I dedicate this post to Tine Baun's dress.

My All England experience began earlier than anticipated. In fact, it began with a pre-4AM text and a pre-9AM taxi journey from Durham to Newcastle and back to pick up shuttlecocks for my university, after we discovered that what appeared to be the entirety of the Yonex shuttlecock supply to Great Britain seemed to be being transported to Birmingham for the All England. And not to Durham for the 3 BUCS matches that we had at starting at 1PM yesterday. Which obviously should have been Yonex's priority. Read and take note, all you big wigs out there.

Other than the taxi driver hitting 90mph to get me back to Durham in time for the train, the journey down to Birmingham was otherwise pretty uneventful. Bar sleeping-grey-coated-man, who will most probably not read this (I had him down as more of Crufts man) but who was nevertheless sprawled out across the train table, and who ignored any of my requests to access my seat, which was not appreciated before 8AM. But I ended up with a better seat AND a nice neighbour, so take that, sleeping-grey-coated-man.

Anyway... today was mopping free for me and my 2 apprentice moppers (no, that isn't their official title, but I enjoy using it all the same), so we arrived early-ish to ensure that we got good seats. As it turned out, numbers were on the nonexistent side (who said badminton wasn't cool?!), and we were actually the 1st ones there... Hello, centre court, front row seats (which, after discovering 2 more Durham-ers, I didn't actually sit in, but the idea was there!).

Now, with my 2 apprentice moppers originating from Asia, there was a slight divide in the mopping community, with me supporting the very few Europeans. However, we could all agree on two things:

1. Tine Baun's dress was perfection. (As always) (See my previous very-excited-Tine-Baun-dress-posts)

2. The Chinese kit is pretty controversial. And potentially just a tad too orange.

Whilst I completely appreciate the daring nature of the Chinese top-to-toe-fluorescent-orange-kit, I'm not too sure whether they look like a pack of misplaced highlighters (suggestion for a future game: spot the difference between the Chinese kit and my lecture notes/ my hair), or whether they just posses an overwhelming amount of badminton swag. Although it is, admittedly, most probably the latter, them being China and world number 1s and all, Tine Baun just got it right. And she did so without hurting my eyes.   

In my fashion ratings of the day, the Polish mixed doubles pair and their matching-pink-and-blue-ensemble came in 2nd (their ranking was improved due to the matching physio-leg-tape), and Lee Chong Wei and his shiny red shoes came in 3rd. But they just couldn't touch Tine Baun (or Tyne Boon, as the man sat behind me would call her).

Today saw the entirety of the draw for all 5 events playing all of their matches, so it was a great opportunity to be able to support everyone playing, before I have to get my mopping-face back on tomorrow. It was fantastic to see Tine Baun (winner of the prestigious Mopper's Fashion Award 2012/13) play and win convincingly in what will be her last tournament before she retires, and the Danish men also played a great doubles match against an unseeded Chinese pair, even if the result wasn't the one which I had hoped for. Juliane Schenck also looked strong in the singles, and will hopefully be able to push for a spot in the latter rounds to rep the Europeans amongst us! My win of the day, however, went to Eriko Hirose, who absolutely slogged her guts out to go through with a well-deserved 20-22, 22-20, 21-19 win. It was also nice to see Rob Blair in action again, which allowed me to re-live some of the Glory Days of All England badminton, where you could buy a ticket for the semi-finals and be fairly confident that you would see a GB player in action.

Another interesting feature of the day was the fact that what looked like leaves appeared to keep drifting down onto centre court, delaying play. As Justin Bieber was the last one to be in the arena before the badminton, I am holding him entirely responsible.

After tiredness started to get the better of us moppers (concentration for tomorrow has to come first here at Mopping HQ), we headed back to the hotel (only after spotting a lot of the Korean/ Thai players controversially sporting Crocs outside in the English rain and puddles), and we are currently sat in our room trying to guess what noises our next door neighbours are making. The main debate at the moment is as to whether it is a car, a puma or a puma at large.