This is NOT a Badminton Racquet

This is NOT a badminton racquet. It may look like a badminton racquet, it may say “badminton racquet” on the packet but it is definitely NOT a badminton racquet.

So what is it?

It’s a cheap imitation badminton racquet.

It cannot be used to get good at badminton. You won’t find it for sale in a badminton specialist shop. You won’t find any badminton players using it.

I won’t drag this out any further as it hasn’t turned into the inspirational prose I had in mind. Can you guess where I’m going with this?

Not all pianos are actually pianos. Some of them are cheap imitation pianos. They look a bit like a piano, they are advertised as being a piano, but they can’t be used to get good at piano and they aren’t sold in piano specialist shops.

Yeah this was a terrible piece of writing. I’m sorry that you read this far down.

But I do see parents buying imitation pianos for their talented children. They email and say “hi I’m considering this brand new [Chinese shiny piano with German-sounding name] and it can be quite a delicate response to say “Stop! It’s not really a piano, but we sell real pianos if you fancy one?”

The reply?
“Oh but your pianos are 30-40 years old so I’m going to buy the brand new imitation piano instead”

I smack my forehead
The young pianist smacks their forehead
Their piano teacher smacks their forehead
Their piano tuner falls to their knees and thumps the ground screaming “why why whyyyyy have you bought an imitation pianooooooo. Wahhhhhhbhhhhhbh [deep intake of breath] whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy didn’t you ask me before buying a piano, I’m literally a professional expert in knowing which pianos are real, and which ones are faaaaaaaaake waaaaaaaaah waaaaaaaah”

Then they pack up their tools and leave the house after refusing to tune the imitation piano.

The customer is left befuddled. He thought he’d bought a piano. The man in the shop said it was a “good starter piano”. It was delivered by piano movers and it came with an optional extra £29.99 bottle of piano polish with strict instructions not to use domestic cleaning products and to only ever use this special piano polishing formula (it’s imitation polish of course!)

Ok I need to go now. 2 of my kids are screaming for their bedtime story, and my youngest is trying to wrestle his pyjamas back off the puppy. Byeeeeee