Categories: uncategorized
Date: 03 February 2006 00:29:13
I am an expert on badminton racquets, well, my badminton racquet anyway. I have owned it for about 8 years and have used it for approximately 21 days, which doesn't sound like much but works out at about 1 and a third hours per week, on average. I think this is right, my calculations are based on playing badminton once a week for 8 years and a second time in a week for about 5 years, but you have to allow for holidays and when I am simply being a slacker (I'm only a slacker on Fridays by the way - never on a Wednesday). It is also in my car when I am not using it, so I think that by being in reasonably close proximity to it, that must have had an effect. Anyway, the point of all this is simply to demonstrate that I know my badminton racquet quite well.
For the last two or three years I have lamented that I really needed to get a new grip as it is wearing away in places. For the last year I have fiddled with the piece of loose tape around the top of the handle as it has been coming off for that amount of time. I ponder the lost paintwork around the top, I wonder why I have never managed to break a string even though I wack the shuttlecock quite hard reasonably often, I marvell at the later design which doesn't have a separate join at the top of the neck of the racquet, before this one my old racquets had always had that join. It's a wonder I play any badminton at all really with all this contemplation.
Anyway, the point of the actual entry (I think we're getting there) is to say my racquet really surprised me on Wednesday, I was mid shot when my racquet did something, I didn't know what but managed to return the shuttle. Unfortunately I couldn't contain my curiosity long enough to return the next shot as I simply had to look at the racquet. It turned out that the bit just above the handle that ensures it goes smoothly to the shaft had come away and zoomed towards the head of the racquet, the tape had flown off and landed a pathetically short distance away and we had lost the point.
I could just buy some new tape, a new grip perhaps, but I think I might want a new racquet - do you think I have earned it yet?