The Return of The Twiddler

Bashing the nasty brickwork to bits has left me with an injury akin to that resulting from too much Uncle Hanking *.

It's not the sort of handicap you need when you are about to relaunch your table tennis career after five years away from the sport.

On top of the tightness in my right arm, I'm also struggling to walk after playing paintball on Saturday with the guys from work (see below for Paintball Report).

Best to get my excuses in first as I am going to get thrashed tonight. Our league match is against the Manchester United of the Aylesbury and District TT Premier League, Sports 'A'. I'll be lucky to get to 15 points against any of my opponents and I confidently predict a ten-nil match score against us.

However, even if the clock was turned back five years ago and I was at the top of my game, I'd still be lucky to pick up one out of three singles, so I'm not too worried about tonight. As long as I don't embarass myself too much, I'll try to enjoy it and use it as a decent practice match for future league games.

I shall also take great pleasure in lying to the Sports A captain that my little brother - who was unbeatable in this league for years, and robbed said opponent of many a trophy and tournament title - is also going to make a comeback later this season. He's not of course, but the look of fear in their eyes should be priceless...

Returning to my opening theme, I'm likely to be very stiff tomorrow.


The Paintball Report

I get to play paintball probably once every two years. When the sun is out, as it was on Saturday, it is an activity that is hard to beat in terms of exercise, excitement, rush and plain good fun. I don't know anyone who has played the game and not enjoyed the experience. My play of the day was taking out five blue team enemies - including the blue team captain in a fearless bum rush attack - in a single defend the village scenario, before having my ass shot in a friendly-fire incident.

I have the blue team captain's head stuffed and hanging on the wall above my desk.


* Tony Boydell would say that you can never over Uncle Hank.