Rain, go away...

If Beijing 2008 was all about smog and firing canons into the sky to control the weather, London 2012 is all about rain. It's OUT OF CONTROL. I'm telling you now, our country has never seen a washout of a summer like this before. Or at least one that I can remember, for what it's worth. Thank goodness Wimbledon now has a roof on centre court, or Andy Murray and Federer would still be hanging out in SW19. They'd probably have tossed a coin for the championship by now. Victorian fog and Mary Poppins dancin' on chimneys it ain't. Her umbrella would've come in handy though.

Boris Johnson, London Mayor extraordinaire, has our back however. Ponchos have been ordered in their thousands. Plus most events are under cover, especially if you're in the cheap seats at the athletics like we will be. I believe it's only beach volleyball, most equestrian events, BMX, triathlon, hockey and rowing/canoeing that are exposed to the elements.

However...my roving reporter on the ground says the weather will suddenly clear and London will bask in glorious sunshine for two weeks. Given that he's a designer and not a meteorologist in real life, I'm not sure what basis he has to believe this. I'm thinking it's the pure disbelief that having come this far, a bit of rain could scupper what should rightly be an amazing games at the final furlong. I mean, it's only rain for blimmin' sake, right?

Simply put, I have to trust he is going to be right, the sun WILL shine and all will be well in the world. Right now though, the official stance is bring a mac, you're going to get wet. Usain Bolt better not use 'rain' as an excuse for not giving us a 100m final to boast about for years to come. That would be like blaming leaves for a late running train in the morning...oh. One thing I do know though, if the sun does grace us with its presence, it'll be the most supercalifragilistic Olympics ever. And it's only days away.

Tickets, PLEASE!

So every day at 11am last week, I’ve imagined hundreds of people asking their bosses if they can ‘nip out’ for an early lunch/meeting/phone call while they spend the next hour desperately trying to navigate the ever confusing Ticketmaster website to purchase last chance Olympics tickets. I sincerely hope that if this is you, you got what you wanted.

I had the added complication of having my ‘due date’ thrown in to the mix. Would I be up to my eyeballs on gas and air shouting, ‘But I haven’t logged on yet to get my rowing tickets!’ or would I have to just take what I could get on day one? I decided with the latter as the disappointment would likely have matched the pain of delivery. (I know, I’m crazy).

So I still haven’t given birth to my Olympic baby (due to be born at Stoke Mandeville – the name of one of the funny looking Olympic mascots in case you didn’t know). But I did press the panic button early and bought Beach Volleyball Tickets on day two of the re-sale. I read a tweet that described the ticket sale as a mass free-for-all. You literally didn’t know if you would get anything in your basket after frantically trying to work out what was still available. (Apparently, everything was that was showing on the site – except, boo! It wasn’t…)

Obviously I’m chuffed I can go – admittedly, it was something I always took for granted when the London Olympics were announced. Am also delighted I can take my Olympic baby in arms – thanks for the u-turn there Lord Coe (see earlier post). Now I can put my feet up and think of Team GB in relative peace..!

The last of the tickets will be on sale this week – Paralympic sales Monday 21st and the rest of the Olympics Wednesday 23rd, first come, first served.

Trenton, the oxymoron

I had an interesting conversation with my dad this weekend. He lives in Australia’s Perth, the most remote city on Earth I believe it’s called. He hadn’t yet heard about the ‘Trenton!’ incident that took place this weekend on the River Thames. It’s a stretch of the river we used to live near. I’ve never rowed it as I don’t have a death wish, but I did feel privileged (and not elitist at all) to live around there. The only thing I know is that no one goes swimming in the Thames because it is so dangerous. Just ask the London whale that ended up in Battersea that time when he took a wrong turn by Graves End.

So it was a no-brainer that the guy in a wetsuit swimming in the middle of the river as Oxford and Cambridge’s boats came through was clearly unhinged and/or a protester of sorts. I don’t want to name him as he’s had his five minutes of fame, but it does seem he has created more anxiety about protesters turning up to the Olympics and putting an end to years of preparation and desire in the blink of an eye. He was protesting about ‘elitism’ – although it probably came across as more of a dislike of Oxbridge and ‘posh’ people. Which is curious, not least because there is no money in rowing, unlike football for example. See more >

Anyway, so turns out, ‘big T’ as I shall call him, is in fact a privately educated chappie from Sydney, who has swapped ‘classless’ Australia for ye olde England. An oxymoron if ever there was one. The Cambridge captain was interviewed about their ‘win’ and he was also Australian. Apparently the crew included oarsmen of six different nationalities in total. I’m not sure who else was English, apart from the umpire maybe, who, in my humble opinion, should have stopped the race when an Oxford rower’s oar broke and made the race unfair, resulting in an ambulance being called for one of the team at the finish line. Dr Woods is now thankfully out of the woods – hope you’re feeling better.

It was the most eventful boat races in years, but with one eye on the Olympics, I think we should all be thankful no one ended up like that poor whale.

See also Trenton/Fenton mash-up as reported in Australia.