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Sketching the Elephant

Me and my girlfriend Sophie are a bit low on funds right now so decided with our 18 month anniversary just 4 days away that we would make each other presents instead of purchasing them. I decided a while ago that I would make her a mixed CD of all of the songs that mean something to her, however this plan fell through when I realised the 25 blank discs I have are DVD RW not CD-RW, so making her a disc of music for her car that would not be compatible would not be the greatest of gifts. This left me stuck deciding on a gift that I could make, then yesterday Sophie said she would love someone to draw her an elephant, when I joked that I would draw her one she said I could not draw (which is fair as all I have ever drawn for her were quick sketches that were frankly awful). But I went on to tell her that all through Art in secondary school I got A’s, except once which I was not happy about, but she did not believe me cased on the evidence she had seen, and the only reason I had gotten A’s is because we always had a week or two to do our drawings and could copy them from a screen or paper, and I can only draw with a lot of time and by copying it off to take measurements so I get the space ratios correct.

Despite all this I woke up this morning and searched for an elephant on Google images to sketch and found one then told Sophie I was going downstairs to do “something” and attempted to draw the elephant, it took me probably half an hour to complete it and in the end I thought that it was not all the great. So returned upstairs and told Sophie I had gotten her something but thought it was not good enough for her anniversary present and she should see it now, but if for some reason she likes it she can have it as an early gift. I told her to close her eyes and placed the laptop with the original image on it and my drawing on top of the keypad. When she opened her eyes I was delighted that she loved the drawing and now wants to frame it. Below is a picture of the original and the sketch I did and scanned onto the computer.

 

Elephant Image Before and After

 

 

Barclays Taking Communication Out Of Society

Society is changing and in my opinion not for the good, the volume of communication is becoming significantly reduced over time, back in the “really really” old days when people went out to get their food shop and would have to barter their goods with the tradesmen, may not have been the ideal situation, however it meant that everyone in society would have the knowledge and understanding of the process and their communication skills were being exercised. Then came a time when money was available to everyone and you would go to the shops to buy your items and have a conversation with your local grocer or butcher.

In the last century the uprising of the supermarket, a great way to get all your shopping in one place at a cheap price, however when you came to the cash register there is likely to be a sales assistant, however polite they are, trained to get you and your shopping through the checkout in the fastest time possible to move onto the next customer and maximise sales and efficiency. This then changed once more with the introduction of chip and pin credit and debit cards as the cashier just asks you to place your card in the holder and enter your pin, and also the new self-service registers, where you yourself can serve yourself. With the introduction of these technologies and the decrease in need for manual staff who need to be paid, it would be thought that product prices may go down but of course this has not happened with the big supermarkets keeping all the saved profits for themselves.

Retail is certainly not the only problem area for the lack of communication in recent times, the banks have been a major area where we are no longer having face-to-face contact, in my local bank there are no cashiers behind desks just machines on all of the walls for the purposes of; cash deposits, cash withdrawals and cashing cheques, there are some seats and tables for people wanting to open accounts but this is as close as the contact gets. I went in not so long ago wanting to cash a cheque for the first time in my life and was quite clueless on the matter so needed some guidance, I had to go approach an assistant and felt like I was putting them out asking them to aid me in filling in a sheet and learning how to use a machine that five years ago would have been a human behind a desk.

Barclays have recently been promoting their new contactless technology bank card, which allows holders to just hold up their card in front of a censor at selected stores and wait for a beep so that purchases of £15 and under can be made “Quick and Easy”, because apparently typing in a pin number or handing over cash is so difficult.

The only thing Barclays are achieving with this plan is reducing people’s social skills as they have no need to talk to cashiers and exercise their communication skills. This is particularly bad in the cases where they are shopping with their children and the children see no examples of communication or manners from their parents, like I and many other children would have done when we were young. Also there is no practise of math skills nowadays when purchasing as the concept of cash is becoming outdated and everyone now has plastic, this makes it harder for people to know how much money they actually have, as in the past it was easier to know as the answer was simply how much cash you had in your pocket and house.

Another one of Barclays “great ideas” is their plan to ditch face-to-face advice in their banks for everybody aside from the super-rich, human contact will be replaced by online advice centres and execution-only services with no advice at all will be available. The super-rich will be able use Barclays Wealth where there is a very hefty commission price if they wish to meet with an adviser, all this has been confirmed by Barclays after they have confirmed a more-than-healthy £7.5billion investment.

The dismissal of advisers will not help the customers out there who know little about banking and can not tell their APR from their AER or their standing orders from their direct debits. An adviser in a bank is a necessity in my opinion as looking after your money is one of the most important and fundamental things in life and should be taken seriously and those who are not overly confident with the system should have help readily available.

A final problem that this change is bringing about, is the number of jobs that are going to be cut and in a time where unemployment rates are at such a high, making people unnecessarily redundant seems incredibly heartless and pointless and along with the job cuts in supermarkets due to the increase in self-service registers, the job market is just going to get more difficult to break into.

Great Britain football team for London 2012

It has been a long debate as to whether Great Britain should put forward a team made up of England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales players for the home olympics next year, as it stands the team will only be made up of English players as the other home nations refuse to allow their players to be chosen for fear that their individual status as a nation in Fifa will be lost and the governing body will not allow the individual nations to compete in future Fifa competitions. However this week the incoming Fifa vice-president Jim Boyce stated that he believes it is still possible for a united Great Britain team to play at the London Olympics in 2012. He also stated that if he was asked to he would go down every route to find out if there could be a Great British team for this one-off occasion and said he believes that this is a great possibility with Fifa president Sepp Blatter allowing this verbally earlier last year, however the home nations are thought to want written evidence that their individual Fifa status’ will not be lost.

So if a Great British team containing players from all four home nations was put together the big question would be who it would contain and who would take charge.

Potential coaches include the current four home nations managers; Fabio Capello (England), Nigel Worthington (Northern Ireland), Craig Levein (Scotland), Gary Speed (Wales), the under-21 coaches; Stuart Pearce (England), Steven Beaglehole (Northern Ireland), Billy Stark (Scotland) and Brian Flynn (Wales). Other candidates for the position include Manchester United boss Sir Alex Ferguson, Rangers bosses Walter Smith and Ally McCoist, Bolton boss Owen Coyle and the favourite for the position Tottenham boss Harry Redknapp. I personally would love to see Harry take charge of the squad and believe he deserves it after the fantastic couple of years he has spent at Spurs so far.

Another problem for the tournament however is that the first match kicks of just 24 days after the final of the European Championships, however this may not be a problem as it is not definite that the all the home nations to make it to the European Championships, let alone the final. Wales and Scotland already look to have failed in qualification for the competition and England and Northern Ireland still have a way to go. Any team that does qualify for the Europeans may not want their players to go to the Olympics as well, due to fatigue.

I have drawn up a list of the players of the players I personally would choose to take to the London 2012 games and used Harry Redknapp’s current formation of 4-3-3. An 18 man squad can be taken to the olympics with 15 of these players needing to be under 23 years old and the remaining 3 players can be of any age.

 

		Andy Carroll
	Gareth Bale			Theo Walcott
		Jack Wilshere
		Jack Rodwell	Aaron Ramsey
	Kieran Gibbs			Micah Richards
		Ledley King	Rio Ferdinand
		Maik Taylor
Subs: Frank Fielding, Kyle Walker, Kyle Naughton, Fabian Delph, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Daniel Sturridge, Nathan Delfouneso

 

Please comment and paste your chosen team for the tournament.

		Andy Carroll
	Gareth Bale			Theo Walcott
		Jack Wilshere
		Jack Rodwell	Aaron Ramsey
	Kieran Gibbs			Micah Richards
		Ledley King	Rio Ferdinand
		Maik Taylor
Subs: Frank Fielding, Kyle Walker, Kyle Naughton, Fabian Delph, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Daniel Sturridge, Nathan Delfouneso

UKA Trials and Paris European Championship Qualification

Next monday (21st February 2011) the UKA selection panel will choose the team to compete in the 2011 European Indoor Championships in Paris and the team will be announced the following day. This is a huge year for UK athletics as it will determine a lot towards qualification for next years Olympic games in London. Over the weekend the UKA Aviva Indoor Trials took place in Sheffield which would partially determine the qualifiers for the Paris event, the top two finishers in each event would qualify for Paris providing they had met the qualifying standard (see below) between the 1st of April 2010 and the 20th of February 2011. However this would not be a definite qualification as the Head Coach Charles Van Commenee has final discretion on the athletes that will be taken.

One British athlete who will definitely be competing in Paris barring injury will be heptathlete, Jessica Ennis, top indoor pentathlete in the world last year and top outdoor heptathlete in the world for the past tow years running, coming within 8 points of the British record in July last year. Ennis is Britain’s best chance of a gold medal and it would be a huge surprise if she was to miss out on it as she won the World indoors last year by a margin of 86 points. It is very unlikely that Britain will have a male multi-eventer at the championships, as we are weak in this area with British decathletes, Ben Hazell and David Guest struggling to reach 7730 points outdoor which is some way off the 8370 points that took the bronze medal in last years European Outdoors in Barcelona.

24 events took place at the trials with all 22 single events that will be at Paris taking place along with male and female 200 metre races, the multi-events and relay did not take place at the trials as European athletics will select the multi-eventers to take part in Paris and the Head Coach will choose his 4x400m Relay squad.

First of all we will look at the 60 metre events starting with the males, prior to this event three British male events had achieved the outdoor qualification standard of 10.20 seconds since April last year and one Briton had dipped under the 6.65 second barrier for the 60m indoor standard. These men were Dwain Chambers (9.99), Mark Lewis-Francis (10.15), Marlon Devonish (10.18) and newcomer Joel Fearon (6.63), meaning should two of these men finish in the top two places they would automatically qualify for Paris, however Devonish was not taking part in the trials. All three men reached the final, Lewis-Francis twice dipping within the qualification standard but Chambers was the fastest qualifier for the final with a time of 6.61 seconds in his semi. In the final Dwain Chambers won through in 6.57 seconds meaning he had booked his place to Paris, along with Harry Aikines-Aryeetey who took silver in a time of 6.64 seconds, one-hundredth inside the qualification standard. Lewis-Francis came forth with Fearon just behind in fifth meaning they would both have to rely on the coach to choose them to compete in Paris.

The women’s 60 metres did not disappoint either with Laura Turner holding an outdoor qualifying time of 11.11 seconds, teenager Jodie Williams also holding an outdoor mark of 11.24 seconds, one-hundredth with the limit and Jeanette Kwakye holding an indoor time of 7.28 seconds prior to the event in Sheffield. The first semi-final contained Kwakye and Williams along with Bernice Wilson, Williams and Wilson both clocked 7.28 seconds to win through to the final and Kwakye joined them with 7.30 seconds, Laura Turner won the second semi to make it a hotly contested final. The final was quick with both Williams and Wilson taking gold and silver, setting personal bests of 7.24 and 7.25 to book their places in Paris, Kwakye missed out in third with a time of 7.33 seconds.

The women’s 400 metre race was a hotly anticipated one as Olympic bronze medalist Kelly Sotherton on her return to action since quitting the heptathlon took place in her first solo 400m race. Prior to the event there was only Christine Ohuruogo who had reached the UKA Standard and she was absent from the field. Throughout the event Sotherton looked strong as did 800 metre runner Jenny Meadows but in the final Meadows could only manage fifth place, with Sotherton taking the win but failing to achieve the qualification standard only managing to set a seasons best of 53.46 seconds in the final.

The men’s 400 metre also lacked star runners who already had the qualification mark Michael Bingham (44.84 seconds) and Martyn Rooney (44.99 seconds) leaving promising athletes Nigel Levine, Richard Buck and Nick Leavey to take the medals in times of 46.76 seconds, 47.30 seconds and 47.72 seconds respectively, meaning they missed out on the qualification standard of 46.70 seconds. However with so many athletes posting times close to the qualification mark it boasted well for the relay teams prospects.

A stadium record was broken in the men’s 800 metre final as Joe Thomas grabbed gold and a place in Paris with a personal best of 1:47.87, he will be joined at the Europeans by team-mate Andrew Osagie whose time of 1:47.96 got him second place on the podium. The absense of Michael Rimmer was a notable one but should he wish to attend Paris then there is little doubt that Charles Van Commenee would choose him.

The women’s 800 metre final contained Marylin Okoro who had not reached the European qualifying standard yet and so was out to gain a place to Paris by running within the time of 2:02.00, in a field that was lacking of the talent of Jenny Meadows, Lisa Dobriskey, Emma Jackson and Hannah England, however she failed to reach the time only managing a 2:04.36. Meaning only Jenny Meadows had reached the qualification standard with  world-class times indoors and outdoors.

The 1500 metre qualifying also allows times in mile long races to count towards qualification, Britain are strong in the women’s 1500 metre with Dobriskey and Stephanie Twell already having the outdoor standard and Hannah England being just 33 hundredths of a second off the mark. However none of these athletes were competing leaving the Sheffield field weak with Stacey Smith winning in a personal best time of 4:22.96, nearly 12 seconds off of the standard needed.

The men’s 1500 metre also lacked the three men who had reached qualification standards, Andrew Baddeley and Tom Lancashire setting outdoor 1500m marks and Chris O’Hare completing the indoor mile in sufficient time. This left a field of 3:45.00 athletes having to pull off some remarkable personal bests to qualify for Paris, but it was too much for them, however Nick McCormick and Lewis Moses will be proud of the personal bests which won them gold and silver.

Chris Thompson, Mo Farah and Andy Baddeley already held qualification times for the 3000 metres, however only the latter was competing in Sheffield and with a winning margin of 5 seconds he earned himself a trip to the Europeans. The women’s 3000 metres contained a field with Helen Clitheroe who was switching from the steeplechase to the flat and already had a qualifying time for the Europeans so just needed to place in the top two, a first place meant Paris was in the bag. Stephanie Twell also held a qualifying standard time but was absent from the field so could not guarantee herself a place in the European squad.

The women’s 60 metre hurdles field was missing British number one, Jessica Ennis who had to pull out after the first day due to ankle trouble, herself and Tiffany Ofili, who was also absent, had already gained the qualification standard, leaving Gemma Bennett and Louise Wood to take first and second but neither of them finished in under 8.10 seconds and so could not guarantee places in Paris.

Prior to the mens 60 metre hurdles event Andy Turner, William Sharman and Lawrence Clarke, Sharman was absent from Sheffield and Turner grabbed victory with a time of 7.61 seconds, second place Gianni Frankis will be disappointed that a personal best of 7.75 seconds was just one-hundredth off of the qualification standard. Clarke will also be disappointed that he could not manage to dip ahead of Frankis and guarantee a place in Paris as he finished two-hundredths of a second behind Frankis in third place.

Jessica Ennis did take part in the high jump and the shot put on Saturday before withdrawing from the 60 metre hurdles and the long jump on the Sunday. She jumped 6cm lower than her indoor best to win the high jump with a height of 1.88 metres, she has already obtained the qualifying standard with a jump of 1.93 metres outdoors, making her the only eligible athlete for automatic selection to Paris, Isobel Pooley came second in the competition with a personal best jump of 1.85 metres. The shot put, Ennis’ weakest event in the heptathlon and an event which British females are uncompetitive internationally was won by Eden Francis with a distance of 15.85 metres nearly two metres off of the qualification standard, Ennis placed last with a throw of 13.86 metres, 75cm off of her personal best. No Britons have met the qualification standard for the women’s shot put.

The British men also struggle at shot put, with no British men reaching the qualification mark, but Carl Myerscough came painfully close just 1cm off with a throw of 19.99 metres in California last year, the event in Sheffield was won by Scott Rider with a seasons best of 17.96 metres. In contrast to the shot put British men are of high standard in the high jump, with five men clearing 2.26 metres and three of them (Tom Parsons, Martyn Bernard and Robert Grabarz) clearing the 2.28 metre qualification standard. Parsons took the win in Sheffield with a stadium record 2.31 metres, Grabarz took second with an indoor personal best of 2.25 metres, meaning both of them booked their place on the plane to Paris.

After a dry period in pole vaulting Britain has got on track in the past few years and become competitive in both the male and female discipline with the emergence of Steven Lewis, Max Eaves, Luke Cutts, Kate Dennison, Holly Bleasdale and Henriette Paxton, with Dennison and Lewis British record holders. Dennison and Bleasdale had already reached the qualification standard when they took to the field and it was Bleasdale who got the better of Dennison winning by 10cm at 2.36 metres, with both of them booking their places in Paris. In the men’s event no-one had reached the qualification mark prior to the event and with the winning height only 5.61 metres, an indoor best for Eaves, no-one guaranteed themselves a place in Paris.

Only one British woman has reached the long jump qualification standard within the time limit and once again it was all-rounder Jessica Ennis who jumped 6.51 metres, one centimetre further than the qualification standard, Kelly Proper won the Sheffield event with a distance of 6.35 metres, 15 centimetres short of the acquired distance. In the men’s event, last year Chris Tomlinson and Greg Rutherford both gained the qualification standard but were absent from the trials leaving Ezekiel Ewulo to take gold with a personal best jump of 7.60 metres, 30 centimetres short of the mark needed.

Laura Samuel took the women’s triple jump gold with a distance of 13.24 metres, some way short of the 14.05 metres needed to qualify, in an event where British women are almost non-existent in international competitions. The men’s event is stronger with Phillips Idowu and Nathan Douglas both obtaining qualification standard but again two top athletes were absent in Sheffield leaving Ben Williams to take gold with 15.88 metres, over a metre short of the European standard needed for him to qualify.

Over the weekend a number of British athletes booked their place in the European Championship team, however a number of absences meant that the team is far from complete, so all eyes will be on Charles Van Commenee on Tuesday 22nd February 2011. Below is a quick guide to the athletes who have already booked their place in Paris:

Men

60m – Dwain Chambers, Harry Aikins-Aryeetey

800m – Joe Thomas, Andrew Osagie

3000m – Andrew Baddeley

60m Hurdles – Andrew Turner

High Jump – Tom Parson, Robert Grabarz

Women

60m – Jodie Williams, Bernice Wilson

3000m – Helen Clitheroe

High Jump – Jessica Ennis (will most likely not take part due to heptathlon duty)

Pole Vault – Holly Bleasdale, Kate Dennison

Heptathlon – Jessica Ennis

UKA Qualification Standards for the 2011 European Indoor Championships, Paris
Men
UKA Standards
Women
Indoors
Outdoors
Indoors
Outdoors
6.65i
10.20 (100m)
60 Metres
7.30i
11.25 (100m)
46.70i
45.25
400 Metres
53.00i
51.25
1:48.00i
1:45.50
800 Metres
2:02.00i
2:00.00
3:42.00i
3:58.00i (mile)
3:34.50 3:50.50 (mile)
1500 Metres
4:11.00i 4:28.00i (mile)
4:04.00 4:22.00 (mile)
7:54.00i
7:44.00 13:19.00 (5000m)
3000 Metres
8:55.00i
8:38.00 15:02.00 (5000m)
7.74i
13.55 (110m)
60 Metres Hurdles
8:10i
12.95 (100m)
2.28i
2.28
High Jump
1.92i
1.92
5.70i
5.70
Pole Vault
4.40i
4.40
7.90i
7.90
Long Jump
6.50i
6.50
16.95i
16.95
Triple Jump
14.05i
14.05
20.00i
20.00
Shot Put
17.80i
17.80
By invitation from European Athletics
Heptathlon / Pentathlon
By invitation from European Athletics
See selection policy
4×400 Metres Relay
See selection policy

If Only Paddy McGuinness Would be Taken Out. Literally.

Since when did having an accent solely make a person funny, well it is all that seems to matter these days in the world of comedy and a glimmering example of this can be seen within the popularity of Paddy McGuinness. A man from Bolton whose claim to fame was in the comedy show Pheonix Nights alongside the equally unfunny and annoying Peter Kay, and now he is seen as one of the countries favourite comedians, but I just can’t see one thing humourous about him. Am I just lacking a sense of humour, I mean I do find other comedians funny, such as the brilliantly dry Jack Dee, the risqué Frankie Boyle and the classic comedy of the Two Ronnies and Tommy Cooper, or is Paddy just one of many unfunny men who some idiots of the public actually like and the rest jump on the bandwagon.

The fall in the standard of television and comedy in the UK can be seen with Paddy hosting ITV’s Take Me Out, now in its second series, airing in the Saturday night prime slot, a cheap and extremely tacky replacement for the long running and successful Blind Date. The show begins with 30 single ladies being introduced all behind a buzzer which they will press if they do not like the look of a man, who enters down the love lift and introduces themselves to the women. The man will then go through another two rounds of a video of himself speaking of his character and lifestyle to the ladies and then a third round of either him showing off a skill or his friends/family providing a video on the insight into the male. During each round the women have a chance to turn off their lights by pressing their buzzer, if all the women turn off their lights prior to the end of the last round then it is a black-out and the male goes home dateless, however if there are lights left on at the end the man gets to whittle down the women to two and ask them two women a question and then choose their preferred date, who they will take to Tenerife.

Now that is not the worst of it, as this could have actually made a watchable show but for the choice of host and the contestants. Whilst some of the female contestants on this show are lovely and just unlucky in love others look cheap and ‘slaggy’ such as Peggy, some are just utterly stupid such as Abi-Scarlett and some are just extraordinarily well extraordinary. The men however are just as bad, the majority of them at least, with there being no surprise why they cannot get a date in the real world and it is a shock that they get dates on this show.

Another factor of annoyance is that the ‘lucky’ couples when matched up win a date on the isle of Fernando’s, which may I say is not the name of the island it is clearly Tenerife, there is no island named Fernando’s.

Now to the biggest problem with this sub-standard show, Paddy McGuinness, his whole persona is annoying, if a man fails to get a date then he gets some Paddy love, a hug from the host who is so up himself. Never has a Lancashire accent been more annoying than when it speels out of that man’s mouth, and worst of all are his so-called catchphrases. These are some of the worst catchphrases ever heard anywhere, I’ve heard three year-olds mutter more sensible lines, his ‘classic’ No Likey No Lighty, ruins the English language, and his phrases for when introducing the man to the women are cringeworthy.

Here are a few of his poor quality lines, which to be honest make no or little sense:

Paddy In Action

Let the tongue see the twister.

Let the bow see the arrow.

Let the cookie see the crumble.

Let the butter see the fly.

Let the tooty see the fruity.

Let the string vest see the chest.

Let the toad see the hole.

The only things worse than this are his catchphrases for seeing the audience after the break which I will not bring myself to type as they are so irritating and stupid.

So how can a man with so little comic value in him be a nations favourite when these painful catchphrases come out of his mouth. I understand that comedy is opinion but surely I’m not alone in feeling that Paddy McGuinness is more of a torturer than comedian.

All this being said I cannot help but watch this crap making it a very guilty pleasure even though every time Paddy opens his mouth I want to reach for the remote and I also hope that Welsh-girl Lucy and pint-sized JoJo get chosen by a good well-rounded male.

Who Will Win The 2010/2011 Premier League Title?

 

What Was Your Premier League Game Of The Day?

A Ride To Hell – Shuttle Review

102 minutes, 1 hour and 42 minutes, 6120 seconds, not a long time for a film, in fact an average film length you might argue, yet Shuttle made 102 minutes seem like 180 minutes, however it should not be such a surprise from a film made up of not so successful TV actors. The acting in the film is disappointing even when taking into account the stature of the actors the story is also so predictable and the twists along the way can be guessed in advance, the only surprising part of the film is the motive of the villain at the end.

The film centres around two girl friends who just arrive back from holiday late at night and meet two male friends coming off the plane, they all decide to take the late night shuttle, having a choice of two shuttles they take the cheaper option, a choice they will soon regret. They are joined on the shuttle by a middle-aged man and the driver, once they get deep into the depths of a dark part of town a car tries to run them off the road and a tyre needs changing, one of the men comes out to help change the tyre when the driver drop the truck on his hand to jar it between the truck and the tyre. It is from then on that the drivers intentions become more clear, but what he wants is not clear as he makes each of them partake in simple but strange tasks, such as buying items in the supermarket nd withdrawing money off of credit cards.

As the passengers begin to try to fight back the driver picks them off one by one, but why would he go through all of this just for some petty cash, surely there is a deeper motive to all of this.

The film drags on for too long however if you are interested in watching this I would recommend that you watch the first half an hour or so and the last twenty minutes, you would not miss anything important in between and to be fair when the driver shows his true colours the film becomes watchable for a while. Also the final twist although very far-fetched and quite ridiculous, it is original and worth a watch.

Run Time – 102 minutes

Film Rating  – 6/20

Exceeding Expectations – Wimbledon Review

Paul Bettany and Kirsten Dunst give solid performances in Richard Loncraine’s British Rom Com where love means nothing and winning is everything. Bettany plays British tennis player Peter Colt, whose lacklustre tennis career is coming to an end as he decides to end it after the upcoming Wimbledon tournament in which he does not expect to progress through the first couple of rounds. It is at Wimbledon where he meets and falls in love with Lizzie Bradbury (Dunst), the American tennis superstar and favourite for the women’s singles tournament. However their relationship has trouble as they have to avoid Lizzie’s hard pushing trainer and father, brilliantly played by Sam Neill. As they battle to keep their relationship under wraps they must also focus on their own games as Peter manages to progress far into the competition.

Once Lizzie’s father finds out about them they decide that they must stay away from one another, a decision which they both find challenging as they struggle with their feelings off court and their skills on court. When Lizzie feels that Peter only wants to be with her because she is cause for his good form, her tennis takes a turn for the worse and she struggles on court.

This a true underdog story and a great Rom Com that can be enjoyed by all, a story of triumph and battling against the odds at the workplace and in your heart. The film also stars a great supporting cast in the form of Sam Neill, James McAvoy playing Peter’s ‘bum’ of a brother, Jon Favreau as Peter’s agent and Robert Lindsay wit is great in his small part as Peter’s local tennis club coach. The inclusion of John McEnroe, Chris Evert, Mary Carillo and John Barrett whose roles of tennis experts add a splash of realism to the film and tennis scenes, the on court action is also superb with the way the tennis strokes are cut into the film.

Run Time – 98 minutes

Film Rating – 12/20