i’ve put the old theme back on as there have been problems with viewing the site with Microsoft Internet Explorer. will fix it soon.

I played badminton with Jacques and a couple of his Monday night cronies this evening. I was handed the special, highly prized, most finely weighted shuttlecock to start the knock-up with. Everyone else then declared a need to relieve themselves first, so I blasted the shuttlecock around on my own, and managed to hit it so high it lodged on top of one of the light cages. I offered to purchase a new one but of course it was irreplaceable. Pure Larry David!

All the other nylon shuttlecocks were declared to be unplayably slow, so we settled on some feathered missiles, which were so fast the game became unrecognisable. What made it even less like the badminton I remember were the rule changes. No longer do you have to serve to score; now every point is either added to your or your opponent’s total. Muff up a serve and you don’t merely fail to gain a point, you hand one to the other side! What’s worse, your partner doesn’t get to serve after you. And you need to get to 21 to win.

Jacques and I lost the first game, won the second, and then lost the third. We switched partners and Tim and I lost the first and won the second.

It was good fun but I was too used to the old style of scoring and the slow shuttle to ever feel on top of things.

Played footy today against some team in littlehampton. Crazy amounts of rain and mud – classic sunday league conditions you might say. I started on the bench, but got 35mins in the second half and came on as a striker! After about 10 mins of confused play on my part (I have no idea how to play in that position!), I started playing ok and had a few chances. About 10 mins before the end of the game, Dom was dribbling the ball in to the area from around the corner flag and then tried to pass to sulley. I decided that I had a better chance of getting the ball as there was a defender closing in, did a quick turn and slotted it past the keeper on the near post. First goal for the club!

Indeed. Fresh and clean!

aha! fresh and clean with bevelled shapes. i had better start drawing those new faces this afternoon.