Things to do when not watching tennis

So no live tennis on Thursday or Friday - more exciting things like laundry duties and arranging third mortgage to get me by.  Of course I was keeping close attention to Wimbledon via Internet and the big screens at the various pubs, most often the Dickens.

The Williams girls were progressing nicely, which was more than I can say for the Aussie girls who's flag was solely being flown by Jarmila Gajdosova, now facing a third round contest with top seed Wozniacki.  Hewitt had gone within a whisker of shooting down fifth seed swede Robin Soderling after winning the opening two sets, but nice to see the old boy back playing some quality stuff on Centre Court.

Friday was the day to put my London tourist cap on and take the Big Bus tour - "hop on, hop off" concept.  I hopped on at Paddington and hopped off at The Eye not to take a ride this day but just to have a visual and to back track to Trafalgar Square via Big Ben, Parliament, Westminster Abbey and all those big crowded popular spots.  Why Trafalgar Square?  Apart from it's history and everything, I had a scheduled Beatles Walk starting from outside the National Gallery nearby.

A little disappointed that neither Ringo nor Paul could make the time, their replacement, Kevin, was entertaining as he showed us the old haunts and spun us the old stories as he led us through parts of Soho etc.  Lovely to see where Hey Jude was recorded, where Paul has his London office, where the final roof top live performance was held in Saville Row and other things that oldies like me can appreciate.  Amazing how many young people on the tour - many of their parents would not have been born when the Beatles broke up over 40 years ago.

Good news while the walk was on - Aussie Bernard Tomic had defeated his second straight Russian, Igor Andreev, coming from two sets down to reach the third round and face Robin Soderling on Court One, a match I will see live today, along with Nadal v Muller and Serena Williams v Kirilenko.

Surprise exits from Andy Roddick, Vera Zvonareva, Andrea Petkovic and Svetlana Kuznetsova before the first weekend makes this a very interesting Wimbledon,  but the men's big 4 still look solid.