Humbling experience at the Paralympics

Sunday was spent at the Paralympics, in the Olympic Park, on a day pass secured by a mate. They've worked things a bit more informally for these games than they did at the Olympics - £10 gets you into the Park, and you can then watch any sport at which there are seats available. This does not, regrettably, get you into the really popular events like the velodrome or the athletics, but it still represents bloody good value. I'm pleased to report that the Park was absolutely swarming with people - the British have clearly embraced the Paralympics just as they did the Olympics.

If any of what follows is patronising to the people about whom I'm writing, I humbly apologise, I certainly do not mean it to. I was particularly keen to see wheelchair basketball - it looked brilliant on the trailers and I hadn't got into the basketball arena when I'd been to the Olympics before. It did not, needless to say, disappoint. A decent crowd in a towering, steep-sided arena, seats with terrific views at no extra cost to the tenner you'd paid to get in, and the same sort of enthusiasm and excitement which characterised the Games a few weeks ago.

What was different, of course, was the athletes. Seriously, sitting there watching them was an awesome experience, in the genuine and true sense of the word. What else can you feel for the Italian basketball player, no legs, only one hand, tearing about the court and scoring baskets? I can't begin to imagine my own response should I find myself wheelchair-bound but I'd be absolutely chuffed with myself if I showed even 10% of the determination and drive that these athletes have. Sitting there with a beer in my hand, knowing my own portly body does no more than play a bit of footy on a Tuesday and get dragged to the gym when I'm not feeling too lazy, makes you sort of wonder what the fuck you've been doing with your time, and how much you take your own body for granted.

The Italians won that one, anyway, leaving a South African side yet to taste victory in the competition, but the honest truth is, I couldn't have given less of a damn about the score. I was, and here's the bit in which I may unwillingly patronise the players, thoroughly bloody impressed with all of them.

Same goes for the wheelchair tennis doubles I also saw. A British side, enjoying the same sort of support all the British Olympians enjoyed, defeating a couple of Canadian lads in straight sets. I've never watched competition tennis, so have no frame of reference with the non-disabled professionals, but what I saw had pace, power and intensity, with one of the British lads in particular showing a deftness of touch on the volley which any tennis player would be bloody thrilled with.

Late in the evening, back home, I saw Pistorius's surprise defeat to the Brazilian lad and his subsequent criticism of the winner's blades in the post-race interview. Here's the story if you missed it. It was a reminder, if any were needed, that the Paralympians take their sport exactly as seriously as everybody else, and that, regrettably, the politicking, arguments and possible cheating are the same. It's sport, basically, exactly as the Olympics are. But the South African's comments were nonetheless disappointing, especially in the light of what he had to go through to be able to run alongside so-called able-bodied athletes just a few weeks ago. He fought a long battle to prove that his blades give him no advantage over runners using only their own legs, as it were, a battle he eventually (and officially, in the eyes of the sport) won. He should perhaps remember that when he thinks about criticising somebody else's blades in future, if he's not to damage the sport's credibility in some eyes.

Absolutely loving it so far...

I'll come back to the tickets later, but now's not the time. The Olympics so far have been nothing short of wonderful so far, with huge, enthusiastic crowds (80,000 people turning up for a morning session of athletics mainly comprising heptathlon heats!), cracking venues and British success. Two people, in particular, caught my eye today. On a day when we won three further golds to go fourth in the medals table, a couple of bronze winners stood out for me.

Firstly, Rebecca Adlington. Winning a bronze in the event she won at Beijing, I think expectations of her were hugely over-inflated. Interviewed after today's bronze-winning swim, she apologised to everybody who thought she'd take gold. What the hell does this woman, who's won four Olympic medals for Britain, have to apologise to anybody for? She is an absolute heroine who is rightly feted, and owes the fans and her country nothing. Congratulations to our greatest female swimmer of all time who, far from saying sorry, can hold her head up wherever she goes.

Secondly, Alan Campbell. This shows how much effort he had to expend in winning his bronze, and how much it meant to him when he collected it. That somebody can drive themselves to such extremes of endeavour, and react so emotionally when they're rewarded for it, shows just why people love the Olympics so much, even with all the attendant corporate zealotry and occasional cheat. Oh, and the ticketing. Like I said, I'll come back to that later.

A very British affair

Give one man the task of defining Britishness in three hours to the rest of the world, and asking him to do so in a fashion that won't leave everybody thinking, 'yeah yeah yeah, but it was shit compared to Beijing', and you've given him a hell of a bloody job.

Danny Boyle is to be hugely congratulated, and probably honoured in time, for the show he put together. We couldn't do the type of thing Beijing did - we're not that sort of country, we're not that sort of people, and we certainly can't throw the kind of money and resources at it that they did. He'd made it clear this was to be a celebration of British culture, particularly music, and an inclusive ceremony, which it certainly was.

There were moments, of course, that must have entirely baffled the rest of the world - indeed, the first thing I did when I came back from the friends' house where I'd watched it was check out some of the reaction from the Washington Post, the New York Times etc. They freely admitted that, even with their crib notes, some of the sections, particularly during the history of music bit, left them baffled as to what the hell was going on. But in anything that British, that was inevitable - giant-headed punks on bouncy metal legs moshing to the Sex Pistols - you don't get that in Atlanta or Beijing.

There were moments of great beauty - if there's been a more splendid torch lighting at one of these ceremonies, I can't remember it. There was some excellent comedy - I can't stand Mr Bean, but his little moment during Chariots of Fire was genuinely funny.

Surely, though, surely, most notable was the moment that left me at least gaping in shock. It's her. No, it's not her, it's a look-alike. "Good evening, Mr Bond." Fuck a duck - it's the bloody Queen! In a Bond film! An unbelievable moment, and I can't be the only person who wondered who first pitched that to her, and how. Fair play to her for agreeing to do it.

In the end, though you could never expect us to compete with the Chinese for spectacle, I thought Boyle recognised that and realised it had to be different. The only thing which went noticeably wrong was McCartney's apparent inability to hear his own monitor and ballsing up the first few bars of Hey Jude. I suspect Boyle would have taken that if he'd been offered it at the start. Ultimately he, and all the volunteers and performers, did us proud on this most British of evenings.

Similarly British was the bump with which we've come back to Earth on the opening day of the Games, of course, with the cyclists who did Britain so proudly in the Tour de France unable to dominate the road race with just four men and no other countries prepared to work at the front of the peloton, and Cavendish's medal hopes disappearing once again. A great shame for him, and we finish the first post-ceremony day of actual sport without a medal*.





*That's medal, the noun. It's not a verb - I repeat, NOT a verb. Don't even get me started on that...

The great Olympic countdown

It's almost upon us. The actual sport starts tomorrow, even before the opening ceremony, which my mole inside the stadium for last night's rehearsal declared 'awesome'. Boris Johnson's voice is umming and ahhhing from great speakers at London railway stations, burbling imprecations to walk or cycle. Various unions have completed their strike ballots. We're ready.

Ready too, are the missile installations apparently sitting on buildings near the Olympic park. I think we all thought that they were there to deter, or even bring down, terrorist attacks. But another thought occurs. Such has been the furore over the policing of the branding of these Games that the Mayor himself has waded in to criticise the heavy-handedness of what he's called the 'brand army', and Locog has felt it necessary to issue a PR 'myth-busting' fact sheet in response to some of the more outrageous stories. So we can all rest easy – you "probably will" be allowed to enter the Olympic Park with a Pepsi logo on your shirt, says Lord Coe.

'Ambush' marketing will not, however be tolerated. Is this what the missiles are really for? "Sir, there's a plane approaching the stadium with a 'Lipsmacking thirstquenching acetasting motivating goodbuzzing cooltalking highwalking fastliving evergiving coolfizzing Pepsi-Cola' banner trailing behind it."

"Open fire!"

Notwithstanding some of the inevitable British negativism around the Games, some of which I understand given the pointlessly excessive brand protection – don't even get me started on the chips monopoly – I am, in reality, really looking forward to them kicking off. I remain convinced, despite loud statements of disbelief from naysayers who believe the opposite is true, that the independent assessment of the financial impact on our economy being a positive one is correct.

And on a more visceral, seeing-the-everyday-reality-of-the-Games level, I'm seeing volunteers daily on my commute. The buildings in the Olympic Park all look great. The sun's out, though that will not last of course. Brad Wiggins' magnificent victory in the Tour de France has further whetted British appetites for sporting success. The beach volleyballers have said that, even if it rains (IF it rains! Hah!), they'll eschew the permitted long trouser and remain in bikinis. Yay!* What more signs do you need that it's going to be great?



*Apparently blokes also play beach volleyball - but who knew that was an Olympic sport?

Olympic ticketing farce is a peculiarly British affair

Don't get me wrong - I was absolutely ecstatic when London won the bid for the Games, and I'm entirely pro having them in the city. I even tried bloody hard to work for LOCOG, and almost succeeded. So none of what will follow here means I'm changing my mind about having the Games here - it's an all-round good thing. It'll bring regeneration, tourism, optimism, all the things we all know about, to London. The facilities will be done on time, built well, and they'll be well organised, with an army of volunteers giving up their time to make it happen.

None of that, though, can excuse the shambles that has been the sales of tickets, and the typically British, nothing's wrong, ignore the stench of the dog farting in the room response. I think, in most cases, when you buy a ticket for any event, you want to know only three things: when it is, where your seat is, how much it is. Unless you happen to have been lucky and got a ticket for a final or something, none of those three things are known to anybody at the moment. People left with hundreds, or thousands of pounds taken from their accounts with absolutely no idea what for.

Can you imagine this at Top Shop? Or Sainsbury's? "Here's your bill, we'll let you know if you've got the men's trousers you wanted or a bikini in the next three weeks." You'd tell them to fuck off. Most irritating, though, is the typically British response, which has arrogantly insisted that this is the best way, that in fact it's the best Olympic ticketing process there's ever been. Paul Deighton, LOCOG's Chief Exec, even said, “I don’t think there has been a ticketing exercise where potential buyers have had so much understanding of the process.” Well you could have fooled me, Paul. I have not the faintest idea how much money you're going to take from me yet as, not knowing weeks in advance how much money I'd have in my bank account on whichever random day it was eventually going to be emptied, I had to give them my credit card details. As I don't yet have the statement for the period covered by whenever they take the money, I not only don't know what I've got tickets for, if anything, but nor do I know how much they'll cost.

What I do know is that some people already seem to know what they've got, as there are stories circulating in the media of people who have applied only for men's 100m final tickets, and got them. So how all this constitutes the most transparent, most understandable, fairest way of distributing the tickets is utterly beyond me.

The arrogance, the insistence that all's well, the complete disregard for the legitimate complaints of people who can see the inadequacies of the system, are typical of the response which always seems to come from big business in cases like this. They know they'll sell the seats, and they certainly know they'll fill the corporate seats they've kept back in such numbers, so they simply don't give a shit. That's why they're able to be so complacent, so indifferent to the complaints.

So I'm still looking forward to the Games. I'm still hoping to have got tickets for some good stuff. But there had to be something to make the Olympic nay-sayers feel like they were right all along, and in this case, it's the ticketing.