Not entirely sure how it happened, but I have agreed to attend beginners Tennis lessons with my friend, I have a suspicion that I agreed more for the potential social aspect than the tennis. I am however officially placing this under the category of dispelling childhood phobias. Never a big fan of sports at school I figure getting Tennis lessons is tackling the issue head on. I have already side swiped it by taking up going to the gym, and riding my bike lots, although to be fair I was always into riding my bike at school. Certainly tackling the physical fitness phobias is much better for me than tackling my appalling foreign language skills, and I seem to make more progress.

    Racquet technology seems to be rather advanced as well. Not a huge surprise, anything todo with sports has a fairly broad price and quality range to exploit those that take the sport far too seriously. I did think the £200 racquet was a misprint tho, as I for one can't really see where £180 of difference can be found in something so small and simple. Effectively there is very little true engineering, and quite a lot of materials science in this type of sports apparatus. You can probably equate that statement into a wide variation in R&D costs, but very little variation in unit cost of manufacture. Cynic that I am I chose the cheapest racquet there on the basis nothing is going to improve my lack of hand eye co-ordination.

    My only other comment on things is there are some very interesting smells associated with Tennis gear. The balls come in a little tube which appears to be sealed in some kind of protective atmosphere, don't know of what benefit it is, but it does absolutely stink. As does the handle of my tennis racquet, and the storage bag it comes in. I think it might be worth investing in making the sport smell nicer so that one can have some positive associations with buying new equipment, a bit like new car smell and new hi-fi smell… used jock strap smell just doesn't cut it, and probably explains why this country can't encourage uptake of the sport.