WIMBLEDON, from 11.30am, BBC1 and BBC2
EVERY preview will tell you it’s time to tuck into a bowl of strawberries and cream. Yuck. All those wee niggly seeds? I’ll be having a cinema-size bag of onion rings and might crack open a cold can of Irn Bru.
Often, the opening days feature lesser-known players, not so today: Andy Murray opens play on Centre Court this afternoon.
Things are perhaps more unpredictable in the ladies’ game as the defending champion, Serena Williams, is pregnant and so won’t be competing. This might leave a tantalising gap for another contender to break through.
This is also the 90th anniversary of the BBC broadcasting from Wimbledon, so we can expect lots of sepia-tinted footage of men in dapper white trousers. I suppose shorts were considered ungentlemanly in the old days.
THE BETRAYED GIRLS, BBC1, 8.30pm
YOU might still be feeling disgust from the BBC drama Three Girls, about the organised grooming and rape of young girls in Rochdale by Asian men. This documentary about the same hideous topic is even more powerful.
It features Maggie Oliver and Sara Rowbotham, two brave women whose names we’ll already recognise from the drama, and Nazir Afzal, the brave Asian prosecutor who insists on taking the case to court when it seemed most white people in authority were terrified of confronting the issue for fear of upsetting race relations in the north of England.
“Someone is going to have to die before anything gets done,” says one contributor, echoing complaints we’ve heard about Grenfell Tower. This programme suggests people in authority often don’t listen, and you’ll ask why not? Is it contempt for ordinary people? Is it political correctness? Is it an exhausting workload?
Or is it a gradual hardening of the heart when dealing with constant human misery?
Why are you making commenting on The National only available to subscribers?
We know there are thousands of National readers who want to debate, argue and go back and forth in the comments section of our stories. We’ve got the most informed readers in Scotland, asking each other the big questions about the future of our country.
Unfortunately, though, these important debates are being spoiled by a vocal minority of trolls who aren’t really interested in the issues, try to derail the conversations, register under fake names, and post vile abuse.
So that’s why we’ve decided to make the ability to comment only available to our paying subscribers. That way, all the trolls who post abuse on our website will have to pay if they want to join the debate – and risk a permanent ban from the account that they subscribe with.
The conversation will go back to what it should be about – people who care passionately about the issues, but disagree constructively on what we should do about them. Let’s get that debate started!
Callum Baird, Editor of The National
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here