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.