In the multitude of voices, wisdom is found or so we thought....
Tomorrow in Australia at 4.49 p.m. is the spring equinox in the southern hemisphere. After then, days south of the equator will have more...
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From The Sidelines
Don't miss a shot!
When a Grand Slam is not on, but I am bursting to share my thoughts, you will find the articles here.
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sideline articles
lydiajulian1
- Sep 14
- 7 min
"Two dozen to go for one and one to start for another"
“Speaking of Serena, America’s Coco Gauff, fresh from an indifferent summer won the Women’s title at Cincinnati. Often touted as...
63 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
- Aug 23
- 7 min
The sweltering September slam awaits
The forthcoming first day of September in the southern hemisphere is heralded as the first day of spring, whilst for Americans it is the...
71 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
- Jun 26
- 6 min
Whenever I gaze at Centre Court, I am in paradise! (apologies to The Kinks)
So, another Wimbledon is about to begin! How it can be two years since Roger Federer played his final match on Centre Court, let alone...
59 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
- Apr 24
- 6 min
Giants, fallen and falling...
We are told there are very few certainties except the oft quipped duo of death and taxes. For what seems the living memory of most the...
137 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
- Apr 1
- 7 min
To say Yes or No, that is the question, but we have many a SUBtext to consider!
Halley’s comet have many across our stars once every 76 years. Its next scheduled appearance will be in 2061. Down here on earth there...
158 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
- Mar 8
- 5 min
And the hits keep coming...
After the self-serving outpourings of Harry and Meghan and Novak Djokovic’s demonstrative implosion after the Australian Open Men’s...
44 views1 comment
lydiajulian1
- Dec 28, 2022
- 7 min
Destiny, destiny- who is to know?
As a new year beckons, it is inevitable that individuals and societies consider what their destiny may be in the months ahead....
101 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
- Nov 29, 2022
- 7 min
And it's an end-of-year wrap!
This week Canada scored its first goal in World Cup history in Qatar and won its first ever Davis Cup in tennis in Malaga. The World Cup...
107 views1 comment
lydiajulian1
- Nov 1, 2022
- 6 min
Transitions- all aboard?
Was it only eighteen months ago that the world was living in a state of Covid anxiety without a war in Ukraine, England’s Queen was...
52 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
- Oct 11, 2022
- 7 min
Sixty years on-from the Cuban missile crisis to a crisis of faith
In one of the final scenes of the movie, The Queen, her late majesty is seen encouraging Tony Blair to conduct their weekly audience...
108 views1 comment
lydiajulian1
- Sep 12, 2022
- 10 min
Changes of crowns and games of thrones across the Atlantic
Well, the last thing I should have thought was that the 2022 US Open might be another predictable chapter in the game’s history. Too many...
109 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
- Aug 25, 2022
- 8 min
The US Open is about to start and when it closes much that is grand will be gone...
Can you have two epiphanies in a week when writing about politics and tennis? As we prepare for the beginning of the final Grand Slam of...
87 views1 comment
lydiajulian1
- Jun 27, 2022
- 9 min
We focus on Centre Court, but everywhere else the centre seems hard to find!
Wimbledon starts tonight. All eyes of tennis fans will turn to its famous Centre Court whose flawless grass surface, only played on in...
74 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
- Jun 7, 2022
- 8 min
A Platinum Monarch, a new PM, painful Post-Mortems in America and Parisian tennis matches
Few probably realise that the French Open has provided Central America with its first ever Grand Slam champion. Marcelo Arevalo from El...
93 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
- May 22, 2022
- 8 min
So, what do we now know?
When, in a fortnight’s time, the finals of the French Open are played the respective champions will be awarded their trophies because...
199 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
- May 19, 2022
- 6 min
Forty eight hours to go!
Some days you remember more than others. 21st August 1983 is one of those days. In peaceful, democratic Australia, the newly elected...
96 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
- May 8, 2022
- 7 min
Less than a fortnight to go and it's not a game- this is our future!
With less than two weeks until polling day in Australia, we can be more certain about events after the election than its outcome. We know...
137 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
- Apr 13, 2022
- 11 min
Nous tous! Australia and France go to the polls and then we focus on Roland Garros
The political terms left and right wing were coined when what became known as the Tennis Court oath was taken during the French...
143 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
- Jan 12, 2022
- 6 min
Guess who's coming to the tennis?
The question is, would the character played by the much loved and recently departed Sidney Poitier in his 1963 movie be more welcome to...
135 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
- Jan 6, 2022
- 5 min
Djokovic v the World: no vaccination, a contested exemption, a denied visa and a court appeal!
It just keep’s happening! A new year and the overlap of politics, world affairs and Grand Slam tennis continues. One of my holiday reads...
120 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
- Dec 31, 2021
- 6 min
Tremors!
It says something about the potent ubiquity of Covid-19 that it continues for most to be the only topic in town as we begin the third...
54 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
- Nov 29, 2021
- 6 min
Two end of year playoffs, a summit in Glasgow and a ‘sext’ for afters…
So, the tennis year is officially over, well apart from the Davis Cup which has become such a desiccated version of its one great self,...
74 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
- Oct 1, 2021
- 9 min
Is there honour amongst our governors anymore? Is there any hope of buying a home?
It is just over a fortnight since the end of the US Open. Former English Prime Minister Harold Wilson famously quipped that “a week is a...
95 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
- Aug 30, 2021
- 6 min
When will all of US be OPEN?
Sometimes, you just cannot believe the timeliness of events and poignancy of words. Tonight, (Australian time) the US Open commences. All...
69 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
- Aug 9, 2021
- 9 min
New York, here we come!
Start spreading the news I'm leaving today I want to be a part of it New York, New York And If I can make it there I'll make it...
84 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
- Jun 15, 2021
- 10 min
Farewell Roland Garros 2021: Thank you for more of the old and more of the new!
Even the most ardent Republican tennis fan living in the southern hemisphere must acknowledge the fortuitous nature of the Queen’s...
79 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
- May 23, 2021
- 6 min
Paris awaits!
So, is some of the world is returning to normal? Qualifying rounds at Roland Garros start tomorrow, with the tournament proper starting...
65 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
- Apr 18, 2021
- 11 min
Have we won the war against Covid-19, but are now fighting post-pandemic skirmishes?
Countries are never entirely at peace with themselves. There are always social, economic and political fault lines that are shifting and...
55 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
- Mar 13, 2021
- 9 min
News travels quickly from the West!
Yesterday was the 28th anniversary of Paul Keating winning the “unwinnable Federal election” against John Hewson. It was the Federal...
158 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
- Mar 5, 2021
- 7 min
And the winner is?
Yesterday was especially bittersweet. It was the 38th anniversary of my first vote in a Federal election in 1983, which saw the election...
163 views2 comments
lydiajulian1
- Feb 27, 2021
- 11 min
Melbourne's Grand Slam closes , but controversies remain open
Perhaps more than ever this year’s Australian Open confirmed how Grand Slam tennis is often an unwitting barometer of the political and...
77 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
- Feb 15, 2021
- 7 min
Australian Open champions set to be unmasked, like the rest of us!
In 1988 when the Australian Open was played for the first time at its new venue, then called Flinders Park, history was made when mid-way...
58 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
- Feb 7, 2021
- 8 min
An Open and shut case?
Tomorrow, competition at the Australian Open is set to commence. The gates will be open, but even after the first ball is struck there...
72 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
- Jan 25, 2021
- 9 min
A fortnight to go, but what to celebrate before then?
Tomorrow, January 26th, Australia and India have national days of celebration. For India it is their Republic Day, which commemorates...
73 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
- Jan 19, 2021
- 11 min
"It's all in the optics"
Many a reader has wondered about my linking of the world of politics to Grand Slam tennis. Well, more often than not, there are many...
147 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
- Nov 23, 2020
- 11 min
The Rules of Engagement
Today I ‘lockdown’ my lockdown writings. It seems an appropriate day to do so. Yesterday was the 23rd consecutive day of no new cases in...
114 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
- Nov 7, 2020
- 10 min
Joe, the crucial votes were in the mail, but in Australia, 'watch' how you do business!
Well, just when you thought when the weeks could not become even stranger, along came the past seven days! Irony, confusion, chaos and...
101 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
- Oct 31, 2020
- 9 min
Tick, tock, tick, tock-Listen, is that the sound of a lockdown being unwound?
This week the Victorian Premier acknowledged the growing volume of community anger against the duration and extent of his lockdown...
100 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
- Oct 25, 2020
- 8 min
"Your vote and watch are in the mail"
On 1st January 1901 Australia’s political structure was transformed. Six separate colonies became part of a Federal Commonwealth. Many of...
85 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
- Oct 18, 2020
- 10 min
"Being judged by the company you keep"
How fickle the fates! Paris enters a curfew only days after the French Open finishes. The City of Lights is to be dimmed to repel a...
95 views0 comments
Julian Dowse
- Oct 4, 2020
- 7 min
A pox on both candidates!
I have discovered that when searching for images to insert into articles, copying of certain photographs will result in a slightly...
108 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
- Sep 13, 2020
- 10 min
One strike and you are out! Six state borders and you are locked in!
On reflection I suppose that most people thought that the only way Novak Djokovic would not win the US Open was if he beat himself. And...
106 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
- Sep 6, 2020
- 7 min
A week to go in New York and Melbourne or so we thought...
One week of the US Tennis Open left in New York. One week left of the latest lockdown in Melbourne, but suddenly a two week extension…...
65 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
- Sep 2, 2020
- 3 min
Borders and pandemics should not be alibis for poor policy behind the 'Iron Ore Curtain'...
It is said that desperate times call for desperate measures. However, they should never be a reason for dishonourable and unprincipled...
15 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
- Sep 2, 2020
- 7 min
An 'F word' that matters...
As Australia's pandemic problems start to fracture our political system, it is important to remember how our Federal system of government...
45 views0 comments
Julian Dowse
- Aug 30, 2020
- 9 min
Very Few Borders have Soft Edges
As the US Open commences and the immovable side, service and baselines of tennis courts will determine players’ fates, it seems our nation’
45 views0 comments
Julian Dowse
- Aug 2, 2020
- 7 min
Playing the Percentages
I have always believed that 95% of people do the right thing 95% of the time.
9 views0 comments
Julian Dowse
- Jun 13, 2020
- 6 min
Gone with the Mob
England’s statues are falling down
Falling down, falling down
England’s statues are falling down
Why ,oh why, are we so angry?
19 views0 comments
The Grand Slams
Aus Open
French Open
Wimbledon
US Open
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