Wimbledon is the quintessential British sporting event as it brings together three of our main obsessions - the weather, the class system and Brits being rubbish at sports we invented. Blighty will address each of these three main strands in turn.

Weather, of course, is why Wimbledon was invented. Clouds are watched intently as they edge towards the All England Club, referee Alan Mills and his staff stand and blow in an effort to send them back towards Kingston upon Thames. Behind the scenes groups of Commanders sweat over maps watching as weather fronts come from all sides, threatening a impromptu gig from Cliff Richard. On the courts ground staff perform a peculiar dance with the covers, jigging back and forth - a variation of the hokey-kokey. If the spectators are lucky one of the members of staff will fall over and end up underneath the covers. Such incidents cause hilarity and make the BBC highlights package at the end of the fortnight set to music. Of course the trouble really begins when things clear up and the British wild-cards start dropping as swiftly as the Wimbledon rain.

It would be untrue to say that Wimbledon is a social function meant only for toffs. Commoners are allowed in too if they are willing to camp out through the previous winter in the hope that the bad weather will demand the middle Sunday to be used. The atmosphere is transformed on such days as the spectators don’t have their faces permanently stuffed with a day-long lunch and they even watch the game. Normally the Wimbledon spectators don’t emerge until around four, and then it’s almost time for afternoon tea. They will be even later today as Royal Ascot took place in York so it’s further for them to travel.

The reason that British tennis players are generally rubbish is that they are the off-spring of the aforementioned over-fed toffs in the executive boxes. These are the only people who can afford tuition fees, although much has been done recently to allow kids with accents onto crumbling tarmac courts unfit for rich amateurs. There they can twist ankles to their heart’s content.

Of course, British tennis means Tim Henman, the Daily Mail role model because he never displays any emotion and he went to private school. He receives the most stick from British public, however, because he is so much better than the rest of the country’s players and almost gets to the final, whereas the other British players struggle to make it to love. The British might love a loser, but they despise an ‘almost-winner’.