Yesterday I provided details on the official cocktail of Wimbledon, which is Pimm's Cup.  Well, what do they eat there?  Strawberries and Cream, plus Scones. So today I watched a nearly   5-hour match between Carlos Alcaraz and Novak Djokovic .  A rollercoaster of a great final.  First game to Djokovik, 6-1.  Third game 6-1 for Alcaraz.  Fifth to Alcaraz for his first Wimbledon championship.  I took photos on my TV screen.  The King was not there, but Kate was. If you were wondering why the first photo at the top, tennis was actually my game when I was younger.  If not for my  high school victories , Stanford might not have accepted me. This coming Friday, July 21, is looming as a special day for cinephiles, as two films,  Barbie  and  Oppenheimer , are opening.  Why so?  You can't find two more divergent over-hyped productions premiering on the same day.  Makes for a once-in-a-lifetime double-bill for ...

  For one, Planet Earth is hot.    Europe had more heat deaths last year on record .   The tally was  61,000 deaths .  Will it be worse this year? A high-pressure system from north Africa called Cerberus could bring temperatures exceeding  113 F degrees  this weekend, particularly in the the Mediterranean region.  Sicily and Sardinia could reach the highest ever recorded here,  118.5 F !!! On July 9 Death Valley National Park's Furnace Creek Visitor Center hit  130 F (54.4 C),  beating the previous high set here in 2020.   In comparison, medium-rare steak has an internal temperature of 130-135 F. The hottest temperature ever, however, is contentious, for the 136.4 F (58 C) reading from Al Azizia in 1923 was officially decertified. Thus the current official world record is 134 F (56.7 C) set on July 10, 1913 in Death Valley. Yet, experts today insist that those early records are 100% bogus, and there seems to be s...

Vladimir Putin this weekend supposedly escaped an assassination attempt .  This is the bridge where explosives were placed.  Then again, maybe not, but it was the one he regularly traverses. Remember, tomorrow is that bridge day that leads to July 4 on Tuesday, which is Independence Day, and a Federal holiday for all in the USA.  Monday is a day off also for people in West Virginia. For tennis fans, Wimbledon has already begun and will continue until Sunday, July 16, on grass courts, of which there are 18.   First began in 1877, all male.   Men still dominate, as the singles champ wins around $3 million, with $1.5 million for the female winner.   128 entrants in both male and female brackets.  Actually, it's more than that, for there will be 15 titles when you add age categories, wheelchair competition, etc.   Novak Djokovic is favored  at -150 ( in other words, bet $150 to win $100, or has a 60% chance of prevailing )....