I don’t want to talk about Stephen Hendry like he’s dead, which is what the media seem to mostly be doing. But when somebody brilliant stops doing the thing they’re brilliant at, it’s hard not to get a bit wistful. Last night, after seven world championships, 36 ranking titles and 775 competitive century breaks, Stephen Hendry announced his retirement from snooker following his defeat by Stephen Maguire in the quarter-finals of the world championship in Sheffield. He’d had a brilliant start to the tournament, making a maximum 147 break on the opening day against Stuart Bingham and going on to defeat John Higgins 13-4  in the second round, but it all went a bit to pot (sorry) against Maguire, and Stephen ended up losing 13-2.

It is, of course, Stephen’s right to retire anytime he likes, and I doubt he’ll need to join the dole queue anytime soon. But I am a bit sad that he made the announcement so quickly after losing his last game, because it makes it seem like the two are connected, even though he says not. It also takes something away from Maguire’s victory (“you killed Stephen Hendry, you bastard!”), and casts a shadow over the rest of the tournament, because all of a sudden nobody’s as interested in the players who are still involved.

Every snooker pundit ever likes to remind us that Stephen Hendry is – or now, was – The Best Snooker Player Of All Time™, and although my heart belongs to Ronnie, they are right. (Ronnie, you will recall if you have ever watched any snooker, is The Most Naturally Gifted Player The Game Has Ever Seen™, which is different.) Where Ronnie is fiery and unpredictable, Stephen was always calm and reliable. Ronnie was the best and he knew it: Stephen always came across as humble, even during the nineties when he was comfortably outplaying everyone else in the world.

If Ronnie O’Sullivan had announced his retirement moments after crashing out of a tournament, nobody would be surprised. What am I saying, “if”? He’s done it, plenty of times. I am half-hoping that Stephen doesn’t mean it, the way Ronnie never did, but I know he probably does because you can tell from his snooker as well as from the way he talks that he is a thoughtful and measured person who doesn’t say things he doesn’t mean.

So we probably won’t ever see him making another 147 at the Crucible, but I think in years to come we’ll remember not that he retired mid-tournament, but that he retired barely a week after making his third maximum there and giving snooker lovers everywhere yet another moment to remember. Thank you, Stephen, you really were the best.

I still think that, but Londoners have been exposed to an increasing amount of games-related publicity in the last few weeks, and I think I’ve finally snapped. It’s not the solemn entreaties to walk or cycle instead of taking public transport this summer (although unless you’re going to refund some of my £160 monthly travel costs, Boris, you can fuck right off with that suggestion); nor is it the utter mess they made of ticketing (although I’m separately angry about that). No: the reason my stomach clenches every time I see one of the posters is the unutterably hideous font they’re using to promote the event.

Look at it:

It looks exactly like the kind of design I used to come up with, freehand, when as a teenager I briefly thought that I might like to be a graphic designer. It was the fact that my fonts looked like this that made me realise I wasn’t good enough. It’s ugly, it’s difficult to read, and most of all it looks half-finished, like a placeholder that’s being used as a joke to remind the designer to replace it with a proper font before he sends the proofs over.

But it’s not a joke, or a placeholder: it’s the font that somebody, somewhere – possibly, even, a committee – has decided should be used to showcase British design talent on the biggest, brightest stage of them all. I feel ashamed every time I look at it, and you know what? I could absolutely have done a better job.

(Also terrible: the logo, which I have ranted about elsewhere, and the mascots, which are so bizarrely awful that I almost can’t bring myself to mention them at all, but just for comparison, here is Misha, the mascot of the 1980 Moscow Olympics. Misha, for the avoidance of doubt, is a bear:

…and here are Wenlock and Mandeville, the mascots of the 2012 London Olympics:

Wenlock and Mandeville are, uh, they’re…aliens? In…cycle helmets? Cute! I want one!

Still, at least they aren’t named after a small-town law firm. Oh.)

Sorry it’s only a small photo; it is one of only two in existence, and I have used the other one, taken only moments earlier, on my fundraising page for the Race For Life in aid of Cancer Research, which I am running in June. It’s only 5 kilometres and you are allowed to walk, although my evil genius aunt is giving more money depending on how much actual running I do, which means I have to at least try to run it all, which means the photos of the event will be even more embarrassing than this one. But since it’s in a good cause, if even one person sponsors me after reading this post, I hereby promise either to post photos here afterwards, or NOT to post photos here afterwards, depending on that person’s appetite for photos of sweaty people falling over.

Sponsor me here.

(I am not going to write about my wedding here: if you know me, there are a million photos on Facebook and if you don’t, you’re not interested.)

We travelled up by coach with 30-odd other away fans and club staff, on a package trip that included lunch at the hotel where the players were staying and a pre-match briefing from Lennie Lawrence, assistant manager at the club. There was also breakfast in the boardroom at Selhurst Park before we left, free CPFC goodies, a raffle and a quiz (we won neither), all of which was very exciting at the time, but it’s already faded in my mind, pushed out by the memories of the main event.

From the outside Old Trafford looks a bit like an out-of-town shopping centre, and inside it’s undeniably big but somehow not as mind-blowing as the Emirates or Stamford Bridge, for reasons which I can’t pinpoint. But it’s still Old Trafford and you can’t help feeling a thrill as you take your seat in the East Stand and look across the pitch at the Stretford End, slowly filling up with home support.

We had brought around 5,000 fans and the noise we made was fantastic, from well before kick-off until well after the final whistle. I don’t always join in with the singing – there is one song, especially, which I definitely can’t bring myself to sing along to – but away crowds are always louder, and I found myself carried away on a tide of excitement over which I didn’t entirely have control. I was a bit worried I’d have lost my voice today, but all seems to be well (I am self-medicating with chocolate, just in case).

I am not going to write a match report because I can never see who anyone is and I always miss at least half the action through looking the wrong way, but I will say that we looked as keen and as energetic as I’ve seen us in as long as I can remember: I don’t know what Dougie said to the players before the game, but it worked. Shaun Scannell especially was excellent before he went off injured, and I hope we can hang on to him for as long as possible. But I was even more impressed by our back four, who managed to keep United’s attacks contained to just two real chances, one which went wide and one which was saved by Lewis Price. Sky Sports’ post-match analysis told us that United had 68% of the possession, and I can well believe it, but although they had the ball for long periods, we never let them do much with it.

I don’t think I’ve ever watched a game in such a state of heightened tension, last season’s final-day showdown at Hillsborough possibly excepted. Before it started, I was more or less resigned to losing but having a jolly day out nonetheless. But as soon as it became apparent that we were giving them a run for their money, I was a quivering bag of nerves. As John Cleese said in Clockwise: ”I can take the despair. It’s the hope I can’t stand.” I suspect I wasn’t a fantastically entertaining viewing companion during the game: all I can remember is hysterical laughter, the kind you imagine you might come out with if a bomb missed you by yards, alternating with white-faced shaking and hiding my face in my hands.

But I wouldn’t have missed it for anything. When the final whistle went and we all leaped in the air, screaming incoherently and hugging whoever was in grabbing distance, I remembered exactly why every single football-related heartbreak is worth having, because they make the moments of joy so much sweeter. I can’t imagine a quarter-final victory meaning as much to supporters of a side who routinely expect to win cup ties as it did to Crystal Palace, who haven’t reached a semifinal in ten years and haven’t beaten Man United in twenty-two. In moments like those, it feels like the happiest accident in the world that I support a team for whom a big win like this is a glorious surprise rather than par for the course.

I think the lasting memory that I’ll take away is of the away fans standing in an almost-empty stadium after the home support had melted away, singing “We’re going to Wem-ber-ley” high into the echoing rafters, and in that instant, feeling like we were the best team in the world. Maybe we will go to Wembley and maybe we won’t, but whatever happens for the rest of this season, nobody can take last night away from us.

But…shh, don’t say anything…and DON’T COME ANY CLOSER! Just – shh – look.

It went up last night and it will count down the 500 days until the London Olympics begin next August. I walk across Trafalgar Square every weekday, so I’ll be able to keep a close eye on it and make sure nobody’s cheating.

Tickets for the various Olympic events also went on sale today. The process for buying them seems complicated, excluding and unfair, but I’m still going to try to get hold of some, which I suppose is what they’re counting on. If you have a monopoly on a hugely popular commodity, you can pretty much do what you like with it.

It’s disappointing that the ticket sales mechanism is so badly-designed, but not as disappointing as the design of that logo. Have another look at it:

I mean, what? It doesn’t even look like anything. It certainly doesn’t look like the numbers “2012″, unless you squint really hard. When it was first unveiled four years ago we were assured that we’d get used to it. Tessa Jowell, my MP and at that time the Olympics Minister, said:

“This is an iconic brand that sums up what London 2012 is all about – an inclusive, welcoming and diverse Games that involves the whole country.

“It takes our values to the world beyond our shores, acting both as an invitation and an inspiration.

“This is not just a marketing logo, but a symbol that will become familiar, instantly recognisable and associated with our Games in so many ways during the next five years.”

That’s clearly all bollocks, but what is especially bollocks is the part about it being “iconic”. When you use the word “iconic” to describe something that looks like this:

You pretty much defile its use to describe things that look like this:

Or like this:

Or like this:

Still, at least the London 2012 website doesn’t look like this any more:

I suppose that’s something.

I swam TEN LENGTHS today. Actually, I swam four lengths followed by twelve half-lengths, because they closed the deep end of the pool so that some burly men could practise diving with all their clothes on and pretending to rescue each other. They may have been trainee lifeguards, or army cadets, or just burly men who like diving in their clothes. I didn’t ask.

Anyway, I could barely manage two lengths when I started a month ago, so although ten lengths of a 27.5-metre pool is barely a quarter of a kilometre, I am pleased with myself, although you’ll be glad to know that I didn’t actually do a fist pump.

Weirdly, in just four weeks of swimming I have become noticeably (to me and the beloved, possibly not to anyone else) more svelte around the middle, too, so although I never intended to change my eating habits as part of my new healthier 2011, I now have the added benefit that I don’t even feel bad about the two croissants I had for breakfast, or the giant bowl of pasta I plan to eat shortly.

Interestingly, if you Google for pictures of Ian Thorpe, one of the first results is this one:

Which wasn’t appropriate for my purposes, but I felt like I should share it with you anyway.

But water does funny things to me. I can’t watch movie scenes filmed underwater without starting to feel nervous, and the anxiety I start to feel whenever I’m out of my depth is not nearly proportionate to the actual risk, although that must be a commoner reaction than I thought, or we wouldn’t use the term “out of one’s depth” to mean “in trouble”. I’m not a very strong swimmer, but I can float and bob around quite happily for forty-five minutes or so without needing to touch the ground, so it’s a psychological problem rather than a physiological one.

The problem is, most pools – especially serious, unheated outdoor pools like the Brockwell Lido – aren’t really designed to be bobbed and floated in. They’re designed for people who want to swim lengths. Frankly, I never want to swim lengths. I want to do star jumps and dolphin leaps and handstands. But if it’s a choice between swimming lengths and any other form of aerobic exercise, I will happily go for the lengths. I have no desire to lose weight (I feel compelled to say this in the light of my second New Year’s resolution, which was not to be bridezilla: I feel quite strongly that I don’t want to be one of those women who suddenly shoot down to a size eight in the weeks before their weddings, and as it happens this sits very happily with the fact that I have no plans to stop eating and drinking exactly what I want, whenever I want it), but I would like to be fitter and I would like to sleep better, and Pilates only offers small consolation in these departments. I need to do something that makes me tired.

So I think I’m going to sign up for a Swim London pass, which is cheaper than gym membership and covers forty pools across London. It doesn’t include the Lido, which is a shame since Brockwell Park is less than thirty seconds’ walk from home, but it does include Brixton and Crystal Palace, both a brisk walk or bus ride away, as well as the Oasis centre in Covent Garden which is two minutes from my office AND has a heated rooftop pool. I may not be able to bob and float there, but at least I’ll be able to swim a length without my lungs closing up in protest at the cold.

Because the thing is that as well as being afraid of the water, I love it. My two most vivid memories of pure physical pleasure in the last year are of swimming, once here:

And once here:

The first is a pool in Cyprus, the second Lake Huron. In Cyprus I swam twice a day, in a pool that was never deeper than I am tall. In Lake Huron I went out of my depth because the water was warm and soft and tasted of minerals and it wasn’t frightening. Actually there is an undertow in the lake, even though there are no tides, and the bottom has sharp rocks along it – a fact that scars on my right hand and knee will attest to. But you see, I wasn’t scared of injuring myself when I injured myself, so I didn’t mind. And when you’re out there bobbing and floating and spinning, with nobody to watch you except a few water birds and the occasional butterfly, there’s nothing in the world like it.

What do you suppose are the chances that swimming at the Oasis sports centre in Covent Garden will be more like Lake Huron and less like Brockwell Lido? Yeah, me too. But I’ll give it a go.

Then I left that job, and didn’t play for a while, until I noticed that my new workplace also had a badminton group, which played once a week at the local leisure centre, in casual games of doubles whose members swapped in and out over the course of an hour. So I joined, and suddenly it mattered that I wasn’t very good, because I would find myself paired with much better players – usually, I’m afraid, men – who really wanted to win and who would attempt to improve our chances either by shouting at me angrily every time I didn’t manage to follow their inexplicable instructions to the letter, or by creeping up behind me and sweatily showing me how I should be holding the raquet – both courses of action which, naturally, resulted in my playing much more badly than I had already been doing.

So I stopped going. And then I changed jobs again, and eventually I found yet another workplace badminton group to join, so three weeks ago I went along to Kensington Leisure Centre to try my luck again. This was another free-for-all, with two courts booked over two hours and an ever-rotating cast of players, so I was wary of being variously shouted at or molested by people who wanted me to do something other than whatever I was doing. But it was fine: everyone was very nice, and I had a lot of fun, and I ached for two days afterwards and decided I’d definitely go back. And last week I went back, and met the guy who organises it, and partnered him for a game and swiftly realised I was never going to go again. Not only did he shout and tut and sigh heavily at my lack of skills, he also couldn’t tell the difference between my not being able to carry out his instructions, which I couldn’t, and not being able to understand them, which I could. By the end he was speaking the kind of angry, staccato, exaggeratedly loud English popularly supposed to be how British people talk to foreigners, which somehow didn’t seem to improve my backhand at all. But even worse, and I’m almost as cross with myself for not saying anything about it as I am with him for doing it, every time he wanted me to move to a different part of the court, which was often, he would NUDGE ME IN THE BACKSIDE WITH HIS RAQUET.

I know, I should have told him off. I was just so surprised, and so already bowed down with the knowledge of my complete and perfect failure, that I somehow didn’t manage it. But whatever, I’m not going back, so it doesn’t really matter.

But what does matter is that, as I said when we began this conversation (doesn’t it seem a long time ago?), I really like playing badminton. And I feel as though it ought to be possible for me to play it in an environment where I am not told off or sexually harassed on account of not being very good; ideally against someone who, like me, is there for fun rather than because they really want to win, and who won’t mind that I am a bit shit and sometimes need to stop and have a rest. So in a first for gladallover this is a heartfelt appeal: if you are in London and are that person and would like to play badminton with me, please let me know.  But I ought to warn you, I’m a bit shit.

1. There was a really good atmosphere, despite the segregation of the away fans in a heavily police-protected area of the Arthur Wait stand. Whole sections either side of the Millwall supporters were deliberately kept empty so as to provide a buffer between them and the home fans, and although somebody let off a smoke bomb at kick-off and a bunch of the fans swarmed one of the empty sections, we didn’t see any real trouble. Since we were accompanied by elegant American friends for whom sport is something that’s mainly meant to be fun, this was excellent.
2. We had great seats – five rows back in the Main stand, close to the players’ tunnel and mere feet from the action. We only had one opportunity to catch the ball when it came out of play, but it was still exciting. And the three most notable incidents of the game (a goal, a sending off and the removal of a Millwall fan who had infiltrated the home supporters’ end) all happened in our corner of the pitch.
3. All of our players are about seventeen, and although we lost the game, we looked the better side for long stretches of it. There’s plenty of surprises left in this season, and as Yazz once memorably said, the only way is up.*

* May not be strictly true.