[Update July 2025: Sadly, Tilt has now closed permanently; a great loss to the Brum specialty coffee scene.]

En route to Molineux Stadium to watch Wolves play a friendly against Spanish team Celta de Vigo last weekend, I broke my journey in Birmingham. I had to leave home very early during a torrential downpour and was in dire need of more coffee by the time I got to Moor Street station. Luckily, I knew exactly where to go: Tilt, a speciality coffee shop, craft beer bar and pinballeria in Birmingham's historic City Arcade, which my fellow coffee blogger Brian recently wrote about again on the Coffee Spot.

This post is rather more personal than usual but I wanted to write down some thoughts during these most uncertain COVID-19 times. Normal coffee- and travel-post service to resume...at some point, I hope.

“I never realised you were so into football,” a colleague said to me last year. It was a fair point: although I had mentioned the game and my team — Wolverhampton Wanderers — periodically over the five years we’d been working together, I'd also been inflicting my updates on my non-football-following co-workers with increasing frequency.

After a bit of culture — coffee and otherwise — in Wellington, it was time to get back into the great outdoors. I almost didn’t come to Queenstown, but everyone I spoke to told me I was mad to come to New Zealand and not visit the South Island, so I ended up booking three nights in the self-proclaimed ‘adventure capital’ of the world. There had been snow overnight — very late in the season as it’s almost summer — and the landing into Queenstown Airport was beautiful, with the mountain range known as The Remarkables looking particularly spectacular with more than a dusting of snow on top.

Of all the places on my Australia and New Zealand itinerary, Byron Bay was the one I was considering dropping if I felt I was being over-ambitious. It wasn't that I didn't want to visit but one of the main reasons for going there is the wonderful beach with sand so soft it squeaks between your toes and world-class surfing. I've been to great beaches before, though, and they don't have the uniqueness of Melbourne's coffee scene, for example, or the Great Barrier Reef, the Daintree Rainforest, or of Sydney.

When I was much younger and my dad was going through a golf phase, he would sometimes take my brother and me with him to the local driving range. I would work my way through a bucket of balls, hitting them into the abyss — too much power and not enough control was always my problem. It's an issue that is exacerbated on crazy golf courses where my solution is to whack the ball as hard as I can and hope for the best.


Despite my lack of skill, I was, however, very excited when my brother managed to acquire a batch of tickets for Swingers, a 1920s-themed crazy golf venue hidden away underground near the foot of the Gherkin. We went on a sweltering evening last week; I hadn't done my research and had assumed it would be outside with views of The City and, more importantly, a breeze but in fact it was indoors, underground and a little too warm. That said, we had a fantastic night so I would definitely recommend trying to get tickets (they keep about half of tickets for walk-ins but you can book online here). A game costs £13.


While we waited for our tee-off time, we hung out at the central club house bar. The cocktail menu was seriously impressive, with most cocktails costing £9–11. I started with a salted maple pecan butter flip (rum, egg whites and, of course, salted maple pecan butter syrup), which was rather sweet but very tasty. After our game, I opted for the more seasonally appropriate passion fruit julep, which was delicious and refreshing and came with half a passion fruit balanced precariously on top of the crushed ice. Both drinks were expertly mixed.



There are also several street-food vendors in the building: I had a hard time choosing between Pizza Pilgrims and Patty & Bun, but ended up choosing the latter as I eat there less often. Slightly confusingly, you order all food at the central bar and are then given a ticket with a number on it. When your number turns red on one of the many monitors, you can collect your food from the vendor. "It's just like Argos," one of my friends said. It is more convenient for groups, though, once you know the system. I had the 'Colin Montgomery' (£10) — a burger with bacon, lettuce, ketchup, special sauce and — bien sûr — Montgomery cheddar. It came perfectly medium rare and was juicy, messy and bloody delicious.




Finally, it was golf time. Our group of seven was split into a group of three and a group of four, so we had a girls' team and a guys' team. There are two different nine-hole courses at Swingers, The Lighthouse and The Windmill, and we were playing on the former. It was pretty busy on the course — the staff to try to space groups out but there are inevitable bottlenecks, and it seemed like there were a few too many 'caddies' on hand to take drinks orders given the available space.



I was doing OK — getting par on two holes and even a birdie on one hole — with my standard strategy of hitting the ball as hard as I could; sadly, my ability to close was less successful and I ended up taking six shots to complete a hole that I could have done in three.

Still, it was the final hole that was my undoing: a doughnut-shaped spiral with a central sandpit that had no protective ridge to stop the ball falling in. My ball went straight into the sand and in an ill-advised attempt to chip it out, I ended up hitting my sister-in-law with it (she was fine) and spraying everyone with sand. This put me in second place in our group of four by one point (shot?), which was a bit of a shame. We all had a great time, though, and I would definitely like to have another game.




We stayed on for another drink and then I decided to walk off my burger by heading home on foot. It was nice to walk through The City by night and then it turned out that Tower Bridge was closed to traffic after a nasty accident, which meant I had a rare glimpse of my local river crossing without the cars — a somewhat eerie experience.


Swingers. 8 Brown’s Buildings, London, EC3A 8AL (Tube: Bank or Aldgate). Website. Twitter. Instagram.

Every underdog has his day — that could well be the tagline for Eddie the Eagle. Dexter Fletcher's new film about the life of the British ski-jumper Eddie Edwards never really surprises, but its charm and a strong central performance from Taron Egerton won me over nonetheless.

The film opens in 1973 when a young Eddie (Tom Costello Jr.) announces his lofty intentions of becoming an Olympian despite not being any good at sport. "Frankly, Eddie, you will never be Olympic material," his father (Keith Allen) tells him. His mother (Jo Hartley) is more supportive, though, and by the early 1980s, Eddie has become a moderately successful downhill skier. After narrowly missing out on a spot on the British squad for the 1984 Olympics, he decides to take up ski-jumping instead. "It's still skiing — it's just a bit higher," he says, with his characteristic optimism.

Qualifying for the Olympics as a British ski-jumper is much easier as there was no British team and thus no competitors, although Eddie still has to jump a minimum distance in a recognised competition. As such, he heads off to a German training facility to practice and train with some of the world's best jumpers, including the legendary Matti 'Flying Finn' Nykänen (Edvin Endre). Unusually, actually, it's the Scandinavians who are the baddies: they think he is a joke and try to scare him away from the facility — and the sauna.

Eddie soon realises that he faces some rather substantial stumbling blocks; notably, "how do you land?" He manages to land the 15-metre jump first time ("what a doddle!") but the 40-metre jump proves a more formidable challenge. Luckily, help is on hand in the form of Bronson Peary (Hugh Jackman), a washed-up former ski-jumper turned alcoholic, who grudgingly agrees to become Eddie's coach, realising that it is the path of least resistance — and that the tenacious young jumper is likely to seriously injure himself without training. The Scandis dub the pair the 'sober fool' and the 'drunken coward' but the unlikely duo make a surprisingly good team and before long, Calgary 1988 is within Eddie's grasp. But even if he makes it to the Winter Olympics, will the world ever see him as anything more than a joke?

Although I had heard of Eddie the Eagle, I wasn't familiar with his story before I saw Fletcher's film — the real Eddie Edwards has also said that only about 10% is based on his life. Nevertheless, you know where the film is going right from the start. Even the music is predictable: the jolly synth-pop soundtrack builds up nicely throughout the film until of course Van Halen's Jump plays during the climax. None of this matters, though: we Brits love a good underdog story and Eddie the Eagle is an entertaining and uplifting film. No, you won't be using too many brain cells, but Egerton's Eddie is a sweet and plucky character whom you can't help but like. In this film, he reminded me a little of a young Matt Damon. The contrast between Egerton's cheerful Eddie and Jackman's dour Bronson works very well too and there's a great cameo from Christopher Walken.

All in all, Eddie the Eagle is a fun feel-good-film that probably isn't going to win any Olympic gold medals for film-making, but is a likeable and charming contestant.

King's Cross is, as I often mention, an area in a constant state of flux. When it was announced last year that they were going to create an outdoor swimming pond among the building sites, most people at my office — a mere hop, skip and a jump along York Way — thought it was scarcely more likely to materialise than the Regent's Canal 'LidoLine'.


However, the doubters were proven wrong and the King's Cross Pond Club opened up in May. I've been meaning to visit, but a) I've been pretty busy and b) I've been waiting for the weather to warm up. Despite years of enforced Christmas Day swims in the Mediterranean, I am a total wuss when it comes to cold water. I checked the weather forecast for last week, though, and Friday was set to be sunny and warm for the whole day, so I booked in for a post-work slot, figuring I would give the pond the maximum chance to warm up.


The pond is located on Stable Street, about five or ten minutes' walk north of King's Cross Station (walk up King's Boulevard, cross the road and the canal, and then cut across Granary Square). There's a grassy picnic area just outside — or you can pop into the adjacent Skip Garden Café. Various informational signs tell you about the history and ecology of the pond, and there's also a viewing tower that you can climb up to enjoy the aerial view.



My ticket, which I booked online, was £6.50, but there are cheaper tickets for less popular slots. They only let a limited number of swimmers in per day to allow the pond to 'breathe' in between, so it is worth booking in advance. Inside, there are a few minimalist changing rooms and lockers; they lend padlocks, but had run out by the time I got there, so I just kept my things next to the pond. There are mandatory cold showers — as the lifeguard told me, the showers were the coldest part!


At 6 pm on a sunny Friday, there were were a few people swimming and bobbing in the pond and several more lounging near the water on the sun loungers. Naturally, being me, I wanted to leap into the water, but the lifeguard told me I had to do it from the top step, which made it hard to get momentum. I like to think the expression on my face reflects the intense concentration of trying to take off rather than my trepidation about the impending coldness.



And yes, it was pretty cold in the water. Being able to jump in made it much better than having to wade, although there are tiered steps at the shallow end. The pond is kidney shaped and not entirely suited to a lot of people doing laps, but most people were only really swimming enough to take the chill off. The water was clear and super-clean — they don't use chemicals; instead, they purify the water using submerged water plants that filter the water. The plants are kept in a separate section of the pond that you can't swim in, and the bottom of the swimming part is smooth and not at all muddy or slimy, so in that sense it isn't truly 'wild swimming', but I rather liked this artificial wildness.




After I'd done about 20 lengths, my fingers were starting to feel really frigid so I got out and lay in the sun for a while. I didn't fancy a cold shower, so I just got changed and headed home for a hot shower instead.


The King's Cross Pond Club is likely to be around for two years, although I suspect that if it stays open during the winter, it won't be quite so much fun — unless they turn it into a hot tub! You can book tickets here.

King's Cross Pond Club. 20 Canal Reach, London, N1C 4BE (Tube: King's Cross). Website. Twitter.

I had hoped to catch Bennett Miller's new movie Foxcatcher at the London Film Festival last year, but as that didn't work out, I had to wait until Friday night to see it. With numerous award nominations and a win at Cannes, I had high hopes for the film, which tells the based-on-a-true-story of two brothers who won Olympic gold medals for wrestling and who are recruited by a multimillionaire philanthropist to join his wrestling training academy. However, the film left me lacking, despite good performances by some of the leads.

As the film opens, it is three years after Mark Schultz (Channing Tatum) won his gold medal at the 1984 Olympics and he looks like a has-been. He lives in a run-down apartment, has few friends and lives in the shadow of his older brother Dave (Mark Ruffalo), who also won gold in Los Angeles. We see the two brothers helping each other warm up and then sparring — a beautifully choreographed scene — and it is obvious they care a great deal about each other. But life is treating Dave, who has a wife (Sienna Miller) and two young children and who enjoys his coaching work, more kindly.

Then out of the blue, Mark gets a call from a "John E. duPont — of the duPont family" (Steve Carell) who invites him to come to live on duPont's extensive Pennsylvania estate where he will pay him to continue his wrestling training on duPont's Foxcatcher team as they prepare for the World Championships and then the Seoul Olympics.

The offer is too good to refuse, although Mark cannot persuade Dave to join him at Foxcatcher Farm. It becomes immediately clear that duPont and his elderly mother (Vanessa Redgrave) are rather unusual. The main house resembles a cross between the White House and something out of Flowers in the Attic, but with the support of duPont and the team, Mark takes the gold medal at the World Championships, and begins to develop a sort of friendship with his coach and mentor — at times, the relationship has echoes of Behind the Candelabra, although these are sporadic and inconsistent.

duPont clearly has mommy issues: he is so desperate to impress his mother, who won't even let him put a cup he wins in the best cabinet in the trophy room because she considers wrestling to be "a low sport". Mark too begins to suffer in the company of duPont and loses self-esteem and focus. duPont is, however, eventually able to convince Dave and his family to move to the estate so that Dave can become the team's assistant coach and support his brother as Mark prepares for the Olympic trials.

Foxcatcher is based on Mark Schultz's memoir of this period in his life. I tried to avoid spoilers and had no idea what happened; indeed, if you don't already know the outcome, you shouldn't try to Google the story ahead of time. That being said, I didn't find the ending particularly surprising, not least because the film progresses so slowly that I knew that something had to be up. I read that the original script was four hours long and although it now clocks in at 2h15, they could easily have told the same story more concisely by cutting another 30 minutes from the run time. There are elements of The World According to Garp and of Warrior, although Foxcatcher isn't as compelling as either and isn't really about wrestling — well, not just wrestling — anyway.

Carell and Ruffalo are both very good — they and an under-used Sienna Miller are nearly unrecognisable in this film — and Tatum does a decent job as the troubled jock, but I still left the cinema feeling very meh about the film. I was curious to know what would happen, because it was obvious that something major would happen, but it just didn't engage me as much as I had hoped, especially given the fascinating story on which it is based and given how much I enjoyed Bennett Miller's previous film Moneyball.

It has been dry in London for weeks, so of course it started to rain on the evening we had booked tickets for the Canary Wharf ice rink. It was, at least, quite a mild evening and we all managed without the ponchos offered by the rink staff. I've been to the Somerset House ice rink a few times, but had heard good things about ice skating at Canary Wharf; plus, it's just a short hop on the Jubilee line from Bermondsey. I don't think I've been to Canary Wharf before, and found the underground shopping centre/food court adjacent to the tube station to be a little confusing — I was expecting there to be at least one sign to the rink, but sadly not. But if you head for Waitrose, and then go out through the ground-level doors, the rink is just opposite.

If you've booked tickets online, you don't need to queue outside; just head straight to the skate-hire station. While I waited for the others to arrive, I perused the bling for sale in the shop. Sadly, even though this is Canary Wharf, you don't get to skate in the sparkly, rhinestoned ice skate they have on display; just the regular boring blue skates.


The rink itself is a fairly decent size and has a little 'track' you can follow that takes you under the sparkling trees. This is a nice idea but we were there during the 6.30 pm slot when there were a lot of kids, so the track quickly became bottle-necked.


Skating among the skyscrapers gave the rink a Manhattan feel, though. You could almost be in New York — at the Rockefeller ice rink, if not the Wollman Rink. Although it was pretty busy, it wasn't quite as crowded as some of the more central ice rinks in London can get — next time, I'd probably opt for a later slot.



The other good thing about skating in Canary Wharf is that a wealth of dining options are available when you need some post-skating nourishment. Having skated past Wahaca about 300 times, we couldn't not go there, and a number of refreshing margs and, in my case, some delicious fish tacos, we were ready to take the tube back South of the River.


Canary Wharf ice rink. Canada Square Park, Canary Wharf, E14 5AB (Tube: Canary Wharf). Tickets are £13.50 for adults and £9 for children (plus a 50p booking fee). Website.

It's been a bit non-stop since I got back from holiday—already over two weeks ago—and last weekend was no exception. After failing to find the Arrested Development frozen banana stand, which was supposed to be in London until 21 May, but which disappeared on Thursday, we stayed in on Friday night and made macaroons. Well, most of us watched macaroons being made and ate macaroons, which was just as much fun.

Yes, we have no banana stand in London today.

On Saturday morning, I went running and then it was time to finish off painting my living room and bedroom. Each room had a statement wall when I moved in last October, and I finally got around to dealing with them. A few weeks ago, I removed the wallpaper and then I spent most of the bank holiday weekend painting over the dark red paint of the bedroom and replacing it with a pale plum colour. The statement wall in my living room is now a light sky blue. On Saturday, I just needed to do a few touch-ups; it isn't perfect, but painters are expensive, so I'm happy, and now I can finally put up some more pictures and mirrors.

My newly painted bedroom

Blue-sky living room thinking

After heading into W1 to do some errands, I hurried down to Herne Hill for another bridge night, which chalked up another victory to my six-month winning streak. I had initially thought that Sunday might be more relaxed, but my parents decided to come into town at short notice, so we went for coffee at Notes, followed by brunch at the Dean Street Townhouse. I've been to the Townhouse before for dinner, which was lovely, but it has a great, New Yorky, casual chic vibe at brunchtime. Although I wasn't drinking, I enjoyed a virgin cocktail (the Orchid with apple, ginger, pineapple and almond was delicious). I skipped a starter and went straight on to the Townhouse burger, with cheese and bacon. It wasn't medium rare, but that hardly mattered because the meat was so juicy and tender.

Brunch o'clock: Dean Street Townhouse burger and the chocolate peanut fondant

Then came my dilemma: I had 45 minutes to get to south-west London for a softball practice and the pudding I wanted (chocolate peanut fondant, natch) would take seven minutes to prepare. Regular readers will know of my inability to say no to a chocolate-peanut butter combo, so I ordered the pudding and ran to the bathroom to change, Clark Kent-style, into my sports kit. The fondant ended up taking 15 minutes, but was well worth the wait: rich, gooey chocolate, with a molten peanut butter centre, accompanied by peanut ice cream. Very naughty indeed.

I just about made it to practice in time, by which time the sunshine had disappeared. I've never played softball before, although I used to play a lot of rounders at school. As expected, I proved a much better batsman than fielder, and every muscle in my body is aching today, while my wrist display the bruises that demonstrate how hard I was hitting the ball. Of course I'll be going back for more!

The weather in London has been miserable this weekend, although relative to the Nemo-induced chaos in the US northeast, I probably shouldn't complain too much. The rain certainly didn't stop play here, and I've been pretty busy. On Friday night, I went to a ceilidh at Cecil Sharp House for a friend's birthday, which was good fun, although took me back to my Nowheresville days with the high ratio of nerds to civilians.

Lomo-ed shot of St Paul's on Saturday morning

Yesterday, my parents came into town, which meant I had to get up to go running relatively early. It was grey, cold and rainy, but I had a good run, motivated by the knowledge that I would be stopping by St John's outpost on Druid Street on my way home for a custard doughnut and some sourdough bread for lunch. I spent the afternoon shopping with my parents in Covent Garden and Soho. I hadn't been into the West End for several weeks and was surprised how busy it was for a rainy, cold February. The parents were staying at the Royal Automobile Club on Pall Mall, so while they went to get changed for dinner, I sat and read the papers in one of the lounges, surrounded by the usual smartness and decorum.

Did someone say "doughnuts"?

I took my parents back to Mele e Pere in Brewer Street for dinner, as a thank you for helping me move into my (now not so) new flat. We had hoped to have a pre-dinner cocktail at Hawksmoor on Air Street, but their bar was full of people waiting to dine, so we had our aperitif at Mele e Pere instead. I didn't get the chance to check out their list of wittily named cocktails last time, and although I was tempted by the Don't Be So Cocchi and the Down the Apples, in the end I orded an Autentico Sour, with Galliano, gin, sours and ginger. It was really good. Papa was very impressed by the home-made vermouth, with Mele e Pere's special blend of botanicals.

Assorted treats at Mele e Pere

Once we got to our table, the food was great too. We shared a selection of small plates to start—the arancini and the San Daniele ham being the standouts for me—and then I had the roast baby chicken with roast peppers and a side of fries. With hindsight, I should have ordered a salad instead of the chips, as with the starters and bread, I had had plenty of carbs. The chicken was delicious, though: juicy, tender and very more-ish. Papa's lamb and Maman's pollock were equally successful. I was too full for a pudding, really, but Papa and I managed to share a chocolate fondente, topped with vanilla ice cream and a dusting of pretty, pink praline crunch. Yum!

Yes, they do have cars at the Royal Automobile Club. Well, a car.

This morning, it was time to work off last night's excesses and I joined my parents at the Royal Automobile Club for a morning workout, pounding the treadmill and then sweating it out in the Turkish baths. I haven't been to the gym at the RAC for a while and compared to the Peckham Pulse, whose facilities I have been using recently, the contrast is even more striking. Somewhat counter-productively, we then had a big breakfast in the club: scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage and pastries. Unsurprisingly, I was full again soon.

My original plan for Friday night was to go to a local pub with a fellow SE16 resident, but instead he suggested we go The Arch, a climbing wall and bouldering centre in our hood. The Arch used to be based near London Bridge, but I think the location had to be closed due to all of the building work and chaos that is going on in that area. This is fine by me, as the Biscuit Factory location is a lot closer.

Yay, I reached the top (of a very easy problem)

Some of my co-workers and a few of my school friends are big climbing geeks and it was always something I'd been interested in pursuing, but other than the odd rock-climbing and abseiling outings on residential activity weeks at school, I never quite found the time. After one session on Friday, though, I think I might have got the bug. There are a lot of different routes laid out on the walls within the centre, demarcated by different coloured hand-holds. We soon realised that we could do most of the "problems" on the black route (the easiest one), and some of the problems on the tiger route (the second easiest). There was one tiger problem we got stuck on for ages and eventually I worked out how I could do it, but by then my arms were a little weak and my right hand was pretty swollen from when I smacked it against the wall, so I admitted defeat. The floor is very soft and cushioned, so it's usually fine to jump down, even from the top.

This is hardcore: some of the "upside down routes"

For a while, we watched some of the more experienced climbers completing some of the trickier routes, including some of the upside down ones. We had a quick go, when not too many people were watching, but I wasn't very good. Although I do a lot of running, my upper-body strength is pretty poor, but if I start doing a little more bouldering, hopefully it will improve enough for me to do some of the more challenging problems. The Arch also does a series of drop-in classes for improvers, which I'm thinking of doing. The problems provide a bit of a mental challenge as well as a physical one: working out exactly which order you need to place each hand and foot on the holds and which way you need to orientate them in order to be able to reach the next stage. Much as I love running, this was a much more fun and sociable work-out, and I got a real buzz from completing some of the more difficult problems I attempted.

Stylish shoes and (not very obviously) injured hand

The Arch. The Biscuit Factory (accessed via the Drummond Road end of Clement's Road), London, SE16 4DG (Tube: Bermondsey). Admission is £10 at peak times and shoe hire is £3.

Regular readers will be aware that I have a tragic genetic condition: the chronic, if low-level, affliction of supporting a consistently disappointing football team, Wolverhampton Wanderers. My family are from the Black Country and although for some time, there was a Wolves–Walsall divide among us, we are now all Wolves supporters, in name, at least. We used to go to matches quite often but I haven't been for a few years. Last year, though — the last season in the team's latest run in the top flight — my parents had season tickets and so we all went along to watch them play Charlton today. We even got the same seats they had last year, although as they were right at the back near the goal line, this probably wasn't too difficult.

One girl, two shirts; our stand, the Billy Wright stand

After a morning visiting various grandparents, we had lunch at Beatties, the local department store whose cafe is decorated in Old Gold and black, the team colours. I had some mediocre fish and chips and then it was match time. I don't like wearing old gold, orange or yellow, but had been parent-pressured into wearing a spare home shirt of my mum's. Luckily, there were plenty of retail opportunities at the Wolves Megastore, where I managed to acquire an away shirt in a more flattering shade of teal.

Clockwise from top left: quality meerkat merchandise in the Megastore, match-day programme, Wolves pie, fun & games in the programme

As for the match, well, it was pretty standard Wolves fare. We were doing well, scored early, dominated the first half, and then fell apart in the second half, letting in a goal, and failing to take advantage of a number of shots on target. Charlton were playing dirty: they made 12 fouls compared to our five. I was slightly disappointed that the stands were relatively empty—the gate was about 22,000 out of a 36,000 capacity, but since the relegation from the Premier League, attendance has dropped considerably. We were next to the rowdy South Bank, behind the goal, and I was hoping for some good songs or chants from them but morale seemed pretty low; no one really seems to care what happens now that we are only in the Championship. There wasn't much cheering and there was a mass exodus from around the 85-minute mark.

Goal! (Yes, ours: Sako, 12 mn)

It was a fun day, anyway, although very chilly in the stadium, and maybe the experience will encourage me to pay a bit more attention to my team's performance this season. And now that I'm a south Londoner, maybe it was for the best that we didn't win, given that I was still wearing my Wolves shirt when I got off the bus in SE16 this evening.

Today represented my last day of participation in London 2012 activities. Last month I watched the Olympics opening night ceremony, I attended some women's volleyball and I went to check out the paraphernalia on the river, and today I finally got to go to the Olympic Park. It was great!

Check my colour-co-ordination

We had tickets to the morning athletics session and although I knew we would be getting a mix of track and field, heats, finals and victory sessions, I wasn't sure exactly which events we would see. In the end, there turned out to be a lot of shot put and discus--who knew there were so many different possible shot put categories?--some men's long jump and a few different track events. One of the most fun events to watch was the heats for the men's T11/13 4x100m relay (see the video below). These athletes have visual impairments and so some run with a guide (who will usually be the one who passes over/receives the baton) but even so, making the change-overs requires a huge amount of skill and needless to say, the crowds were asked to be quiet until the final change-over had been completed. We also saw some British ladies doing well in the heats of the T37 200m, and we watched David Weir storm to victory in his heat of the T54 800m, before we saw him pick up his gold medal for last night's performance in the 1500m. If you are unsure of what the home advantage means for Team GB, you only have to sit in the Olympic stadium when any British athlete is competing to find out.



The field events took a lot longer to complete--they only got about halfway through the F54/55 discus final by the end of our three-hour session. The athletes compete from a sitting position and so have to get settled into place, before taking their three turns one after the other. The coolest part of this event was the little remote control Minis that return the discuss to the athletes at the end of each turn. In some Paralympics events, distances and times have to be weighted depending on the severity of the athlete's disability, which left the odd situation of the athlete who was placing second breaking a world record, but the first-placed athlete not breaking the record. On a final throwing note, Assunta Legnante was hugely impressive as the winner of the women's F11 (visual impairments) shot put contest.

Give me an 'R', give me a 'U', give me an 'N'

In spite of my relative ambivalence about the London Olympic Games the last time I wrote about them, in the past week I have done the following: attended an opening ceremony party and participated in an accompanying drinking game (and enjoyed it); ordered tickets to some athletics at the Paralympic Games; watched about eight hours of women's gymnastics qualifiers; developed some serious Games envy when hearing about great tickets other people got; and finally, tonight, attended a couple of preliminary women's volleyball games.

Patriotic-ish outfit of the day (L) and in position at Earl's Court (R)

The whole experience was pretty painless as well as being fun. My Tube journey to Earl's Court didn't take any longer than on a normal Friday evening and there were no queues to get into the venue; nor were the security checks particularly onerous. This meant I arrived almost an hour before the 8 pm start time. This was lucky given that there were very few water fountains and I had to queue for over 45 minutes to fill up my bottle. I bet the sponsors sabotaged the water pressure. I got my revenge by eating a KitKat Chunky in front of the Cadbury sign.

Once I got in and found my seat, I was pleased to see that I had a good view of the court; I was pretty high up but almost at the centre of the back of the court. Despite talk of too many empty seats at Olympic events, the stadium was pretty full and there was a great atmosphere. The first match was Team USA vs Serbia and, as expected, it wasn't much of a contest. Although the USA made a slow start in the first set, they convincingly took that set and the following two to win the game. In the second game, Italy played Algeria and although this was a little more evenly matched, Italy won in straight sets.

All's fair in love and volleyball (top), technical time-out, i.e. court sweeping (bottom)

It was interesting to see the differences between the US team and the others. I don't think I noticed a single serving fault in the US team, for example, whereas the others hit several serves into the net and sent several long. I was also surprised how few of the serves were jump serves. I used to play volleyball for my university team and I know how hard jump serves are, but I thought that at this level there might be more of them. Some of the tallest players, including USA's Simona Gioli, have the luxury of being able to lightly toss the ball up and casually send it soaring over the net; others' rely on their consistency over their power. Serving was actually one of my secret weapons when I played. My overarm serve was fine but I had a super-fast underarm serve with hella topspin on it, which won me a fair few aces over the years, not least because my opponents never expected it. I was also pleased that even the national teams do the same warm-up we used to do before every match.

L: Italy in royal blue and Algeria in white; R: USA in navy, Serbia in white

One of the things that most confused the audience was the libero position. Why is she wearing a different colour top? / I think she's the captain or Maybe they ran out of shirts. I used to play libero, a specialist defense player who can freely switch in and out of the game as needed. Basically, their job is to get all the difficult shots that come over the net and to back up the blockers in case they can't block a spike. In most sports, I hate defensive positions but when you are 5'4ish, you don't have a lot of choice. Indeed, even in the national teams, the liberos tend to be of fairly average height.

Attack the block! USA/Serbia (T), Italy/Algeria (B)

I had a really good time tonight--it reminded me of how much I used to love volleyball and how much I miss playing, even if I don't miss the bruised knees or getting volleyballs in my face. Everyone was having a good time and in the second match started to cheer on Algeria, who had fewer supporters in the crowd. The emcee organized a couple of karaoke numbers and other activities to stir up some energy; I found these a little awkward but unlike many of the attendees who got their tickets because it was the only Olympic ticket available, I really enjoy watching volleyball.


Here's a video I took of what ended up being one of the longest rallies of the USA/Serbia game:



Getting home wasn't too bad, either: it didn't take too long to get out of the venue and then I got a bus straight back to NoMaRo. For £30, it was a great, entertaining night: I got to see two matches and some brilliant volleyball, and I got to go to the Olympics. Hooray! If any volleyball tickets become available, don't be put off by the fact that it's not one of the major sports and that it's not in the Olympic Park: I'd highly recommend snapping them.