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.