MURRAY mania swamped Britain this last week but there were more interesting goings on at Wimbledon than whether Scotsman Andy could become the first UK singles title winner since 1936.
In the end Murray was well beaten but I was more interested in the report that a woman staggered the nation by spending most of Murray's thrilling late night tennis clash with Marcos Baghdatis a week last Saturday KNITTING!
The Sun newspaper said that despite the intensity of the game which did not finish until 11.02pm on Wimbledon's centre court, the woman in the crowd seemed to be more interested in knitting what appeared to be a pink jumper.
Oh well, you pays your money and you takes your choice.
How could they, the bounders?
The Independent told us that the hawk that patrols Wimbledon to deter pigeons was stolen.
Harris Hawk, Rufus, was nicked along with his cage from a car left on a private drive with the rear window open for ventilation.
The hawk, which deters pigeons at the All England Club purely by his presence, is also a family pet, said a police spokesman.
Rufus has become a well-known fixture at the south-west London club, with visitors often stopping to ask for photos.
It really is amazing what you can learn on the Internet, especially if like me, you belong to a more mature generation brought up on pen and paper.
Take for instance this enlightening story from The Sun in a week when the behaviour of bankers such as Barclays and their former boss Bob Diamond was the hot topic of conversation.
Apparently Diamond's daughter Nell, said to be a former student at posh US university Princeton, had a public blast at Chancellor George Osborne and Labour leader Ed Miliband for picking on her dad, poor fellow.
The 23 year old wrote on Twitter:” George Osborne and Ed Miliband you can go ahead and #HMD." The tweet was deleted soon after posting but the damage was done, leaving The Sun to explain for the benefit of the ignorant that 'HMD' is a “foul urban insult meaning 'Hold my d***.' ”
So another cute phrase added to the modern dictionary.
Mind you, Twitter can be the place for some really high-brow discussion such as what exactly does the Higgs boson do.
Tom Chivers, assistant comment editor on the Daily Telegraph, asked the question via the Telegraph news Twitter account, egging readers on to try and come up with answer in 140 characters or fewer, something he himself had failed to do.
Amongst the many fascinating responses received, my favourite is the one which read that the Higgs boson “is what gives a Jedi his power. It surrounds us and penetrates us; it binds the galaxy together.”
Off with his head!
According to the Daily Express, the 14th in line to the throne has been called “a brat.”
But this 'slur' is okay because it comes from Captain Mark Phillips, who was married to Princess Anne from 1973 until 1992, about their daughter Zara.
Talking about her older brother Peter in an interview with a Sunday magazine, Captain Phillips said: “Peter was a very well behaved little boy. He knew where the line was and he didn't cross it. Zara was much more difficult, much more of a brat. I don't think she accepted that line at all.”
Ouch!
Hats off to 33 year old Isobel Cohen who has graduated with first class honours in English at Cambridge University after sitting her final exams just 28 hours after giving birth.
The Daily Telegraph reported that Isobel had to leave her newly born daughter Beatrice in intensive care while she sat her practical criticism paper in her dressing gown and slippers at Addenbrook's Hospital in Cambridge.
She then completed her Shakespeare and the Greek tragedies exam the next day in the hospital.
Isobel said: “I wonder how I held it together and got through them because now I'm into full-blown 'nappy brain' and can't get anything out of my head.
"While my concentration and memory were not as good as they have been in other circumstances, I could still do things I needed to do and retain enough information to write decent essays.
"At the time it seemed like a perfectly legitimate thing to do but now I look back and think it's slightly insane."
A sad sign of the times in a story in The Sun. A list drawn up by pub trade magazine The Publican's Morning Advertiser outlines things you no longer see in pubs.
At the top is the 'the huge German Shepherds that landlords once kept” to deter burglars.
Second is foil ashtrays, followed by toilet chains with no handles, public bars that sold cheaper beer than the saloon, and sawdust on the floor.
The list also included customers flicking and catching beer mats, Formica-topped tables, bar billiards, seafood salesmen — and landlords who have personality.
Ha, happy days...