TABLE MANNERS

When we were kids and had guests come to tea, Mum would whisper 'FHB' to us. This was our signal for 'Family Hold Back' so we would let the guests serve themselves before we dived in elbowing each other aside to grab the best bits.

We were also taught the 'right' way to hold our cutlery and to keep our elbows off the table.

The dining table also served another purpose once dinner was over. We used it for board games like Monopoly or Scrabble and would put up a makeshift net so we could play a gentle game of 'ping pong'.

Nowadays I play 'proper' table tennis and consider myself to be a pretty good player. This was until I watched the game being played in the Olympics and found that it is supposed to be played at fast-forward speed compared to my own efforts. 

Table Tennis trivia:

1. As in our household,  the game began as an after dinner parlour game. It was invented in Britain during the 1880's. Originally, a row of books was used as the 'net' and two more books used as bats. At first it was played with a golf ball.

2. Considered an upper class pursuit, it is also said that it was sometimes played using cigar box lids as bats and a champagne cork as a ball.

3. The original name 'ping-pong' came about because of the noise made as the game is played. For the same reason, it was also known as 'wiff-waff'.

4. The record for the most times a ball is hit back and forth in 60 seconds stands at 173. Whilst the longest rally in competition stands at 10 hours and 13 minutes.

I sometimes manage to keep it going for a couple of minutes myself.