And now, the end is near...

Ne pleure pas parce que c’est fini, souris parce que c’est arrivé

I saw the above line on Facebook just before I headed off to my final shift. I’m not entirely sure why it was in French, but it seemed pretentious, emotional and, well… right. Like me.

I’m tired, aching, I want my own bed, my suitcase is full of grass, yet weirdly, I don’t want this to end. I genuinely expected that I’d have packed it in by about Day 4. I know I’m not a quitter, but it was always bound to be a challenge- not just the volunteering, but also the camping.

Partying with the Irish

Yet it’s been the best fortnight of my life, all told. I’ve met so many great people, spectators, volunteers and campers alike, and I feel like I’ve been part of something special, something that makes me part of a group that will be recognised for years. Christ, I even hope there’s some sort of a reunion. For those of you that know me, this probably seems like an uncharacteristic outpouring of bonhomie, devoid of cynicism. But it’s been fantastic. After Venue Specific Training ( http://myolympicdiary.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/venue-specific-training-too-tedious-to.html ) I lay in bed pondering whether to delete my application. Now I can’t imagine having ever doubting the Games maker experience.

Our final shift was unlike any other, really. We were left to man probably the quietest section of the entire venue, without a team leader. It was almost like, after nine shifts, they felt we didn’t NEED someone to tell us when to take a 45 minute break! Imagine the anarchy! It was like a dog getting into the school playground mixed with two footballs on the pitch mixed with having a supply teacher. Anarchy.

Inspiring a generation

Or not. It was beautiful. The sun shone, we clocked off three hours early, took an hour for dinner, joked and partied with the Irish following their first gold medal (that of Katie Taylor) and generally just saw out our final shift in the most pleasant manner possible. I even allowed myself a smile when someone muttered ‘tit’ under their breath as I directed people using the Usain Bolt pose.

It was also the day I raised the celebrity spotting bar quite high, seeing John McEnroe, John Inverdale, Princess Anne and Sir Clive Woodward. Seeing Niall from One Direction was probably more impressive to you philistines, but never mind.

Finally, thanks to everyone who has visited this blog. The number of views has gone up pretty much every day, far surpassing my expectations, and I’ve had lots of nice comments. Gilbert and Sullivan even mentioned something about turning this into a musical, but they wanted Noel from Hearsay to play the role of me, so I declined their offer.  

So yes, 10 shifts, 14 days, one member of One Direction, lots of fun and approximately 1476 memories in the bag. As I did the final Prince Regent-Canning Town- Waterloo-Twickenham journey, I wondered two things…

1) Is it possible to learn Portuguese in four years and volunteer for Rio, and

2) If the Kazakhstani government get hold of this blog, will I have to seek refuge in an Ecuadorian embassy?

Kazakh Attack

8th August

Regretfully, I don't know much about Kazakhstan. I’ve seen Borat, and that was shit. I’m never going to go there on holiday, and I couldn’t even point it out on a map for you. If you need any more reasons as to why I may not be entirely enamoured to the country, read on.

Today was the toughest shift of all by some distance, which isn’t a particularly challenging barometer, but even so, it was hard. 99% of the people I’ve dealt with have been fantastic, and hopefully my removed cynicism and new-found love of the Human Race has been conveyed in the previous blogs. However, there must have been something in the beer tonight. Alcohol, most likely.

Case Study One: The Frenchman

Me: ‘Ah yes, Row 29, you’re at the back there. Have a good evening. Go on, Row 29. No, that’s not Row 29, that’s Row 16- it’s a sell-out, would you move? OI!’

Pepe Le Pew: ‘I… Don’t…Speak…Eeeenglish’.

Now, most would be phased by this. But I am a man who has studied French from the days of Moustache the Naïve Young Cat in Year 7, up to AS Level, with Moustache the Clinically Depressed Teenage Cat With No Career Prospects.

Me: ‘Vous avez besoin de monter l’escalier, votre billet dit… vingt-neuf.’

And that was the last we heard from Pepe Le Pew. Ed 1-0 France.

The second diplomatic incident of the night was somewhat less straightforward. If I didn’t know that sometimes people are simply belligerent arseholes, I’d opine that certain nations were attempting to sabotage the Olympics through sheer jealousy.

Three Kazakhstanis were sat in the wrong seats. This sounds like the start of a very bad, very politically incorrect joke. In some ways it is, but bear with it. One simply didn’t have a ticket. When I asked to see their tickets, they looked at me, laughed, and carried on watching the boxing. I was fully aware that if I pushed them too far, I could end up with a horse’s head in my bed, but I carried on telling them to move.

Then, the beauty of our nation kicked in.

Informing the world of my distaste for Kazakhstan

‘Oi. Russki. The kid said move. Now farking move’, a chirpy Dick van Dyke type offered.

‘It ain’t one rule for you, now facking piss off’, remarked Sid James, in between laughs.

I think, if required, I’d have had a whole army of pissed-up Londoners ready to go into battle against the Soviet Union for me. As it was, there was no noise from the Russki boys, escorted out by the security contractors. Incredibly, according to the National Bureau of Statistics, this was the first useful thing they had done all Olympics.

Once more, a crowd of Mongolians tested my patience, entering without tickets, but by this point, I was ready to take on the world.

Backed, of course, by the greatest nation.

Ours.

Ding-dong at the Ping-pong

7th August

I’m not quite sure how I’ve ended up with only three shifts left. Time’s flown by.

I’ve become quite spoiled in terms of wanting the plum jobs. I think the fact I’m a volunteer, coupled with my delusion that without me, the entire thirtieth Olympiad would collapse like the Roman Empire, has led to me refusing to do any jobs that don’t involve failed popstars or watching sport.

Heavy stuff

Unfortunately, my internal hissy fit did nothing to prevent me being put on the most dull of dull jobs; checking accreditations right in the depths of the table-tennis arena. China vs Japan- a ding-dong in the ping-pong.

I did my best to cause diplomatic incidents on two occasions in order to spice things up. Firstly, I refused the Japanese silver medallist entry to the doping area (she didn’t have the right pass), and secondly, when I wouldn’t let a Russian/Kazakh/Soviet into the lift (same reason).

I don’t speak Soviet beyond a loose grasp of the works of Chekhov, but I’m willing to bet quite a lot of Roubles that he swore quite rudely at me. I’ve never been sworn at in a foreign language, but it’s infinitely more terrifying and rumbling than being called ‘dick-head’ by a spotty English chav. I thought he might have been putting a hex on me.

I also managed to get close to a gold medal, something to tick off the bucket list, along with meeting one of One Direction. Quite an odd feeling, as for about fifteen seconds it felt like I was at the epicentre of a world. Admittedly it was the table-tennis world, but still.

Balls to the Official Partners

There’s a running joke amongst volunteers about the Official Partners, and I briefly, in a moment of anti-games maker rebelliousness, blew the corporate world apart when I strode manfully into a KFC and ordered a Pepsi to go with my food. I was still in my uniform. Bold as brass. The cheek of it!

#DoWhatIWant

Soft fruit

6th August

Do Not Accept Soft Fruit

Tonight, as I slept, all I could see were red crosses, green ticks, and all I could hear was the official Olympic Stephen Fry voiceover.

For today I was a ticket scanner.

It left me with RSI in my right thumb and a sore jaw from smiling sweetly at chancers who had ‘accidentally’ turned up to the wrong event.

It had its perks, admittedly. A spectator gave me a strawberry. I was later hauled in front of a disciplinary panel for breaking Rule I of the Games maker manual- Do Not Accept Soft Fruit from Spectators- and a fat woman declared she ‘liked the look of me’ when deciding which ticket lane to go in.

We’ve had many different team leaders in our roles, and they fall broadly into one of five categories:

1)      The David Brent- my favourite, simply for comedy value. Expect high-fives and an offer that ‘we should all go for a drink’. I encountered a gem of a Brent at the campsite, who said that ‘if I walked, out, I’d take half the team with me, I’m sure.’

Also likes to remind you that he/she has run teams ‘fifty times bigger than this’ in the past.

2)      The Headmistress- polar opposite to Brent, will probably have her glasses on a string. Won’t engage in any chat, won’t keep you in the loop, will hate your guts but like everyone, will say how ‘fantastic’ it has been to work with you. Will call you by full name, no nicknames accepted.

3)      The Sergeant Major- SAYS EVERYTHING IN BLOCK CAPITALS. Tough nut to crack, but once you’ve earned his respect, expect a reassuring wink during pep talks. Woe betides any spectator who disrespects his/her team members.

4)      The Flapper- prone to breaking down and disappearing during peak times. Once his/her shift is finished, won’t offer any assistance to spectators as they will most likely be exhaling into a paper bag.

5)      The Great-Aunt- Gives out sweets on shift (Cadbury of course) and when she says she hopes to work with you again, you better believe it. Endeavours to learn your name and lets you clock off four hours early to make sure you get home in daylight. London is nasty, you know.

Yanks

5th August

If the spiders, the aeroplanes or the main road don’t kill me through lack of sleep, the incessant heat bearing down on my tent will.

This is how close my tent was to a main road

After the anti-climactic nature of the dull judo shift on Friday, tonight’s shift was probably one of the best. I was back in my new home, the boxing arena, with Irishman JJ Nevin and Luke Campbell’s reception probably my new highlight of the entire Games. Having said that, each time I step outside I seem to find a ‘new highlight of the entire Games’, so I should probably stop trying to measure my happiness.

Yesterday’s crowd, despite this bizarre insistence from many members of staff that boxing fans are degenerate apes that we should ‘watch out for coz they’ll derail the Limpicks otherwise’, was one of the most pleasant I’ve seen. Far nicer than the judo crowd. Those judo fans would give Millwall a run for their money. I really think that Britain has portrayed itself in a fantastic light during the Games. We’ve become a great Party Nation, an emotional nation, a friendly nation, but above all, a nation with a sense of humour. I think smiles and jokes on both sides, volunteers and spectators, have gone a long way to placate the crowds and cover the cracks in our lack of knowledge of arenas, sports, toilets and food outlets.

Also, at the end of the day, why would you want your lasting memory of London 2012 to be a sour one?

‘Yeah, I loved the Olympics, especially when I had a fight with that lanky Games maker with the stupid hair cut over where the toilet queue finished’. That would be silly.

Speaking of once-in-a-lifetime opportunities, I SAW NIALL FROM ONE DIRECTION. HE SAID HELLO. I’M PRACTICALLY A DIRECTIONER NOW.

Having seen Noel, Preston and now Niall, I feel I should take it upon myself to form a supergroup, with Bradley from S Club, Howard from Take That and maybe H from Steps.

A Yank annoyed me today. So far, my xenophobic nerves have been more or less untouched, (Noel from Hearsay is Welsh/Satanic), but as I was getting on the Tube, this fat (what else?) American thrust his fat hand out and said ‘HEY BUDDY, I GOTTA GET OFF BEFORE YOU GOTTA GET ON GOTTA’.

Damn Yanks and their over-usage of gotta.

Reflections

4th August

Woke up wondering which great from the world of culture Noel was planning on bastardising next. Elvis perhaps. James Joyce. Lemal from Kajagoogoo.

It was my day off so I allowed myself time to reflect as I sat and watched Super Saturday in Canary Wharf. I cried awhile as Brit after Brit picked up medal after medal. It’s a good job I have little intentions of ever winning a gold medal, as flash flood warnings would have to be issued worldwide.

I’m halfway through my shifts now.

The best week of my life.

Canary Wharf- former stronghold of the Daleks

I was so sceptical and cynical when I arrived, I fully anticipated walking out after two or three shifts, in a blaze of glory, overturning touts’ trestle tables and quoting passages from the Bible. It’s just been brilliant though. Everyone I’ve worked with, dealt with, worked for, have been like-minded, lovely people. Not happy-clappers, just people who really couldn’t believe their luck, with regards to how the whole process was turning out. Cynical people, no doubt, like myself, who have found themselves on the crest of a wave, carried by each other, spectators, Team GeeBee, even the press who apparently can’t praise the Games makers enough.

(I appreciate this blog has been lacking in humorous drive and has become a little bit worthy, but I need to eat humble pie. My early blogs, rip them up. Throw them out. I was wrong. This Olympics. It’s incredible.)

Noel

One-way ticket to Hell itself

3rd August

Very little happened at work today. I had a run-in with a Frenchman who was averse to the fact that ‘zee London 2012 logo is everywhere’ (yeah, and don’t you forget it, mon ami), but other than that, it went without much to note.

This entry, therefore, will focus primarily on my trip to see We Will Rock You with Noel from former manufactured pop band Hearsay.

We Will Rock You tells the story of the Shakespearean rise and fall of Hearsay, from the early days of Popstars to the Kym Marsh fall-out, and their instrumental but often untold role in the development of music. One thing that is often overlooked in the analysis of Hearsay’s legacy is their part in the destruction of one of the world’s most popular forms of entertainment.

Music.

Hearsay were fine as a group of individuals. Think England’s 2006 World Cup squad. Kym, Danny, Suzanne, Myleene, all great people, but Noel from Hearsay, he was the real problem.

Tweet from Noel the night of performance. Clearly I was too angry to notice he'd 'dryed'.

He was bland. And a popstar can’t be bland. Leek and potato soup is bland- it’s nice, but it can never be more than that. It is just soup.

Pure and simple.

Now I’m not implying that Noel from Hearsay is an unpolishable turd.

But he is.

Of course, We Will Rock You has a dual meaning, cleverly intertwined by writer Ben Elton. It’s about the fall of another band, Queen, down to manufactured bands and people like Noel from Hearsay. You can see this sad irony is not lost on Noel from Hearsay. Not only has he caused the death of music, and arguably the destruction of mankind, but he’s now butchering Freddie Mercury’s Greatest Hits. I’m not suggesting that Noel from Hearsay has gone out of his way to find the easiest way to convey a calculated insult to the dead.

But I think he has.

The Official Pasty Supplier of London 2012

2^nd August

Mega-fun with a mega-phone

I didn’t sleep at all last night. Our campsite is the focus of much wonderment from the locals. Everyone I’ve spoken to on the tube who’s inquired as to my resting point has expressed their confusion at why there’s a load of tents next to a main road.

I’m fairly sure they now honk their horns as loud as they can whenever they drive past.

There’s also a David Brent-style mentalist on the site who seems to have taken me under his wing. Yesterday he askedme what the forecast was, and, non-committal as ever, I replied ‘showers, I think’. He’s now blaming me for his sunburn. He also appears to have adopted the Candyman role, appearing if you think about him too long. It often seems to be just as I’m getting ready for the shower. This is definitely heading for a court case if I don’t move on, so I shall.

Spending roughly 90% of my waking hours in my uniform is having its issues. The official partners being one of these.  Ginsters became the Official Pasty Supplier of London 2012 for all of about 30 seconds as I wolfed one down at a petrol station. The meals we get on shift are Michelin-star esque. As in, they’re about half as big as you’d like them. The taste is distinctly average.

I got this for being hilarious

Today’s shift was brilliant. I’ve been eyeing up the megaphone job since I’ve got here, and today, my dream came true.

‘When I say London, you say Olympics’.

‘ALLEZ LES BLEUS!’

‘GIZZA CHEER IF YOU’RE FROM SWITZERLAND!’ *silence* ‘BOOOOOOOO!’

I’m making the Games, I am.

There is a lot of waiting around doing nothing on our shifts, admittedly. This evening I spent the hours of 10-11pm manning an empty entrance with another volunteer. This would normally annoy me, like many of the things that have passed me by so far, but getting to chat to some really lovely, like-minded folk from all walks of life makes even the most mundane task bearable. People probably even think I’m cheerful 24/7.

Favourite lines from spectators

1)      ‘Did you say tickets for sale?’ ‘No, I said welcome to ExCeL’.

2)      A dirty looking man shuffled up to me and said he’d like to swap shirts with me.

‘I’ve done this at the last two Olympics, swapped shirts with volunteers. I did it at Beijing, and in the other one in 2004’.

‘I kind of need this shirt.’

‘I can meet you tomorrow if you want.’

‘To swap shirts?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Sorry, sounds a bit weird. Maybe some other time’.

3)      ‘Are you on happy pills or something? It’s great!’

The pants-washing Muggle

1st August

It was my day off today so, naturally, I was back at the ExCeL using my boxing ticket. I’ll clear one thing up; to get this ticket I applied like everybody else twelve months ago, as Games makers, we didn’t get any freebies in the way of tickets. It was interesting viewing the world not as a Games maker. I was sort of an Olympics Muggle. I didn't even get to direct one person to the toilet.

Finally, Team GeeBee won a medal. We watched it in the spectator zone, in a sort of holding pen before the boxing, which obviously was a fantastic atmosphere. Having said that, the powers that be played Blur’s Song 2 about 500 yards before the finish line, jumping the gun somewhat.

My seat at the boxing- naturally, a worse view than the volunteers

Boxing, in my opinion, is a sport that suffers when it turns professional. Amateur boxing, 3 rounds of 3 minutes, ensured that there were no instances of two lumbering heavyweights dancing around the ring for 11 rounds before going at it for all of about thirty seconds. This was like a highlights package of a fight, fast and furious. I guess the answer of whether the Olympics has truly inspired spectators is if the two-week gymnastic/cycling/swimming fans feel inspired to watch these sports in the intervening four years between Olympics. I will certainly be looking to get to amateur boxing fights following my prolonged love-affair with Olympic boxing. Heck, if I wasn’t so middle class, I’d probably look to take it up myself.

Another major plus point of amateur boxing is the fact that everybody sees the scores in between rounds. The benefits of this were shown in their full glory with a fight between an Italian and a Cameroonian. The Cameroonian, with no chance of reclaiming the final round on points, simply went at the Italian like a whirling dervish, arms ablaze, attempting to knock him out. This is not two men brawling. This is sport at its purest, its most raw. Four years of training, all over for one man inside nine minutes. Sport as art.

See, I can do serious too.

I’m already quite emotional at the idea of all this being over in eight days’ time. It’s quite hard to convey why, as there is little to compare it to in layman’s terms. I suppose the nearest buzz I’ve felt to the experience is being involved in theatre productions. It’s the buzz, the camaraderie, the adrenalin, the plaudits.

For a change of scenery, I wandered down Carnaby Street and Oxford Street. My word, I was made for that street. I positively waltzed up and down, doffing my cap at every socialite and Made in Chelsea lookalike.

Then I came back to camp and washed my pants in the sink.

Things I’ve learned so far, or how I learned to stop worrying and love the Olympics

1. Being a volunteer and working 3pm-1am shifts leaves you in a permanent state of tiredness.

   
   
   2.       The only time you’re not tired is during the shift itself, when the adrenalin keeps you going.
   
   
   3.       They don’t readily sell adrenalin in high street stores.
   
   
   4.       Wetherspoons is not particularly conducive to high-quality writing. Dickens had Gadshill Place, Shakespeare shared his time between London and Stratford. I’ve got the Webb Ellis pub in Twickenham.
   
   
   5.       To work for G4S you have to either be a simpleton or a wanker.
   
   
   6.       Elderly Chinese men always know best.
   
   
   7.       Brits love a bit of honesty. ‘Is that the only water fountain?’ ‘Yeah sorry mate, crap, isn’t it’.
   
   

   

   School in the morning

   8.       No matter how weather-beaten and aged my face becomes, someone will always joke that I have school in the morning.
   
   
   9.       Yelling the same message repeatedly becomes a whole lot more fun when you attempt different accents.
   
   
   10.   Listening in on walkie-talkies is addictive. Hearing the word ‘diplomatic incident’ over the airwaves is one of the highlights of the Games for me, along with Farah’s final lap and Kazakhstan-gate. More on that in a later blog.
   
   
   11.   There are a lot more female volunteers than male in the Event Services (‘Face of the Games’) team. Clearly I’m one of the more smiley blokes out there… A victory for the cynical man.
   
   
   12.   Spectators think they’re the only ones to have shouted ‘NEW BALLS PLEASE’ when you’re sat up on an umpire’s chair.
   
   
   13.   Everyone loves a man in Games maker uniform. I’ve not had this many people smile at me since I went out in white shorts in the rain.

Getting Choked

30^th July

I woke up still buzzing from the shift the night before. I’m fully aware that this blog is beginning to suffer for its lack of cynicism, and you probably want me to be stripping the Olympics bare. I’m trying, I really am. I just can’t. When I walked into Waterloo station yesterday, it was an assault on the senses. The noise, the colours, the palpable buzz.

In an attempt to avoid scurvy, and to bring a touch of class to Wetherspoons, I ordered porridge in a pub. I’ve spent the last three mornings there, and quite frankly it’s a horrible vision into the future when I’m on the dole. Chilling.

Perhaps the only downside to my first shift was the Faustian pact I seem to have made with my bag. In return for the use of a socially acceptable man-bag, I’ve got a red mark (some might even call it a ‘brand’), across my shoulder where the strap was digging in. It’s like a prison camp* mark.

*This does no way imply that my job or Twickenham base is anything like a prison camp.

Shift was much less exciting than yesterday. For a start, my celebrity spot of the day, the Azerbaijan Sports Minister, had nowhere near the gravitas of Preston.

I’ve also established the hierarchy of this job.

Us: Don’t know what we’re doing and know that. Also we don’t care.

Team Leaders: Don’t know what they’re doing and know that. They’re panicking.

Contracted security: Don’t know what they’re doing and don’t care as long as they get paid.

People with headsets: Think they know what they’re doing. They don’t.

I also learned that weightlifting fans are wankers. A fat American redneck warned me that ‘the next person to tell me I can’t come through a door is getting CHOKED’. I almost replied ‘catch me if you can’, but I didn’t want to get…'choked’.

A chap called Anthony Higgs was on my subteam today. I pointed at his accreditation, and joked,

‘Are we related?’

‘No. No, I don’t think so’.

All jokes are frowned upon at the Olympics.

Preston

29th July

‘Oh Tara, how ARE you? We have a chalet in St Tropez now, we must have a tete-a-tete about a rendezvous down there!’

Now that conversation never actually took place. It was simply made up to illustrate to you how much Twickenham’s affluence is already beginning to grate.

Of my friends on the campsite, one of them has seen Avram Grant, one has seen Ronnie Wood, and the other has shown Michelle Obama to her seat. If I don’t see someone of the stature of at least one of the Saturdays or Carlton Palmer, today’s first shift will have been for nothing.

So yeah, the shift. I initially dressed this blog up as an access-all-areas, critical, cynical, rambling, shambling rant which would uncover the appalling working conditions of Games makers and the dictatorial bosses of LOCOG.

Vantage Point

Impossible. Sorry to disappoint but everything was genuinely great. We stood around for a while, wondering if we'd actually made the cut to become volunteers, considering that our briefing was roughly half an hour late. After volunteering to become part of the 'seating team', I could not believe my eyes when I was taken into the arena. This was my vantage point: 

I didn't see Obama. I didn't even see Carlton Palmer. I saw Preston from the Ordinary Boys. Or as he’s otherwise known, Preston from Chantelle. He asked me how I managed to maintain a veneer of stylishness whilst wearing the Games maker uniform.

I smiled, and replied ‘boys will be boys Preston, boys will be boys.’ My god, he loved that line. A bit too much, in all honesty.

Tonight’s first shift made it real for me. I loved every second. A Yummy Mummy on the train said we were fantastic, and an American on the DLR told us we were ‘fucking phenomenal dude’. Also, despite being told that I would see no sporting action, and being ribbed subsequently, I was pleasantly surprised that I got to watch a fair bit of the boxing. The atmosphere for the British and Irish boxers brought it home. London 2012. It’s here.

Magwitch

28^th July

Saturday. You wake up to the sound of the main road, and the Heathrow fly-path. This is dystopia.

I spent the morning watching the Road Cycling go up Twickenham High Street and cheered on Team GeeBee with my new-found lack of cynicism. With the Queen visiting Worcester, the Torch Relay and now this, I’ve spent more time waiting on kerbs than David Pleat. The difference being, I’m not looking to pick up prostitutes.

The weird thing about being on a campsite with no wi-fi, limited television access and nowhere to buy newspapers is that although I'm only ten miles from the centre of London, I have no idea what's happening in the Olympics. I'm not sure whether this blissful ignorance is a good thing. The road cycling is probably the only sporting event I've been to where I had no idea who won when I left the venue. Apart from when I went to the darts and was too pissed to remember/care. 

For now my repugnance to him had all melted away, and in the hunted, wounded, shackled road cyclist who held my hand in his, I only saw a man who had meant to lose to Cavendish, and who had felt affectionately, gratefully, and generously, towards me with great constancy through a series of years. I only saw in Alexandre Vinokourov a much better man than I had been to Cav.- Charles Dickens, Great Expectations. Or something.

It turns out a Kazakhstani former drug cheat won. I’m unsure how I feel about this Magwitch-type figure, doing his time and coming back a changed man. Every time I side with him, I remember the emotional turmoil that Pip Gargery went through to steal the file, and then I wonder whether remorse is ever enough.

Kerb-crawling- Olympics style

Went to a Wetherspoons where they were showing some non-descript rugby game. I tried to rouse the other people in there into revolt, but they seemed oblivious to the Olympics, and indeed any other sport. Weird. 

Soul-crushing

27^th July- Soul-crushing.

‘Hi, I’m Ed, just thought I’d come and say hello’.

No response. The Olympics does that to a person.

‘I’m working at the ExCeL-‘

‘So am I. It’s boring’.

It crushes your soul.

So far I’ve veered from the unfailingly cheerful and tangibly excited, to the rude and near-dead. I know which I prefer.

Due diligence

I spent much of the afternoon performing due diligence on the area. Now most people would look to see where the station, launderette and nearest supermarket are. On the other hand, I collected and collaged the inside of my tent with approximately fifty takeaway leaflets. Good to see the Olympics has inspired me to get into shape. Twickenham High Street scores highly on the unofficial Ed Higgs guide to High Streets, with plentiful takeaways and Yummie Mummies, yet is knocked down to 7/10 by the faint smell of horse shit which pervades the area. Ahead of Droitwich but behind Leamington Spa.

For the rest of the evening, I sat and watched the Opening Ceremony. I never thought, when London won the bid in 2005, that I’d be sat watching it in an abandoned sports hall on an 18 inch Panasonic that still had a video tray and a back on it. 3D? The dimensions of the television.

I had a strange, out-of-body experience during the Opening Ceremony. I think I may have been visited by three ghosts. Olympics Past, Present and Future. At the start, I sat snarling and snorting in derision, yet by the end, I was transfixed, like watching a cat lick itself. It was brilliant. It had humour and warmth, but a school play has humour and warmth. It needed a wow-factor. And the Queen provided that. I’d watch it again and again.

RIP Olympic Cynicism. 

Venue Specific Training- Too tedious to write about

14th July 2012

I sat in Birmingham New Street station, supping a latte and pondering Descartes’ ‘cogito ergo sum’. The last time I was in this very coffee shop, I went on to watch Blues play at Old Trafford and lose 1-0. I hoped for a very different outcome today. As I was heading for a training day, not a football match, I felt I was on fairly safe ground.

Venue-specific Training. I was looking forward to this one; I had visions of rushing around the venue, egged on by Stephen Mulhern and Lord Coe, trying to locate winged monkeys before time ran out. It couldn’t be any duller than Wembley… could it?

More on that later. The train journey to Euston was notable for little other than being subjected to inadvertent earphone voyeurism by the lad behind me (he was listening to Skrillex). I got to Euston, and spotted a sign for ‘the greatest chip shop in the world’. Harry Ramsden’s. I’d dispute this on many, many levels. They don’t sell Pukka Pies for a start. As I sat miserably working my way through potatoey slugs swimming in pools of blood, I pondered aloud whether Euston station is better or worse than purgatory. The decrepit man opposite me, stooped in gait, revealed both a toothy grin and the answer. Yes, yes it is.

In Dickens’ Bleak House, Mr Guppy tells  Miss Summerson of ‘a London Particular. A fog, Miss’. As I stepped on the tube at London Bridge, I knew exactly what he meant. The foggy haze of the unwashed. The bluest of blue jeans coupled with running trainers and Pokemon t-shirts. I gazed in horror at the teenage-male dominated carriage. Nerds as far as the eye could see. One female nerd stood, in the middle of the melee, like Christ the Redeemer, offering her affection to the boy with the most Yu-gi-oh cards. They got off at the O2 Arena. I presumed there was some sort of Nerd Convention going on, but as I checked the events on my phone, I could see nothing to shed any light. When I looked up again, there was no evidence of the nerds. Just like Mrs Rouncewell’s ghost story in Bleak House, they were gone, and I carried on my merry way to the ExCeL.

Oh, yeah, the Olympics. As this is, primarily, an Olympics blog, I feel I should probably pay lip-service to the training day. It won’t live long in the memory. Three hours of Powerpoint presentations followed by a tour of the ExCeL. I learned very little, other than how to maximise my chances of seeing some sports whilst on the job, and also that ExCeL has at least two too many capital letters. I was fairly disappointed and upset at the tedium of the training. I’ve had the same information at least four times now; at Orientation, in the booklet, at role specific, and now venue-specific. It comes back to my familiar gripe with the whole thing: fine if you live in London, but more than just a waste of time if you’ve had to travel.

 

I sat back on the London Midland peasant wagon, and realised there was only one redeeming feature to my life right now: I was on a table on my own and therefore didn’t have to speak to anyone. The announcer did his best to liven things up, describing it as ‘the 1946 Magical Mystery Tour to Birmingham New Street’, but we all know the sad reality. As soon as he put his microphone down, he would have wept openly at the empty sham his life had become. We all wept for him, as we rolled through made-up towns such as Berkhamsted and Latent Buzzard. I have attached a picture of a Latent Buzzard for illustrative purposes.

But hark! More excitement to come. At Northampton, the ticket inspector stood exterior to the train, talking to an invisible god.

"Who am I to appear before Pharaoh? Who am I to lead the people of the rear carriages out of Northampton?"

He stood, arms outstretched, and parted the two carriages. Those in the front sat, mouths agog. Those in the back wept, fearing that they would remain under the harsh rule of the Pharaoh. In Northampton. The inspector led the Exodus into the front carriages, as we all applauded, scarcely believing what we had seen.

And that was my day.

Uniform Collection- 21st May 2012

Please note: These blogs have been written day-by-day. Having read this entry back after the Olympics, the level of cynicism seems over-the-top, but the transition of emotions will hopefully demonstrate my turbulent relationship with my decision to volunteer!

‘Can I have a look in your bag please mate?’

‘Yeah sure, just got a few snacks.’

‘No chocolate I hope’.

‘What?’

‘No chocolate. All chocolate to me.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘He’s joking mate. Go on, in you go’.

So, to collect my uniform, I had to decipher a barely decipherable accent, spewing out a riddle. I’d travelled from Coventry, and I had to solve a bloody riddle. This was after the guard had told me to ‘put your map down cos you’re here now sunshine’.

Inspire a generation.

The journey itself was hideous. Instead of a train, it appeared I was on Charon the ferryman’s riverboat, hurtling towards Hades via the River Styx, with the old and invalid of the world. Awful business. To kill some time, I visited West Ham’s stadium two tube stops away, which, despite my hate for the club, still has an aura of intimidation and history, something which has been lacking from most of the modern stadia I’ve visited, such as the choice of the Olympics committee, the Ricoh Arena. I stepped off the tube, breathed in, and immediately wished I hadn’t.

Infiltration

I was in West Ham, collecting my uniform and laminated pass, tired, weary, and having to take a day out of revision. As it happens, the uniform staff were extremely helpful and friendly, doling out trainers, t-shirts and various other freebies. Although much-maligned, I think the kit is very smart, it’s a decent material and, as I am at peak physical fitness, makes me look fit. At the end of the day, it’s Adidas, not Macron or Lonsdale. I still couldn’t quite work out why we had to go to West Ham to collect it, as I simply handed my passport over and got given my kit. Could have happened on a street corner in Droitwich and it wouldn’t have been any more secure.

The next time I go to London will hopefully be for my venue-specific training sometime in July. I just want to get started now. I’m excited because the travelling, training and endless bureaucracy is nearly over. Once the Games actually start, I’ll have a degree of independence, and be thrust into the action, rather than learning mnemonics in classrooms.

Role-Specific Training- 23rd March 2012

Please note: These blogs have been written day-by-day. Having read this entry back after the Olympics, the level of cynicism seems over-the-top, but the transition of emotions will hopefully demonstrate my turbulent relationship with my decision to volunteer!

Hackney. It even sounds like Cockney. 

So was my fear as I navigated my way to Hackney Community College from the ludicrously overpriced RE London Hotel, Shoreditch, past the takeaway shops and scary-looking buildings. Imagine a cut-priced version of the opening section to The Sopranos, as Tony Soprano drives into New Jersey.  That was my morning. So cut-priced, in fact, that I neglected the taxi in favour of walking.

Role-specific training. I had visions of the work-training day in The Office, with endless, pointless team-building exercises, and role plays which didn’t go anywhere. As I wandered into the college, I avoided the stares of the students. ‘Foreigner’, they whispered. ‘Games maker’, they mouthed.

I may have written in my earlier blog, when I was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed that it was ‘understandable’ that LOCOG couldn’t offer any expenses to Games makers. After all, if the Daily Mail got hold of the fact that the Olympics was going even more over budget to finance students on a fortnightly work experience, life wouldn’t be worth living. Quite frankly, I’ve changed my mind. Sod the Daily Mail, I’m running out of money, travelling backwards and forwards, staying in hotels, eating London-priced food. I fully expected to have travelled the furthest out of anybody, and by that I mean Worcestershire, not the RE London Hotel, Shoreditch.

As it happens, I was pleasantly surprised. Most people I spoke to seemed to have hailed from the Midlands, Leicester, Nottingham. You know, the nonentities of this world. One girl, my age, had come from Aberdeen. I was full of admiration. But it begged the question, why have this training day in London? Take the teachers to the students! Of course, when it comes to the venue-specific training in July, this isn’t feasible. But if LOCOG insists on making this ‘not just about London’, then greater efforts should be made. It gets worse.

‘Has anyone had their invitation to collect their uniform yet?’

Silence.

‘Where do we have to go?’

‘West Ham, I heard’.

West Ham?! To collect my uniform and a laminated pass? This was getting out of hand. There are so many solutions to this. Why not courier the uniform to one of the other Games venues, the Ricoh, Old Trafford, Hampden Park? Allow us to collect our uniform on the first day? Post it out? Alas, that would be too simple. Instead, make all of us get back on our London Midland peasant-wagon and travel to East London.

Anyway, the role-specific training. It was akin to being taught ‘elf and safetee’ by a cave troll wearing a loud shirt. We got to play with ticket scanners, got told what to do if the Queen turns up unannounced (let her in but kick the DofE out), and watched endless videos with ‘comedians’ you vaguely recognised but couldn’t place. In fact, one DVD, presented by a woman, got stuck on repeat, so the cave troll yelled “I’m sick of this bird” and repeatedly smashed the DVD player. He later declared he “didn’t know any Cantonese, but [I do] know how to order a chop suey”. Wonderful insight from the man teaching us to be courteous and all-inclusive.

After being sat in Block 93 for Orientation, with the block number seemingly corresponding to the average age of the volunteer, I was genuinely pleased and relieved to meet lots of lovely people my age, who were refreshingly honest about the problems of being Games makers yet who excitedly spoke about the challenges ahead.

And so, as I strolled off into the Hackney sun, I looked forward to my own challenges. These were, a), how do you tell people to ‘move along’ in 106 different languages, and b), do I really have to go to West Ham to pick up my uniform and a laminated card?

Camp as a row of tents- the Olympic journey begins

Tuesday night. Three days before the Olympics. You gaze at Tesco online store, puzzled by the decision that rests before you. Six boxes of cereal bars or five?

On Friday, I head down to Twickenham to begin my Olympic journey. In reality of course, the ambition to be involved in the Games began on the 20th October 2010, when I filled out the volunteer application form (the dregs of my inbox reliably inform me of this). I've certainly questioned my sanity on more than one occasion during the process, but as I reach the point of no return, these worries have been increasingly dispelled.

Others have also questioned my sanity. For a start, I'm camping for the entirety of the two weeks, albeit in relative luxury of the grounds of a college. I haven't put in print what my job really entails, due to the advised embargo placed upon us. I'm happy to save the secret for this blog, which will be serialised after the Games.

So why am I doing it? It's been both costly and time-consuming, and although I know I'll have probably the best two weeks of my life, I've had to fend off people exclaiming that I 'must be mad' on more than one occasion!

I don't want to be left out.

When this Olympic Games turns out to be the best ever (and trust me, it will), I don't want to be left wondering what might have been. I don't want to be sat watching the 2060 Games, held on Jupiter, when the highlights of London 2012 are hologrammed (HD of course) into our living rooms, and have my grandchildren turn to me and ask:

'Granddad, what did you do during the 2012 Games? Surely you got the hoverboard down to your capital city and went to see it all happening?'

If I then had to tell them I didn't get involved at all, I'd just be really, really sad. I feel the same way about not going to Bruges with Blues this season, just really disappointed.

Today, as I nursed both a hangover and a feeling that my life is just meandering towards both Friday (short-term), mediocrity (mid-term), and death (long-term), I watched a few Olympics videos on the BBC website. Moments of genuine brilliance, controversy, and history. Denise Lewis. Kelly Holmes. Jonathan Edwards. And that's just in my lifetime. I want to say I felt the buzz sweep the arena when similar moments happen during these Games.

So, the blog. It'll be awash with references to the greats of literature, Dickens, Shakespeare, E.L. James. There'll be moments of passion, akin to Fifty Shades of Grey, describing in detail the saucy process of washing my underpants in a sink. There'll be numerous musings on public transport, such as ponderings about places such as Leighton Buzzard. There may even be photos of me looking suave for the ladies, or tucking into a  meat pie for the blokes

I must point out that this blog should not be taken too seriously (surprising, I know). I've been criticised for my cynicism on more than one occasion, but trust me, if I believed everything I tweeted/Facebooked/blogged, I'd have packed in this Games maker lark a long time ago. I love sport, both for its partisan qualities and its art, and I firmly believe that from a purely 'sport-as-art' point of view, the London Olympics will be the pinnacle of our sport-watching lives.

A bold claim. And I'll be at the centre of it all. Bring it on.





Footnote: The documentary about Tom Daley on Monday night, shown on the BBC, was an excellent programme about the life of a top athlete, but also a normal kid. Daley lost his Dad three months after I lost mine, and the insight into how it shakes your world articulated my feelings better than I've been able to in the last eighteen months. My Dad loved the Olympics, and could barely contain his excitement when London won the bid. I vividly remember him saying 'even if it's Mexico v Swaziland women's football at Villa Park, I'm going to an event'. Bet he was lying. Probably.