Hi, all, and thanks to those who've had the patience to pop back, even though we haven't been here to update. Never mind all that now, though, as we try to catch up with being at the centre of the universe.

First of all, Athens. Everything is finished, and it's like living in a city that has gone through fifty years of development in five. I'm sure you've all seen pics, but the city is decorated in green, orange and blue banners, there are foreign tourists everywhere, and a real international buzz about it. Away from the centre, it's almost eerily quiet, as if far more locals than usual have gone away for their August break.

Secondly, volunteering. I did my first day's work as an Olympic volunteer on Wednesday - for the opening ceremony dress rehearsal. I'm working with spectator services in the operational area (the going in and going out bit). I got trained in the morning and I was working in the afternoon. Basically, I was a human turnstile. I worked as a 'pacer', the person who makes sure that the spectators go through the security check one by one. A humble role, but someone's gotta do it. :>) It was great to be so close to everything, but also a bit frustrating to be able to hear what was going on and see some of the lighting effects but not actually get to see what was happening.

Still, we all now know what I was missing. We had a few friends round for the opening ceremony, a couple of whom were in it - they were part of the boiler-suit-clad human fencing when the athletes paraded. The general consensus was that the ceremony was fantastic, and it was nice to see some imagery of pre-classical Greece, which can tend to dominate most people's ideas of what ancient Greek history was like. When the flame was lit, we rushed onto the roof, where a dozen people had set up a TV to watch the ceremony with the stadium as live backdrop. We watched the stadium blaze in fireworks, as you can see from the pics. (I was asked to work but I told them that I couldn't really do anything until after Daniel goes back to the UK, so my next shift is on the 18th.)

And what about Kenteris and Thanou? In case you missed it, they are the two leading Greek sprinters who missed a drugs test, had a rather odd motorbike accident without witnesses, and now have been withdrawn from the Olympics pending investigation. Hmmm. We worked out a worst case scenario - they were on 'roids, bolted in panic and came up with this faked motorbike accident to cover it up, buying a few doctors to provide cover. We then tried to come up with a best case scenario, but it turned out to be just the same as the worst case scenario. Oh, dear.

We've got tickets for the tennis later today, so check back for a report and more pics.

To the tennis last night for the second time. Not that any of us are huge tennis fans, but it's definitely great value for money - up to 6 hours of tennis for just 20 euros. We were on centre court and watched Venus Williams and Andy Roddick win their matches. The Williams match was a bit one-sided, but the Roddick-Haas match was great since they're so evenly matched. Roddick won in the end 3-6 6-4 9-7.

But I wanted to complain about tickets, really. Both times I ordered the tickets over the internet and then went to Alpha Bank branches to pick them up. The first time I queued for 2 hours 20 minutes and the second time for about an hour. And they were both really short queues. Every single person took 5-10 minutes with a conversation something like this:

'I want to know what tickets you have for the men's weightlifting final that don't cost more than 10 euros. Sold out? Oh, well what do you have for the 19th? Not really interested in judo. Let me see. I suppose I could try the skeet shooting. How much are they? Okay. Now let's look at the 20th...etc...etc'

All that information is available online - but I was the only person I saw who had bought them that way. Each time it took me about 30 seconds to hand over a piece of paper, show my passport and sign, and walk out with my tickets. The information age is definitely creating a two-tier society - those who lumber along and those who have to wait in line behind them. And, organisers, why don't you have a fast track window for those of us who're saving you work and time?

And while I'm ranting, I might as well take the opportunity to confront beach volleyball. Beach volleyball? An Olympic sport? Do me a favour. Why not beach tennis? Or swingball? Or frisbee? Or beach bowls? At this competition, I hear, the organisers have provided some kind of cheerleader/pole dancing entertainment between bouts and the players have complained about it. They say it takes away from the dignity of the sport, although the real reason is that they're jealous because the cheerleaders get to wear smaller bikinis.

I'm off to do a volunteering shift this evening, from about 5 till midnight, I think, and I hope to learn the rest of my schedule then. I'll be back to let you know how I get on, but in the meantime I'll leave you with a question. Why is there no squash in the Olympics?

I've now done a couple of shifts and I thought I'd talk you through a typical day to give you an idea of exactly what all those people in Olympic corporate livery are doing. So, here's what happened yesterday.

I was scheduled to work from noon to 6pm, so I arrived at noon and checked in. Then, all volunteers go over to the staff break area where they are briefed on what the main events of the day are and are then taken away to their various areas by team leaders. There seems to be one team leader for about 3 or 4 volunteers, depending on the exact station. Yesterday I did two things: standing by the Neratziottisa Station exit, helping spectators with queries and working the Neratziottisa entrance, checking tickets, etc. It involves a lot of standing around chatting to other volunteers, punctuated by the odd bit of action. Yesterday's action included:

1) A group of Italian women who barely spoke English looking for the right bus. I whipped out my maps, pointed out which bus they needed to get, indicated the direction they needed to go in and they set off, arguing amongst themselves, before stopping after about ten yards, turning round and going in the opposite direction - I think on the grounds that that bus stop was closer. I hope they made it.

2) An American couple asking where the Today programme studio was, being shown and then complaining that all the other volunteers had got it wrong and how disappointing that was. Oh, well. You can't please everybody. In fact, for things like that volunteers are pretty much expected to pick it up by themselves just by being familiar with the area. And for those of us who are not American, the fact that a breakfast TV show is filming somewhere is not necessarily the first thing on our minds.

3) A couple turning up with tickets for the previous day. Bummer. They'd just got confused about the dates. Still, rules is rules. Sorry. They hovered around sheepishly for a moment, so near and yet so far, then wandered off. I quite admired them for not breaking into an 'it's your fault' row immediately. Maybe they did once the shock had worn off.

The rest was sundry ticket-checking, spectator-directing and sun-avoiding until time to go home. The day before, I'd had a stint in the high chair with a megaphone, welcoming and directing traffic. It felt quite cool to be able to do it in both Greek and English, until I realised that the Greeks do that all the time.

On a slightly different note, there is one area that is definitely standing out as a bit below par. The catering. There are lots of 'cantinas' inside the venue, which are tent-like things with Coke fridges full of fizzy drinks. The menu consists of pork souvlaki (kebabs), hot dogs, gyros (large rotating pork cylinder that bits are cut from), ham and cheese sandwiches, cheese pies and crisps. Now maybe I wasn't expecting the array of stalls selling Chinese, Thai and international cuisine that Sydney apparently had, but this really is a bit pathetic, even by the standards of Greek fast food, which are not particularly high. As one of the team leaders said to me, 'They've destroyed the gyros!'.

For a global sporting event, the food is worse than you'd expect down your local village egg and spoon race. If you a) are vegetarian, b) are Muslim or c) have more than two taste buds in your head, then forget it. And they have the cheek to stop you bringing food and drink into the venue so that you're forced to eat this rubbish. The staff get a free meal with a better selection - Greek salad, pasta salad, yoghurt - but the spectators get pretty short shrift.

I wonder if it's anything to do with the fact that the only other food outlet in the place is a huge McDonald's?

So, that's a long-held sporting ambition satisfied, with almost no time spent in training. :>) I was there in the Olympic stadium to watch the men's 100 metre final. Ever since I was a kid, watching the Montreal Olympics, I've always thought that that would be the absolute pinnacle of spectatorship for me, and so it proved to be.

The Athens sprint was arguably the best 100m race in history. In 1991, in the World Championship final in Tokyo, 6 men went under 10 seconds, with Carl Lewis winning in a time of 9.86s. On Sunday night, only 5 men went under 10 seconds, but for the first time in history, 4 went under 9.9 seconds, with Justin Gatlin winning in 9.85s.

I think the reason it appeals to me is the same reason that athletics as a sport appeals. It's the purity of here's 100 metres, it's the first one to get down the other end, now go. I remember the excitement of Alan Wells winning in 1980. Who remembers that? A Scot won the Olympic 100 metres! Can you begin to imagine that happening today? It's hard enough trying to imagine a white man even making the final these days. (That was Scotland's last Olympic track and field gold, by the way. And the guy didn't even use starting blocks until the Olympics organisers made them compulsory that year! Four years later, the Americans were back and on home soil, and Wells didn't make it to the final.) Anyway, it was a great night, and a wonderful atmosphere in the stadium. A bit frustrating to be a Brit, though, with Team GB consistently failing to qualify. And Philips Idowu, touted as a possible medal hope in the triple jump, failed to make a legal jump. Forgive me if this seems harsh...but come on! I could've done that. Four years training not to even hit the board right? Luckily, few British athletes ever give up their day job.

And then I spent the hottest part of today checking tickets and pointing the way. I think it's a good thing the Olympics only lasts two weeks, because now it's starting to feel like a job. :>) Still, they had hot food in the staff canteen for once. Some round, brown discs that the serving woman called 'beef' and some lighter round discs that she called 'pork', with rice and mixed vegetables. I went for the 'beef', and despite the fact that it had only the most tenuous of connections with a cow, it made a pleasant change from sandwiches.

Maybe now would be a good time to point out something about tickets. I've been working as a 'pacer' - the person who check the tickets as people enter the stadium and make sure they go through security one at a time. Now, hands up everyone who thinks that 'checking tickets' means catching a glimpse of something vaguely the right shape and colour as it is waved through the air. The idea is not to ensure that you have something roughly ticket-like in your hand. The person needs to see the date, the sport, the venue and that it hasn't already been cancelled. Hands up also all those who think that showing one ticket with five other vaguely ticket-shaped things underneath is fine. I think the whole experience has convinced me of one thing that I was already fairly certain of - I'm just not built for dealing with the general public. 99% of people are great, and 1% complain to you that the other queue is moving faster. But when you've got a few thousand people coming through your gate, that's a lot of whining.

And whining is exactly what I'm going to stop doing now. It's a fantastic experience, and I've met some great people. Tomorrow, though, is a day off, and we're planning to go to a water park and swim off the drunken lunch we're planning to have. Remember, though, that swimming after consuming alcohol isn't considered safe, so don't try this at home. This is being performed by professionals.