COURT IN THE ACT

I love playing tennis but sadly my playing days are over since I got golfer's elbow. Obviously I assumed it was tennis elbow but the medics assure me that it is the smaller ball version even though I was playing tennis at the time.

My tennis 'career' started at the Bristol Cathedral school. Whilst I never quite made it into the Olympic team, you will be impressed to hear that I was 'house' tennis captain at school and our house ('Abbots') finished just outside the medals in fourth place. The other three houses were called 'Deans', 'Canons' and 'Priors'.

Tennis facts and trivia:

1. Though the modern game is British in origin, the original game came from France and was called 'tennis' from the French word 'tenez' which means 'hold'.

2. At one time, the strings of the racquet were made from cow or sheep guts.

3. The fastest ever serve so far has been recorded at 156  miles per hour or about 120 miles per hour faster than mine.

4. The first women to play at Wimbledon wore full length dresses.

They could probably have beaten me even though I was in proper tennis kit.

DON'T FENCE ME IN

It was never going to take long to write about the Olympic sports which I currently play so now I'm moving on to sports which I once played but no longer do. 

In the last century - indeed in the last Millenium, I attempted to be a fencer. Apart from myself, other former fencers include Theodore Roosevelt and Winston Churchill.

As I remember it, this involved me waving a foil around shouting 'En Garde' while the other chap kept sticking his pointy end in my chest until somebody told me that I'd lost. This didn't seem like a whole lot of fun so I soon moved on in my quest to find a sport which I might be able to win occasionally.

Fencing trivia:

1. With origins dating back to the year 1200, fencing has been an Olympic sport since 1898.

2. The suits are white because long ago, the sword points were tipped with ink to leave a visible mark on the opponent.

3. After a marksman's bullet, the tip of a fencing sword is the second fastest moving object in sport.

Personally though, I never saw the point of fencing. I just felt it as I was jabbed with it.

 

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.

TRIVIAL PURSUITS

It's a once in a lifetime experience to be hosting the Olympic games - unless of course you're as old as I am in which case it's twice in a lifetime. 

However, since I was less than two years old last time, you were spared from me writing about it. This time round you're not so lucky.

I play Badminton myself but the game they are playing on the Olympic stage is very different from mine. I couldn't even keep pace with their warm-up. I have picked up a useful tip though. I realise now that I need to leap four foot into the air whenever I smash the shuttlecock. I'm going to try that next time as long as the St. John's ambulance guys are nearby.

Badminton trivia:

* The name comes from the place in my home county of Gloucestershire which is believed to be where the game was first played.

* The shuttlecock itself is made from fourteen to sixteen goose or duck feathers but get this - these feathers have to be from the bird's left wing only. This is presumably to give the bird a 50-50 chance of flying off. There is a popular superstition that using only left wing feathers gives left handed players an advantage.

* The fastest smash ever recorded was 206 m.p.h. One of my smashes once hit an opponent in the eye, thankfully without injury. This was probably because my smashes are travelling at about seven miles per hour if the wind is behind me.

* Finally, Badminton is one of the few sports where the game has to be stopped regularly to wipe sweat off the court. Now I understand why I slip so much.

ALL THE WORLD'S A STAGE

I was bowled over by the Olympic opening ceremony and while there's so much to be said I will confine myself to a few of the things which I learned.

Two hundred and four nations are taking part and for the very first time, all of those teams include women, Qatar having included them for the first time.

Bhutan was the last country in the world to receive television.

Madagascar is the fourth largest island in the world.

Ecuador mourns the death of the last Galapagos giant tortoise, 'Lonesome George'.

Norway is the most successful country in the world in the Winter Olympics.

The Chinese flag bearer is over seven foot tall.

The front and back of the Paraguay flag are different.

Let the party begin!