Advent 6

The city of my first university. The city of Hyde Park. The city of Sam's Bar at Imperial College. The city of the Zetland, my local pub for two years. The city of the National Theatre. The city of the Globe. The city of 2012. The city of the National Gallery. That London. Love it.

Chapel at King's College London - OG did not spend much time here

Hence! Wilt Thou Lift Up Olympus?

The revolting events in Manchester need no commenatry from me. I did start to pen something but it was plainly inadequate. Damn them all to Hell.

To more cheerful things: a trip yesterday to Sheffield to see Julius Caesar at The Crucible. This was the first Shakespeare I ever studied seriously, back in 'O'Level days. I have heard it said that it is an unsatisfactory play, what with the titular charcter getting brutally bumped off by half-time. This misses the point - it is replete with fascinating characters aside from Caesar himself. Brutus is tragic, Cassius intriguing and, on the periphery, Lepidus's lack of substance sets us up nicely for what is to come in the even better Antony and Cleopatra.

The Crucible is a great viewing theatre and this is an excellent production - the first segment chillingly political and the second searingly military. I even sort of enjoyed the steamy rail travel that allowed me to have a couple of glasses of perfectly passable sauvignon blanc.

And isn't it a small world? As I was quaffing first of the said glasses I spotted S with whom I had worked at London 2012. Of all the gin joints, in all the places etc. We chatted amiably and parted to watch the play, presumably never to meet again. Rather British, I call it.   

A Curious Case Of A Missing Box Of Chocolates

We watched The Curious Case of Benjamin Button last night and throughout I was thinking that it reminded me of Forrest Gump but minus the chocolate box philosophy. Only when I looked up the credits today did I find out that the films share a screenwriter. Benjamin Button is the better film. 7.5/10.

As a veteran of a hugely enjoyable stint volunteering at the London Olympics (see July/August 2012 on this blog for my contemporaneous notes) I am trying not to be unimpressed by the start of the Rio offering. However the clear absence of spectators does make something clear - tickets are obviously set at first world prices and will not sell to second world citizens. What is left is a spectacle (and it is indubitably that) for the billions gathered around televisions. This is sad but I have no answer. Doubtless Tokyo 2020 will postpone any further need to ponder this point. Rather sad.

I can't help but feel more than slightly pissed off every time I am drawn back to the news. The world can seem to be run by thorough-going knobheads. There was though a good piece in the Washington Post a few days ago which bluntly diagnosed Trump as a narcissistic bull-shit merchant. This gets to the root of the problem more neatly than anything else I have read. And when it comes to bull-shit, I am, please remember, a professional.

Old Dave's Almanack 2013

Including a review of last year's predictions and this year's less than confident sooth-saying.

Here was my predictive menu for 2012:

2012? Well France will win the Six Nations now they have a decent coach. Wales will not be as good as their followers are being encouraged to anticipate. England will be half-decent which will make the appointment of a permanent new coach all the trickier. Anticipate serious civil unrest in southern Europe. My capital wealth will be further eroded by the malfeasance of others. Goldman Sachs will prosper, though hopefully not in India. GB will win 16 gold medals at the Olympics. Our press will charcterise this as failure. Public sector employees will eventually have to accept that their pensions are unsustainable and their industrial action will fail to attract its own Billy Elliot style romanticism - there will be no ballet dancing son of a geography teacher plucking at the heart-strings of the public.
 

Time to eat some humble pie.

• France disappointed me but they do have a decent coach and their autumnal hammering of the Australians augurs well. They suffer from the same problem that besets English professional soccer - a domestic championship stuffed to the gunnels with foreign galacticos.
• Wales set off as if determined to rub my nose in it, winning all five games to take a Grand Slam (albeit with some spineless assistance from that show-pony Steve Walsh) but have since then lost seven consecutive matches, including home defeats by Argentina and Samoa. On balance I got this one right.
• I was spot on about England and the coaching appointment.
• 25% unemployment in the southern european states can surely not be sustained peacably for too much longer.
• According to my banker I am marginally richer than I was a year ago. This is a recovery built on foundations of sand.
• Gloriously wrong on the Olympics. See earlier blogs from my vantage point as a volunteer under label 'London 2012'. A sheer bloody triumph - the Olympics that is, not my blog.
• Public sector pensions - start a conversation on this one with friends in the pub and wait till the teacher present goes for a piss to find out what people really think. Not pretty. Actually, don't start that conversation - save your sanity and just let this run its own mucky course.

2013: France to win the Six Nations but no Grand Slam; England to continue to progress but haltingly; Wales to recover; Lions to win series in Australia. I can't be arsed with any precise political predictions because we will merely have a tiresome early setting of ground for a UK election not apparently due until 2015 - this setting of the date years in advance being one of the powers President Dave vainly took unto himself upon his non-election in 2010. America will stagger towards recovery not because of any political will but because it is America. The American century may be over but don't expect this remarkable country to lie down and be upstaged without a fight, certainly not by as immoral a beast as China.

It is midday on 1 January and already I feel tired. Best advice I can give is that which I use to sustain myself: don't let the bastards wear you down.

 

Brilliant. Brilliant. Brilliant

I said I was going to rave about a television series and here I go. Not exactly of the moment but I have only just properly caught up with Twenty Twelve which finds rich comedy in Olympic pomposity but manages to retain optimism and affection. People have justly gone on about Jessica Hynes as the oh so believable PR monster Siobhan Sharpe but the real plaudits should go to Hugh Bonneville and Olivia Colman for the finest and best under-played screen romance since, well since I don't know when. This is top grade acting and writing. And very, very British, just like the Games themselves turned out in fact. And top marks to Seb Coe for allowing himself to be in it - an act which showed huge confidence in the ultimate delivery of the project.

on the naughty step pro tem

On the Olympics I have to utter a word of reproach I'm afraid about a much loved organ, The Spectator. I have been dutifully catching up on my back issues since getting back from my stint in London and, oh dear, what a lot of sour nonsense you chose to publish in anticipation of the Games. Charles Moore in particular -acute, stylish, elegant but wrong, wrong, wrong. Just saying, because you know me, I'm a stickler for balance. Mind you I'm still catching up so maybe I will soon reach your redemption.   

Post Mortem

Back on me old manor now, safely embedded in Four Oaks. Three nights in the comfort of my own cot and camping a shrinking memory. Time to reflect on London 2012 before my sad old grey matter has mixed and sentimentalised it all to pap. Lucky for you I jotted down some aides memoire before leaving the Big Smoke on Monday and I haven't yet drunk so much red wine that I can't make sense of them.





erection with an identity crisis

Docklands
Saw a lot of the revived and yuppified banlieu in which ExCeL is situated. Love the DLR, particularly the fact that it so resolutely refuses to travel in straight lines. I swear the O2 Arena (rechristened North Greenwich Arena for the duration of the Games on account of O2 not being an Olympic sponsor) was on my left at one point and then on the right a couple of minutes later. The Overgraduate likes the modern Docklands and wouldn't mind a pad there if he had some spare loot. I'd live in the West End for preference but I like a bit of realism mixed in with my dreams. One shouldn't be greedy.

Observative
Best neologism of the Games, uttered by a nervous supervisor who urged us to be observative for wheelchair and other accessibility challenged patrons. I was duly observative and will ever be thus.

Paid Staff
The organisation of the enterprise was largely praiseworthy but the quality of some paid staff was an issue. Not those at supervisory levels who were generally keen and committed but those pressed foot-soldiers who appeared to be part of a woolly social experiment to pitch into work dissolute and uninterested juveniles. Their ineptitude was easily covered by the army of volunteers who treated them with richly deserved disdain. They were not going to spoil our fun. They missed a golden opportunity to win some influential hearts and minds. Last and only whinge, I promise.

Handball
Why have I never had the chance to play this brilliant sport. Love it. If I was thirty years younger ...

Bloody Football Starts Again
Sorry another whinge. The Premier League kicks off on Saturday. Too soon. It will dilute if not wash away the Olympic spirit. I know there's nothing to be done about it but, as I say, too soon.

732000
The number of spectators we welcomed to the ExCeL across the Games. I think I spoke to roughly 700000 of them. Especially the Irish ones.

a friend of this blog

Lasha Shavdatuashvili
Georgian judoka who won 66k gold and probably thought he was safely anonymous when he went for a coffee outside the arena a full week after his competition. He was on my patch and I only know who he is because a crowd of crazed Georgians spotted him and detained him for fully an hour whilst every conceivable combination of photographs was taken. He was lovely and seemed genuinely touched by the mass of swarthy grateful men lining up to kiss him. As a finale he picked up and was photographed with an initially bemused small English boy who will for ever be able to say that he had his picture taken with an authentic gold medallist and national hero. Good on you Lasha.

Patches of Dead Grass
As the end of the Games approached and Games Makers headed home after their stint, patches of yellowed grass appeared on the campsite where once had stood tents. I should have taken a photo of this poignant patchwork.

Ice Creams
The free ones handed out throughout the Games at major commuter stations to passengers. A really nice touch, symptomatic of the small ways that Locog painted the big picture.

and he seems like a nice bloke

Mo Farah
Having learned of his 10000m triumph over a privet hedge in Twickenham, I saw his 5000m gold (or at least the last half lap of it) in the bar of the Docklands Crowne Plaza thanks to a fortuitously timed comfort break in my Friday shift. I then had the pleasure of announcing the news to those arriving at ExCeL for the boxing. Of all the British victories, Farah's are the greatest and his the nicest story of a storied fortnight.

Panem et Circenses
That's bread and circuses to you and me. This one is difficult - have we been distracted from civic desecration by a vast but meaningless pageant? Am I a dupe? I don't believe so but it is perhaps instructive to comment that the only time I can remember this country feeling quite so buoyed was during the Falklands Conflict. We were right then and I believe we were right this time but I do love that I have been brought up to accommodate a scepticism that interrogates these matters. And if that sounds smugly like having my cake and eating it, well you'll just have to humour me for a few more weeks until the roseate tinge has departed my world view.

Plastic Bags
I always like to leave you with some practical advice so here it is - you can't have too many plastic bags when you're camping. I spoil you lot, I really do. 

Yes We Can

I will be leaving in a few minutes for my final shift on this the final day of the Games. This will be my last post from my perch in the corner of the coffee lounge at the Twickenham Nuffield, to whom thanks for hot showers, free towels, reviving americanos, sockets to recharge my bits of technology and not least for reviving my interest in swimming.

This is not the opportunity for a full analysis of the point/success/excess/highlights of the Games (not enough time) but I will just say this - even if you disapprove of the whole shebang you would have to concede that we (the British) have made a bloody good fist of it.

I was there

The Olympic Stadium on Friday and Olympic Park as a whole were beyond expectation. I think Mum was as blown away as me. To top it all we can say we have seen a world record broken in an Olympic final - the American quartet obligingly expunging the twenty-seven year old mark of the East German chemically enhanced sprinters. Another disgraceful chapter in sport's history closed.

My New Hero

It had been a long sweaty day guiding the Irish around the geography of the ExCel yesterday and I was decidedly foot-sore and leg-weary by its end so I had a cursory swim (millionaire style, I had the pool to myself) then did my bit of blogging and settled down with a glass of red to watch the athletics. Understandably perhaps the amazing Usain Bolt was the focus of attention but I felt the true star of the night was David Rudisha the Maasai half-miler who broke his own world record and dragged the entire field to personal best times of mind-bending speed. The BBC got it mildly wrong when they disrespectfully failed to cut away from Bolt's post race posturing (good natured but posturing nonetheless) to show Rudisha's medal ceremony in its entirety.

My grandfather, a good county athlete and an elite level coach and administrator (an honorary life vice president of the AAA) nurtured my interest in sport but athletics in particular and his hero had been British half-miler Douglas Lowe. It transpired that Grandpa was cut out not for half-miling but for the sprints but it was Lowe he admired, and so I adopt Rodisha as my new athletic hero. Massive, elegant and dignified. Top banana. 

"Welcome To Dublin 2012"

This was the Overgraduate joke du jour, uttered to the streams of Irishmen and women who poured into Custom House DLR this afternoon and took over the pubs of Docklands before those of them who had managed to wangle a ticket invaded the ExCel Arena to cheer their lass Katie Taylor to boxing gold. To give you a flavour of the stupendous atmosphere the Irish brought with them consider this from the BBC correspondent Ben Dirs,

"Complete and utter delirium at ExCeL as Katie Taylor pulls the last two rounds out of the bag to win the lightweight crown. I've been to Rugby World Cup finals, I've been to Wimbledon finals, I've seen Great Britain win three gold medals in 45 minutes at the Olympic Stadium - but I have never heard a noise like that."

Full story at Katie Taylor Gold. I know I've said it before but it bears repeating - you have to admire the Irish reaction to economic adversity - they simply do not let it affect their commitment to the craic. And I suppose that I have to concede that one benefit of Ireland's membership of the Euro is that they don't find London beer prices at all daunting. I was only outside the arena directing joyous human traffic but nonetheless it was a privilege to be there.

The Irish angle overlooks that there had been a bit of history made at ExCel even before Taylor took to the ring. The first ever women's boxing title had been won by Nicola Adams from Leeds. Not quite sure what my Grandma would have made of women boxing but the Yorkshire element might have swayed her. Grandma knew what she liked and liked what she bloody well knew.

I do like the polarities in the good old BBC reporting parallel British success in two sports today: a black girl from Leeds in boxing and what I presume is a posh bird in dressage - Adams and Dujardin Win Golds. Full Overgraduate respect to both.

Blankers-Koen wins. Mum is
seventh row 367 from left

Day off tomorrow and Iron Dave is taking his mother to the athletics. Mum attended every day of the 1948 Olympic athletics and I doubt there will be many others there tomorrow who can say that. Really looking forward to it. The weather has turned on its most gorgeous face and a rosy glow of goodness has settled over the whole London 2012 enterprise. It is only silly games but it has been rather bloody marvellous from  my privileged viewpoint.   

We Hold These Truths To Be Self Evident

You might just have noticed but in many respects I am not an old school shrinking violet, nor am I most people's idea of the stiff upper lip English commercial gent. But in some things I am dyed in the wool and one of those is this - no able-bodied and self-respecting man should sit on public transport whilst women stand. It's just bad form to sit there pretending you're oblivious. Get up you skank. My views in this regard are too rarely shared and I have to report that I see plenty of my fellow Games volunteers offending on this one. I know we're working for nothing but we could extend the goodwill even further if we pioneered the readoption of the old courtesies and promoted a little eye contact on the tube.

Dave and his trusty steed

Remember the 1923 Cup Final? First Wembley final, Bolton 2, West Ham 0, but that barely matters (except to Bolton fans one supposes) because it was the policeman on a white horse controlling the crowd who captured all the headlines. Well for a brief interlude at lunchtime today I was that white horse as the boxing fans descended en masse and uniformly tardy upon Excel. Armed only with my voice (I let weaker souls have the megaphone) and a rising sense of stimulating panic my amateur colleagues and I managed to avoid a descent into riot. Great fun once it was over but mildly shit inducing as it occurred. No word of a lie an observer has offered me some professional stewarding work. He had assumed I was a bouncer by trade and was convinced that my line about commercial law was a wind-up. We have decided to regard this as a compliment. 

Tales From The Olympic City

Yes you can

What will you remenber about Super Saturday, the day on which Team GB won six gold medals, three of them quite stunningly in the athletic arena? Well this inveterate sports fanatic was working a late shift so caught the morning rowing medals, but saw none of the athletic triumphs, being in transit back to Twickenham during the hour of the Ennis, Rutherford, Farah miracle. Instead I was half way up the suburban redoubt that is Westfield South in my full Olympic regalia (aka looking a bit of a tit) when I heard screams of joy from behind front windows. I peered over the nearest privet and there was a large screen beaming a picture of a sweaty but happy looking Farah. The residents spotted me and instead of calling the police they opened the window and told me that our boy had won. I thereafter completed my passage to the camp site with lighter tread and headed tentwards for a sly glass of red wine (it's a dry site but they're not going to search my tent are they and what an Englishman does under canvass is his own bloody business) and to listen to the sports news on my radio. I had pretty much taken it as read that Ennis would win but it was one of those double-take moments when they mentioned the Rutherford victory. I had heard of him before but I am rather an anorak in such matters and I bet not many others had. No bollocks about it being a sub-standard competition please. You just have to beat all of those who turn up, them's the rules.

A funny thing happened to me on duty the other day and it ended with your hero being stopped by the police whilst dressed as a bit of a tit. The story starts with a lady on crutches who had somehow evaded the best laid and inclusive plans of the organising committee and appeared in my patch half way round the walking route to the Excel Arena. Whereat she uttered that she could go no further and opined that a wheelchair would come in handy. Your hero was on hand to act upon this demand and sought a supervisor to radio the request in. But the supervisors had all gone to lunch and had taken their radios with them. Inspiration is always at hand in these situations and I knew that the acessibility shuttle (really that's what we have to call it - it's a bus for the infirm and the criminally fat) docked nearby and that there would be wheelchairs aplenty. In I tore and asked the G4S security children if a chair might be available. Their radios crackled and presently a short irritated man brought down the required transportational aid. He had something of the look of Homer Simpson but rather less toned. He saw me, he saw my uniform and he intoned 'They're not having it' ('they' being the volunteers) for, quoth he, this wheelchair belonged to 'Transport' and 'he' (your hero the Overgraduate no less - I know, cheeky bastard) must find a chair from his own team's resources. Now I was a good boy and refrained from chinning the sweaty chump. At this point I was still a model of moderation and asked if he could please call my team on the radio importantly clamped to his grubby lapel. No he could not and your hero must find a radio belonging to his own team. Still the Boy Roberts did not rise to the bait but asked plaintively what was to be done about the becrutched lady left back on the access way. That, the pasty one concluded, was not his problem. At this point the Overgraduate took an executive decision not to waste any more time talking to this wanker but to resume his search for help back on the mean Docklands streets. He set off again at full pace but not without first mustering his finest sarcasm and informing Homer that he had been 'magnificently unhelpful'. This was,of course, a perfectly accurate summation of his behaviour (by any definition he was unhelpful and there is something magnificent about a dickhead fully exercising his art) but I confess my tone was scathing and I'm afraid it tipped my new mate over the edge. He shouted at my retreating form, 'Stop him!' This was directed at the G4S youth but I had too much pace for him (a fair comment on our indolent young?) and in any event he was probably a tad puzzled at how a simple endeavour to help an old lady had escalated into an international incident. Fair dos to the youth he thought on his feet and yelled to the nearby gaggle of coppers to waylay the fleeing fifty-two year old. Which they did. I think it was the guns which persuaded me to stop. There was then a delay whilst Homer wheezed his way to the locus of my interception. In fairness to flabmeister he now did his own bit of quick thinking and attempted to rationalise the drama he had helped script - he told the rozzers that he thought I was trying to steal the wheelchair! Which would make me the world's doziest criminal - I mean what better way to steal a manky local authority wheelchair than to do it in full view of police and security and wearing a uniform that makes you stand out in a paint explosion. Anyway the boys in blue eventually let me go and the Olympic machine cranked up to find a wheelchair from somewhere other than the point nearest to where it was needed. 

The initial reaction to all of this when I dutifully reported it was instructive. The Olympic machine is painfully politically correct and on more than one occasion I was assured that no one was at fault here and that the conflict must be mediated away into a happy liberal oblivion. Credit where credit is due I think the machine did eventually concede that Homer had been far the bigger of two tits in this one (he should apparently have let me have the chair in the first place) but the 'no blame' fixation is a misguided fudge. Homer and I were both to blame - he for being an insufferable, lazy, ugly, uncharitable, lazy, half-brained, lazy, unfragrant, lazy, mean-spirited, lazy tosser; me for being mildly sarcastic and thinking my priority was to help the old lady. Being as what I am a lawyer, I credit myself an expert on causation and contributory negligence (rather as I am an expert on what women want and what sort of wine to drink with couscous) and I think we can apportion the blame for this one, 99% to jobsworth and 1% to The Boy Roberts - the latter figure has been rounded up. Happy ending: Lord Coe has let me keep my accreditation. One other little detail: I am a volunteer, Homer is one of the paid staff.

venerable venue

Another day off yesterday and a good trip to the proper volleyball (not the pervert beach variety) courtesy of nephew Harry. I was accompanied by number two daughter and we had a jolly good time capped off by fish and chips in the Prince of Wales Feathers. Venue for the volleyball is the Games' oldest venue, the venerable Earls Court which acquits itself very satisfactorily. My only complaint is the organisers' perception that they need to have some half-wit refugee from hospital radio whipping the crowd into a frenzy of ambivalence. Volleyball is a terrific and athletic game and doesn't need such bollocks. One must mourn that there are no longer sufficient holiday camps to provide gainful employment for such morons.

A nice story from today's shift to finish. It illustrates the spirit which most often pervades these Games. A lone Thai visitor asked me to take his photograph in front of a parked London cab. The cab driver sussed what was going on and jumped out to let the tourist sit at the wheel for the photo. Nice touch.    

Like A Bad Actor I'm Resting

Thursday 11.30am.

By the end of yesterday's stint at the Excel I was absolutely bloody knackered. Relentless cheerfulness is very, very taxing, as is being on your feet all day trying to twist feet away from your Adidas sponsored blisters. Day off today and after three early early starts and despite the handicap of tent dwelling and the insistence of a middle aged bladder I managed to sleep for eleven hours without having to trudge throuh the cold dew to the toilets.



Ooh that's better

It's interesting what you miss when living the outdoor life. There are the obvious things such as a comfortable bed and cooked food (although if on duty near to the venue we go into the centre for a passable hot meal) but the one that has surprised me most has been a ready supply of good coffee. I hadn't twigged quite how much I thrive on this drug until faced with a situation where the only source comes at Starbucks prices. I have confined myself to one fix a day and that has come in paper cups which is just not the same as proper, civilised, porcelain, sitting coffee. So right now I am in my usual perch in the corner of the lounge of the Twickenham Nuffield Health Club recharging my batteries (literally - all my electric toys are plugged in around me) and about to enjoy a second large americano. To keep up the sheen of healthy athleticism I'm also having an isotonic cherry muffin.

Time to take stock. As my regular critic and commentator ViperJohn has pertinently noted, we volunteers are living in a bubble at these Games and undoubtedly see less of the action than the enthusiastic couch potato, however I get the distinct impression that things are going well and that there is a mood of goodwill from the country towards the whole massive endeavour. Some spectators (quite a few in fact) take the trouble to tell us this and to thank us.  You get the odd naysayer of course. I had one clown yesterday who assured me that my statement that it was five minutes more walking to the venue was 'utter bullshit' - now this had, I suppose, an element of accuracy because I'd timed it and it actually only took me three minutes but I had thought it best to err on the side of caution where families were walking with young children. Anyway I trust his bemused little boy will have garnered happier memories of his day at the Olympics than his dad being a twat. Possibly not because one has to suspect that his dad is always a twat. Which puts him in the company of that arse-faced scotsman Frankie Boyle - Boyle/Adlington Tweet. Boyle is a bully. He can say what he wants - we live in that kind of a country - but the principal job qualification for comedy is that you're funny. Now Boyle is actually funny but rather in the way that Robert Mugabe is funny - you have to laugh at the absurdity of a world that accommodates such people but conclude that it would be no worse off for their never having existed. And, plaudits to David Walliams who has countered Boyle and who as an Olympic Ambassador conducts himself self-effacingly and chivalrously. He was on 5 Live last night and gave an interview that was a model of good sense and modesty. It is not always necessary to be seen to be 'ironic' - sometimes you just look a complete tosser. If the boy Boyle fancies it, I'll go into training and challenge him to three rounds of boxing. I've never boxed and I'm what Boyle would probably call a middle-class English wanker but I quite fancy an opportunity to put one one his smug face. In a purely ironic way of course.

"Nice ball son"

At one stage yesterday I was at a lonely post directing meagre walkers in from Canning Town and had contrasting conversations with two locals. The first asked me what was going on at Excel! 'The Olympics' I explained, "F***** load of old bollocks" quoth he. Shamefully I had no greater riposte than to call 'Have a nice day' at his retreating form. Next up was a Barbadian road-sweeper who stopped to talk sport and cricket in particular. He related how as a young tearaway fast bowler he had bowled the opening over in club cricket at a sixty year old Conrad Hunte. He banged in his best fastest ball and the sexagenarian plonked his front foot down the pitch and played a perfect forward defensive stroke - that rocketed for four. he proceeded to do this five more times to complete the over, smiling after each shot and saying, "Nice ball son." A winning and humble story. He had clearly gone on to play some decent cricket both in Barbados and in London but that he started with this tale told a lot about him. We parted as friends who will doubtless never speak again. He was deeply impressed that I had seen Garry Sobers play and that the first century I ever saw scored was by Rohan Kanhai.

Looking better than the
volunteers

Bradley Wiggins yesterday confirmed what I had already told you - cycling is the new rock and roll. He added an Olympic gold to the Tour de France won only eleven days ago. As I alighted at Twickenham after my shift, hordes of cheered spectators thronged the platform having caught a glimpse of the time trial through the streets of Surrey. Tour de France tee shirts aplenty. Must get one. Which brings me to the fashion section of this blog. Stella McCartney has had a mixed Olympics. On the credit side, I like the team kit. Further good news for Team McCartney - she didn't design the super-chav shell suits worn at the opening ceremony. Those were the work of some deluded clown at Next. On the debit side, I'm sorry but the crimson cuffs on the volunteer jackets are naff although they do assist in making us stand out to the crowds. Greater demerit - Sir Paul McCartney - I love the Beatles (it's here on the blog) but somebody needs to stop letting him tarnish his own reputation. Hey Jude sung out of tune should not have been the keynote of the opening ceremony. I bet you never thought you'd read it here, but thank goodness for the Arctic Monkeys.

Friday 10.00 am.

I had to dash off before posting yesterday because the call came from Twickenham. After years of waiting I finally walked out of the players' tunnel into the arena, courtesy of that fine gentleman Gary Street who gave me a personal tour.

I'm on a late shift for the next three days which will be easier on my sleep patterns but with the athletics now starting I suspect that transport will be yet more crowded.

It's A Small World But I Wouldn't Want To Paint It

So there I was just having gone on duty at the Excel to shepherd the masses towards the sport when this family of six cycle up to the bike racks and disembark. That fellow looks familiar thinks I and bugger me if it wasn't the tribe of young Will Meere. It shames me to say I haven't seen Will since his father's funeral (Overgraduate December 2010) and he was his usual charming self. He photographed me with the children in my comedy uniform and by the time I phoned him at lunch time Richard Meere had already seen the picture. Such is fame in the global village. But I mean what a ridiculous bloody coincidence. It makes the serendipity at the heart of A Dance To The Music Of Time seem completely plausible. Which grants me licence to reproduce one of the so brilliant Boxer cover illustrations.

As for the work today, again fun and with a livelier team than yesterday. Hats off to young Lauren from Dudley our team leader who did that leadershio trick it's so hard to learn - looking like you're not trying. An even earlier start tomorrow before a day of rest on Thursday. Sitting here in the lounge of the leisure club and wondering whether this tired old body is up to yet another swim. Oh sod it, I might as well. You're only old once.

Olympic Debut

I can do that, giz a job

It's official. Not only do I have the tee shirt, but I am now an active Olympic volunteer. I spent today directing crowds from West Silvertown DLR station to Excel. So good was I at this that I was entrusted with the cherished foam finger, direction for the pointing of. But there is more dear reader. So very, very good was I at the art (and it is an art) of pointing that when our supervisor took his break it was to the Boy Roberts that the radio was entrusted. Sadly I had no cause to radio in an incident so my call signal ('Silver 1') went unused. However the Games are young yet. My modesty was such that I even turned down the offer to use that other toy of crowd control, the megaphone. I can after all only handle so much excitement in one day at my dangerous age.

Early reflections - it's not perfect but then nothing is and you only get one go at running the Olympics. We'll get better. What is really impressive is the general good cheer of the volunteers and the equal cheeriness of most spectators and of the much put-upon Londoners. I'm knackered (just to make sure I really sleep well I have been swimming again) and I've got another early start tomorrow. Perhaps it will be the day of the megaphone.

It's Raining Hard But ...

... it doesn't matter because I've just got out of the pool and not only did I not drown I actually swam one half of one of your English miles. Now this is not much for a proper swimmer but for me who hasn't been in the water since last November this is really rather pleasing. I am glowing with portly athleticism and supping on some chilled water. I'm hoping that it will soon stop pisssing down because I came over to the leisure centre without my coat and I don't want both body and mood dampened when I trudge back to the tent to have my prawn salad and packet of crisps - it's not all glamour you know. It will be an early night tonight because I have to be up around 5.00 to make the journey into the Excel. I am practising my customer service face already. It hurts, these are not muscles I have ever had to use professionally.

It's stopped raining.

Live Action Plus Tee Shirt Shopping

I can now say that I have seen live Olympic action. I am not on duty at Excel until tomorrow (early shift) so I have been on a reconnaissance of the shady cloisters of Twickenham and Richmond this morning, which exercise put me in the way of the women's cycling road race as it blasted through Richmond. The atmosphere was lovely, streets lined with people, motorcycle outriders waving cheerily at the children as they cleared the way for the peloton. Then whoosh and they were gone and the flag waving children were taken away for ice cream as parents assured them that yes that was it and no the ladies on the bikes were not coming back. 

Nobody was available to buy me a consolatory ice cream so I continued into Richmond centre to buy some toiletries (I did the usual gash job of packing yesterday) and to do some essential tee shirt shopping. I have an unfeasibly large collection of tee shirts, pictorial and otherwise but you can never actually have enough. I had in mind the the surprisingly tasteful Team GB shirt but there are a lot of those on the mean streets I tread so my eye turned to the 'Olympic Museum' collection and the retro Moscva 80 design. How appropriate for a notorious fellow traveller such as The Overgraduate you will doubtless think. You can't beat a bit of gulag chic.

As I have been writing (and re-buffering in the corner of the health club cafe) the said cycle road race has finished and GB has its first medal - Lizzie Armistead splashing up the rain-soaked Mall (yes it's back) to a thrilling silver. Just at the moment cycling is my favourite sport to watch, fresh from the gourmet feast that was the Tour de France.

One amusing moment in Richmond High Street today. I was matching steps with a couple of youthful police officers when a festive balloon in a shop doorway went pop. The rozzers turned round just briefly terrified/thrilled (who knows) that this was the real thing and that they might have to spring into action. Glad to report no one was shot nor anyone arrested not even for careless use of a balloon.

Iron Dave now heading for the pool to do some synchronised drowning.

Let The Games Begin

The Overgraduate aka the Boy Roberts aka Iron Dave, has arrived at the Games. He is safely ensconced in his tent, he has hired a locker for his valuables, he has joined the local leisure centre (Nuffield - nice people, £40 all in for two weeks including use of the pool), he has reminded himself already what a poor swimmer he is and now he is announcing to his public that London is en fete, that spirits are high and that with his arrival nothing but nothing can go wrong with these games. He is making friends with other Games Makers and he has just impressed them (not) by taking a call from the coach of England Ladies rugby with whom he is going to hook up during the week. He is in a mood of excitable optimism and will keep you all posted as the Games progress.

Good Stuff, Bad Stuff, Inbetween Stuff, In Fact Just Stuff

You're English - piss off

Alain Rolland and Steve Walsh - I've berated both these chaps before and here I go again. But before I bore you with it once more, please let me make it entirely clear, I do not in any way contend that South Africa deserved anything less than their victory over England in Johannesburg yesterday. There is nothing remotely so compelling as a Springbok team in full-on smash-mouth mode at the beginning of a test match.

However, however, however, Rolland and Walsh both officiate with a supercilious veneer of infallibility and when you do that you should get it right bloody nearly all of the time. To fail to do so risks looking a twat. Walsh crossed this line aeons ago, Rolland more recently, probably at the precise moment when he decided he should be the decisive influence in a world Cup semi-final.

Je suis plus important que vous

Yesterday? Exhibit A: a scrum on the English line, Rolland stood on the English loosehead side, Walsh touch-judging close at hand on the other. Ball in (fed of course and if Roland had chosen to penalise that infringement none of this would need to be said) - ball out again without passing behind the foot of any front-row forward - ball picked up by SA flanker - the infallible duo look at each other, exchange knowing nods - try given. Bollocks, wrong, wrong, wrong, indisputably wrong. Out of such things are persecution complexes born.  But then again it's only a game.

Hey ho. The Olympics - it was more volunteer training for me on Friday. The day started badly with a sub-amateur prologue of PC earnestness but your correspondent is delighted to report that underlying enthusiasm and optimism overcame the encumbrance of the soul-destroying mumbo jumbo in which any great public venture has now to be encased. I'm looking forward to being a part of it and, done well, I think it can be of importance to a national revival. This is an unusually (one might think unfittingly) innocent attitude for the Overgraduate but pray allow me these occasional childish moments.

Now I shall revert to type. A mere week ago the stock markets rallied as a 'solution' to the Spanish banking crisis was announced. Then markets (the denizens of which do not read this blog) had dawn upon them the realisation that this solution was no less (and admittedly no more) a bag of shite than earlier sticking plasters applied to the Euro farrago. Then for reasons beyond any sensible analysis we had another dead cat bounce. As all of this went on the most intriguing piece of politico-economic commentary came from my Turkish waiter in a Hackney cafe. To him I had entrusted the manufacture of the best sandwich he could come up with - this trust he discharged with distinction and thus we engaged in casual conversation provoked by the feature on the Greek election issuing forth from the ubiquitous Sky News feed. Having first checked that I would not mind his saying so (this is a most peculiar figure of speech because one is expected to assent to the mouthing of an utterance whose character you have no means of prejudging) he opined that the trouble with the Greeks is that in his experience 'they've always been a bunch of lazy bastards.'

Now some praise. The subtler skills of golf are often missing from its modern professional incarnation where the run of the ball has almost been outlawed. The USGA have brought it back to intriguing effect at the Olympic Golf Club in San Francisco this week. Nice job lads. There has also been the treat of watching Tiger Woods yesterday fighting poor form to stay in contention. A treat not because of any animus against Woods but because he is so thoroughly effortful in such circumstances. The rage for perfection is what marks the truly great.

We welcome Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II to readership of The Overgraduate, this being the only plausible explanation for Maggie Alphonsi having been recognised in the birthday honours list. My positing of Alphonsi as the world's best rugby player has obviously resonated in the corridors of power. I am however a little bemused that Gary Street has not yet been knighted - what Has Kenneth  Branagh done that Street has not? My point being that Gary could probably play Hamlet but I doubt Branagh could play scrum-half, kick goals, juggle with traffic cones and perform magic.

If I could write like this
do you seriously think I'd be
talking to you lot

Finally, a happy televisual accident last night. We saw again the finest flower of Channel 4's early days, Jack Rosenthal's P'tang Yang Kipper Bang. If you have never seen this film (broadcast as I recall on the second ever night of 4's transmission) you must do so and ponder how the same organisation might also have given us Big Brother. I'm just saying, that's all.