All over bar the shouting

That's Mo, melting at the back...

I've been to the 'lympics. Guiltily, I've actually found myself at three different events in the last six days, although I did actually pay for the tickets twice - which is not entirely the point: I have friends and colleagues who would happily have thrown untold sums in a Stratford direction if only someone would let them in.  'Vaguely fortunate' was about the limit of my views on it, until last night, when I was first confronted with the inside of the Olympic Stadium and a commentator excitedly shrieking 'You guys have got the golden ticket!'. Last session of the athletics, the disappointment of a GBR 4x100 team that had managed to fail to qualify through cack-handed fumbling - again - and the fevered desperation of 80,000 people for a Mo Farah medal in the 5,000.  Which was never going to happen - the guy's knackered after a gold in the 10,000, most of the field have run faster than him this season and the British have a long history of climbing peaks from which to tumble in crushing disappointment.

And then, of course, he ONLY BLOODY WON AGAIN!

I've been to more than a few major sporting events. I've always said that nothing could ever top a last minute England try at Twickenham against France/Wales/any team from South of the Equator. Well this did. And it felt different too: Sit in the stand at Twickers and everyone's a rugby fan, everyone knows what that special moment is meant to feel like. Last night, it felt like the crowd was experiencing it for the first time, which they probably were in many cases. Al commented that women just don't have the same tribal experience of sport as many men do and I suspect that's much why it felt so special.

So. Inevitably. I took some pictures. Because personal snaps of this event will be like gold-dust in the future, mark my words.

The Olympic Park is all rather grey and incoherent and functional. Or it would be, were it not for the fantastic tidal waves of flowers doing their best to make it feel rather less so. Since my company had a lot to do with this, I feel rather proud. And functional is good, because functional at this scale is an incomprehensible achievement: The logistics associated with putting on a two week shindig to which the whole world is invited are staggering.  Everyone expected cock-ups. How could there not be cock-ups? There were no cock-ups. That makes me immensely proud too, just like all but the very most cynical of this little island nation.  Big, big comedown tomorrow, a Monday morning to beat them all. 

Let's hope the closing ceremony is somewhere in the region of almost as good as Danny Boyle's triumph of a kick-off. I am slightly worried about the Spice Girls. I've always been slightly worried about the Spice Girls.

The transport all worked. The volunteers were fantastic, in a very British way, with a totally brilliant mix of ageing white pensioners, formal and deferential Asians and hilarious young black guys cracking the crowds up. (On the walk home last night: 'Keep smiling people - West Ham is less than two hours away'. Made even funnier by the Americans who took them seriously.) If nothing else, it might all have helped dispel the teabag and bowler hat shaped lens through which much of the world still views us. Quietly competent, properly multi-cultural and a sense of humour so refined that only we get it. What's not to like about the Britain the world has peered into for the last two weeks?