemporary. Gambling love and money to fuel egos, against a backdrop of genuine love and friendsip amidst racial vilification, superb wit and dramatic disguises. Life is here in its entirety and so much more enjoyable than the tedium and angst of daily travail - and there is the wonderful knowledge that it all works out well in the end - at least for some of them!

Volcano, simmering at the Oxford Playhouse

An undiscovered play written by Noel Coward in 1956, performed for the first time, in this touring production. The reviews were less than favourable and hence there were spare seats on a Saturday night. The whole play was set on the verandah of a plantation homestead, on the side of a volcano in Jamaica, accompanied by crickets and a tropical sort of lighting. In short, it was an exposition of love, lust, commitment in and beyond marriage, all set within an escapist expat lifestyle where partners fly in and out for effect. I enjoyed the intrigue between the 3 couples and the lead widow, who wasn't quite sure if she could ever really love again - but we do wonder whether her dead husband has become bigger than he was in real life. I guess I enjoyed the twists and turns as everyone questioned their own views of love and life; there was quite a tension between ideals and pragmatism but I had hoped for a slightly more positive idealist escape - but then again, perhaps this was more reflective of what we all experience as real life!

alone in the Tasmanian wilderness - The Hunter

OK so Willem Dafoe is hired as the assasin to hunt down the last Tasmanian Tiger by a giant biotech company,wanting to harvest its DNA and retrieve the secret anaesthetic, used to immobilise its prey. The film opens in a Parisian hotel with big men in suits and thankfully we quickly fly to Hobart with Qantas and walk off the plane on to the tarmac - what a remembered treat! The scene is set for Tasmania; vast tracts of misty wilderness inhabited by the foresters who actually make a living felling those beatiful trees, the detested 'greenies' who get in the way as they protect the wilderness, and the alternative lifestylers, who often are also scientific researchers. We meet them all and get an understanding of the fragile balance of life way down south. This is also somewhat disrupted by a few crazy foreigners who are prepared to try their luck looking for the extinct tasmanian tiger, fuelled by some recent rumours of sightings - but no-one is prepared to admit this, for fear of losing the big scoop, if they finally find it - including, of course our solitary hunter, Dafoe. Although Dafoe is guided into the wilderness by a very rugged Sam Neill, he quickly decides to go further on his own...and this is when there are long silences as we are taken into the amazing natural beauty of the last wilderness. There is rain and snow, misty mountains and ridges and there is a building sense of lots of different agendas, some real and others imagined in this magnificent forest. As a visual alternative to the gradual hunting of the hunter in the forest, we see Dafoe coming back to stay and connect with a damaged family, who run the eco lodge. Frances O'Connor plays the grieving wife of the disappeared husband, while her two children run wild, a precocious young girl and her electively mute younger brother. Dafoe plays something of the missing father figure by fixing the generator, reviving the drugged mother and connecting with the young boy, who seems to know and draw something about the tiger. Of course, there is a forest chase, with a few rifle shots and a fantastic dreaming sequence but the ending is sufficiently open to allow a little existential reflection...

Loving Your Sister's Sister

3 great actors, some great coastal scenery from an island off Washington state somewhere, lots of emotional intrigue, modern themes and some great music. Emily Blunt, Rosemarie Dewitt and Mark Duplass have a great time improvising in the romantic comedy, Your Sister's Sister, as they tackle the classic themes of romance, grief and sibling rivalry. A year after his brother Tom's death, Jack (Duplass) is still struggling emotionally. When he makes a scene at a memorial party, Tom's previous partner Iris (Blunt) offers up her family cabin on an island so Jack can seek catharsis in solitude. But of course, this is not so easy - Iris's gay sister Hannah is there, having just left her long term relationship - and carrying some unresolved issues, both Jack and Hannah do the obvious, but with a whole set of different repecussions. In some ways, it is predictable, and most times it is totally engaging. The ending is almost predictable, but with a brilliant surprise - some may find it shocking, but I found it reassuring!

Ashmolean treasures in Oxford

it is good sometimes to force myself to look at the local art treasures...so often I just go upstairs to the restaurant on the terrace at the Ashmolean, which has a great outdoor deck. Today I went in search of Jenny Saville's modern drawings in the Italian Renaissance gallery, but then I decided to stay and look around, the many galleries across at least 3 levels. After asking for directions, I found the Pre-Raphelites, hidden away in 3M. Of course I had to walk past a few impressionist masterpieces - like the Manet they want to raise funds to purchase.

Jenny Saville at Modern Art Oxford

I was a litle ambivalent about going to see a lot of fat women, painted by a younger female protege of Lucien Freud. But thankfully, there is no comparison. I feel revulsion at Lucien Feud's work, but with Jenny, I was totally captivated, almost spell bound in the presence of these gigantic, literally supersized canvases. It's not that I did not see the fat, but it was the eyes, the colours and textures that engaged me - I was curious about who these women and children were. Then I realised that she had used herself and her own children, amongst others. I loved the way the paint was applied, close up it was totally abstract but at a distance, there was an immense sense of detail.

Downstairs, a lot of her drawings were displayed. Again not average drawings, but amazing technique and skill in proportions. of a mother with multiple squirming toddlers in her arms - ok she had two children but it seemd that she was trying to draw a self portrait while she was holding one or both children who had no sense of time to be still. So it seems that she was one of the Young British Artists found and sponsored by Charles Saatchi - he also supported Damien Hirst at the same time. The feminist critics are making comparisons of Damien's retrospective at the Tate Modern while Jenny is only at Modern Art Oxford. Perhaps the confronting nature of Jenny's art has taken longer for her to be accepted.

But then she has her studio in Oxford and she has two of her drawings displayed in the Renaisence gallery of the Ashmolean Museum, beside the great masters. In this traditional gallery, they are quite confronting in that they lack the complex colour and heavy frames, but the drawing and subject matter are shockingly similar. Jenny notes that despite the gallery being full of female nudes, her work is the first actually produced by a woman. That is impressive for me! So I am very pleasantly surprised - I will look more actively for her work, in the future.

Edvard Munch impresses at Tate Modern

He is so much more than the Scream, and the emotions he captured 100 years ago seem as real and raw today. I was very keen to visit this new retrospective at Tate Modern, as I admit I know very little about this Norwegian painter. He was born a year later than Gustav Klimt, a lot further north and he lived a lot longer, dying at 81 in 1944. I must say I was expecting dark and brooding introspection, but I was so pleasantly surprised. He has colour, texture, design, innovation and energy. It seems he had a challenging early life with his mother dying of TB when he was only 5, his older sister dying at 15, also from TB. It would be hard to be confident of the long life he later enjoyed. But he seems to have used his artistic talents to share some of the crucial experiences of his life, in a manner that tapped into universal archetypes and emotions.

I loved the way he took a theme,and reworked it again and again. It was more than just meeting client needs; it seemed to be that he could capture different nuances and perspectives at different times. I also loved his use of perspective with angular bridges, curved paths and huge faces coming out at you in the foreground...and I loved his symbolism, with a stylised kiss, and several images of the classic love-hate dilemma.

I am thinking about a plan to visit Oslo, sometime soon...