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.