15.4.13 - a sneaky snake in the grass at the tennis

First swing of a tennis racquet in HK today. Many thanks to Andy who agreed to dust off his tennising skills too, as well as find and book the court and even take today’s photo on his phone.

I’ve told lots of people this already, but HK has a territory-wide ranking system, like for the tennis world rankings, that anyone can join. They even use it to select the national team. So my plan is to practise a bit, take some lessons, then enter a tournament, just to be able to say “I’m ranked 678^th at tennis is HK”. Sad I know.

But today’s subject is this great sign from the tennis club – not something you see in the UK. Credit where it’s due, though: this is genuinely useful signage, and impacted on how carefully we retrieved a wayward ball.

However, let me break down for you why it makes me laugh.

Sentence one – patrols? I really want to see a staff snake patrol. I did not see one. Unless they were super-stealthy.

Sentences 2-4 outline a hilarious counterfactual. So the worst thing you could do, according to these guidelines, is:

-          Tramp into every flowerbed available

-          See a snake.

-          Promptly panic

-          Tell no-one else about your sighting or your state of mind

-          Then, rather than run away or wallop it with your racquet, you try to catch the bugger with, what, an empty tennis ball tube?!

Thanks for letting me know to beware of snakes. But maybe the latter bits of advice are a bit unnecessary.