Month: August 2024

I’m feeling pretty chill and massively lucky today. I can get swept up in nitty gritty. These ideas of obstruction that I’ve been putting here – I’m deliberately amplifying the tricky ones because that’s what we do. Roadkill, No-neck, The Voiceless Man – these guys are rare. Normally everything is absolutely fine. Today I went into three live sites carrying an absolutely lethal knife with a curved blade that. I had it in my pocket and was hip to have it confiscated, but no, I’m fine to have my vicious curved blade. I just can’t have an awkward bit of frame in each hand.

I’m checking out of my digs again. Managed to find a well priced place up the road for my last few nights. I’ve got into the swing of this now. I am sad to leave before it’s over, but I’ve brought in a friend who overlaps with my skillset while being totally different. I’m happy to know I can hand it to her. There’s a lot to think about, but we have a wonderful team. I’m about to start a job I thought might have happened before mum died. It’s happened now, some decades later. If I wasn’t going into it at long last, I’d stay. But I have to pull out and focus on my vocation. What a strange madness, my life. The experiences I’ve had recently, the sheer breadth of it… to be part of this international thing… Bilingual international driver and problem solver – and don’t get me wrong, I’m moaning about security because they slow me down. I always deliver. I’ve never had to come back full. Maybe that has involved arguments at the gate and then me expressing it here. Kes put the shits up me telling me he knows how to find this and reminding me it’s public. I forget that, and lately, as tonight, I’ve tried to just make sentences with one eye open and no memory of the day but for the high adrenaline bits when the usual box of tricks explodes.

I’m gonna sleep. Still loads to do. Well done Team GB,  punching hard still. I’ve been thrilled to here à Paris, part of the machine… xxx

It’s incredible what they’ve pulled off. Often at the end of the day I’m moaning into my blog, but actually this is wonderful insanity and it works much better than it should.

When I first realised that the whole of central Paris was going to be the Olympic Park I immediately worried that everything would be gridlock forever, but the judicious use of road closures and an overenthusiastic police force has actually led to things being possible despite throwing up problems for the likes of me. It’s fucking amazing what they have achieved. Literally incredible, but somehow by execution it can be believed. We threw our Olympics to Stratford. They just went and plonked it in all the central places. Scattered around this town in apartments and hotel rooms there are hundreds of people who barely if ever sleep because of this decision. Some of them ping around all over the place, others are more static. It’s normal for an event, no sleep. It’s the opposite of a toxic work culture though, as there’s a huge thread of positivity running through these bonkers sleepless teams.

These games are happening all around, built into temporary structures that complement and are augmented by the landmarks. I’m glad to be a weird cog in a machine like this. I’ve really come to know this town in a way I will never be able to duplicate. My routes are largely based on getting inside the police cordon and then going the wrong way down bus lanes waved on by smiling cops. Then I park up right next to the venue, between two police cars. And largely I walk in.

Today though, the clown show came to the accredited entrance. 4 long pieces of metal. Two humans on foot, both with Tools of the Trade stickers and full accreditation. But we were at INV. The beating heart of the clown show. Good Christ. What a bunch of absolute total idiots. One man in particular.

There were 4 people in the team we first met, and three of them with yellow hi-vis were happy to make no fuss. We had everything in order as always. But the man with no neck, first man we met at the gate, in his special red hi-vis… he wanted to obstruct. Oh god he desperately wanted it. His team were trying to overrule him, but he went with it anyway. He just wanted to block to block to block. So empty of thought. So stubborn. So French. This neckless man.

“He has TOT, it’s fine, he’s safe, it’s just metal,” tries the lady manning the xray. But Count no-neck … I guess in this country it gives him a superpower as he is guillotine proof. He can be as unreasonable as he likes. Still, he pushed the boundaries of unreasonable. Gold medal for France in stupid.

The metal we had could have put through the xray. I’ve put bigger things through, even in ALX. It could have gone round the side. Frankly we could have gone off record and slid it under some heras, then gone through security and picked it up, and no neck would have been playing candy crush.

I chose to try and go through officially knowing there should have been no obstruction. But again again again, just one idiot. And now one person has said no, everyone catches the no and once again I’m a terrorist. They were behaving as if a portable metal frame was deadly. I have an accreditation that means I can bring fucking weapons with me. Still he wouldn’t let me in with a few bits of metal. Idiot idiot idiot idiot idiot idiot idiot idiot idiot idiot idiot. I’m writing all of this not using copy paste. idiot idiot idiot idiot idiot idiot idiot idiot idiot idiot idiot idiot idiot idiot. My food has arrived. idiot idiot idiot idiot idiot idiot idiot idiot idiot idiot idiot. The man is an idiot. idiot idiot idiot idiot idiot. moron moron moron moron moron. idiot is faster to write. idiot idiot idiot. Man. Why would anyone anywhere give a man like this any form of power over anything? idiot

And so it escalated to P24 venue bosses, who are supposed to be able to sort this shit out. They’re the security company apparently. But the ones we meet don’t have a clue what it’s like on the ground, so with no fucking knowledge they use their own frame of reference to determine importance and I dunno because they are doing some sort of filming on the site and an athlete might be there, we can’t bring in a portable metal frame that Ffion spent ages painting this morning and that is needed to stop people walking into holes and can’t be delivered in whatever their fucking tiny van window is because there’s only one of me and, believe it or not, I have to sleep at some point and there’s plenty to do in the day as well as the night.

I tell him I’m carrying signs and I can tell he thinks that’s pointless. He’s putting his own subjective appraisal of relative importance ahead of actually just doing his job. Signs aren’t important, eh? On a massive public event, signs aren’t important… I want to make one that points at feckless neckless at INV and just says “idiot”. I’ll put it up myself. He doesn’t look like he moves much so it’ll likely be pretty accurate.

Eventually some unwilling staff from P24 show up. “Someone took in a tent the other night,” one of them says. (that was me). “This is the last time we help you.” “I fucking hope it isn’t mate, because if you obstruct us just because of your personal priority list or because a lumpish neckless idiot at your gate doesn’t like English people, then you’re obstructing the whole games. We are all pushing in the same direction here.” Also the tent the other night was a safety feature for a massive propane burner that I had got through there half an hour previously without the correct seals. The guys who are pretending to help me start fixating on the tent having come in at weird hours a week ago like it’s justification for their useless idiot at the gate being obstructive for no reason. Let’s overlook the explosive tank and burner they allowed me to drive in with a van where the paperwork wasn’t perfect.

New kings of the clowns, with the neckless man in red hi Vis lumped at the front, clueless and unfit and malicious and dumb.

An hour later, I met the ringmaster of the whole circus. Olivier. Nice to finally see the man with the whip. You might expect someone prone to accidentally tripping over, but actually he seemed reasonably well balanced and I heard no trombone while I was with him. I actually rather liked him. Damn. But … nobody can be totally on top of all the personalities involved when building a team, so I’m not particularly angry with him for having just opened a bag of potatoes for staff. But captain neckless couldn’t be overruled by his own team at INV. They all said “it’s fine, he has a TOT and a pass” but he was being the big man and he just wanted to obstruct. It was absurd, to the extent that I reckon I could have suggested to Olivier that he just fucking needs to be sent home. I didn’t. I wouldn’t. But … he does. He really does.

Just because I’m carrying things you can’t understand doesn’t mean I need to be prevented from doing my job. I’ve taken to using the pedestrian gates because the van gates are too buttoned up and full of the likes of no-neck fecklessmech. If the pedestrian gates start getting as obstructive as the van gates, I’m fucked. But my cargo could easily have been xrayed today. I honestly can’t understand what was happening with him. He wouldn’t put it through the xray. He just wanted to be an arse. I shook his hand when I left and tried to bury the hatchet, but that was just tactics for next time because I know you can’t fight stupid.

And then I sat with his CEO and we spoke about how incredible it has been to build these games into this town like this. They’ve achieved what I thought would be impossible. With sheer force of will and manpower, these games have gone ahead here in the heart of Paris. With incredible stadiums like the one at Champs de Mars, that blend with landmarks. It’s impossible, but they’ve done it. And I expect my work to be tricky, frankly, because I’m low status but high access. I need to go where the stuff is needed, and it can’t be predicted and nobody else is gonna do it in time. Every major event needs my role, sometimes in multiples.

It’s always nice to be flattered on your french, and I can’t read tone and nuance yet, but the CEO and I were cordial and I found him pretty relatable. He wants to come to the warehouse, which I don’t want. But I’ll just remain a point of contact for him. I tried to stash my fistful of upgrades when he got in the van. But actually he probably needs to know that this system they’ve all created is too obstructive. I am working for the event. His potatoes are working for the event.

As I left I tried to give the man with no neck a pep talk at INV, with his team, along these lines. “Maybe we all need to learn how to help each other, those of us who are clearly part of these games.”

I’m glad I didn’t tell the CEO he’s trying to build a house of cards with potatoes. I’m glad he was relatable. But Jesus fucking Christ on a bike who the fuck made it so fucking complicated for everyone? Or is it just for Doublet Wasserman? Like the batshit crazy plain clothes cop at BCY the other day moving me on who told me when I pointed at a great big artic unloading next to me “They are unloading useful things for disabled people!” Maybe I should lie. Or maybe P24 should get their head out of their own bum.

From my perspective, it’s Ali’s last day. He’s off home. He’ll be back before it’s over but I have some very high profile prancing to do so I can’t be involved in the paras so I won’t see him back. The games will continue. I just have to do a Shakespeare. From a high profile event to high profile theatre job. My existence is truly “blessed” right now in the annoying social media “punch that person right now” sense of the word. I can see the path back from both of these wonderful opportunities through time and work. It’s delightful to trace it. Carpe Diem, repeated.  Hey kids , remember, if you work as hard as you can at every opportunity, things tend to come back. Thank fuck. I love to give my al. It is powerful when that all is seen and received.

I mustn’t start doing Shakespeare at the games though. I’ve worked so hard at my craft outside this wondrous madness, but actually yes – I’ve also worked very hard to expand into this response driver type thing. Being useful is a pathology.

I’m probably one of the lowest profile workers in terms of these games, which is how I would always want it frankly as I’m not here to be big and clever. I’ve got to move things from place to place and respond. Don’t have to fill in any forms thank god. Apart from secure load, but that’s just for the potatoes to half look at before just doing what they would have done anyway. Largely I can exist free…

When I go up to the RSC I’m playing Lodovico in Othello – far from the lead, bien sûr, but the poshest person in the play. What a remarkable opportunity. There’s this thing where it is pretty much always the highest status living character who finishes the verse in a Shakespeare play. Then you might well have a bit of foolery and a jig and hey ho the wind and the rain, but the job is done. I finish the last verse line, and I’m sure you’ll all be inundated with that before long. Right now I’m just loving the balance of my existence, still weighted 100% towards Olympic consumables and making this madness work, but knowing I’m gonna have to be off book on day one etc. I’ll be here as long as I need to for a handover to the team, but I was always gonna have to pull out before the paras.

I’ve been up to the usual. Perhaps a little too jaded with van gates when it can go in by hand. I had to haggle with some dodgy fucker for a half empty propane can that was in his empties pile. It’s for a burner to apply a floor sign that has never been supplied in the right size. The burner comes with a gazebo – (We’ve got two so to keep track they both went to HDV). The burner only comes into play if it rains, which it won’t. If it does though, they can dry the road under the gazebos and apply the alu floor sign. So long as it doesn’t rain “too much” whatever that means.

Reassembling all this stuff has been a remarkable job, made all the more remarkable by the fact that apparently there’s a WhatsApp group called “Aluminium floor fuckery” that I’m not part of but which I’ve been instinctively problem solving for. I’ve coincidentally got everything into the right place in time by sheer fucking listening and being visible. But yeah, visible is my thing. When I first got involved in the Rosamund Pilcher stuff for German TV, Lutz was my point of contact. He was easy to contact and reference as he always wore a trilby. It’s a helpful identifier, it was my father’s, it is mine. One day I’ll get a monogrammed Locke and co version. But for now I’ll finish off the ex hats of beloved ancestors. Dad’s is parked, Peter’s is still under heavy use, one day I’ll justify the buy… And Lutz is mostly retired with his alpacas now, but fuck it, I’ll go hang out with him anytime and learn. When we meet our people, we know it.

First stop Yves de Manoir. It’s the hockey. “Anytime between 7 and 8,” I’ve been told and Curtis books me a pass for half seven, pleasantly late. Turns out security have decided last entry is at half six though, but thankfully they aren’t maniacs at YDM. They let me in – so long as I’m unloaded and out by 8am. It’s just a stack of pallets and bags, some tools – things for the derig. Soon all the stuff that we sent out will start to come back. My van is sealed. I always seal it now, even if I’m told I don’t need to, because if I’m not sealed someone’s gonna make me open the back and then they’ll make me carry everything to their x-ray, and then they’ll radio someone who isn’t there and then they’ll get me to wait or invent more problems, and I’ve got stuff to do.

I unload the pallets. I’m out by 8 and back on the road. Early drops are easier in this city than many cities – I can come home late in the Luton and park it on the verge opposite my window. Nobody regulates parking in this town it seems. People put their vehicles in places you’d never dream of leaving them normally. In London it’d cost you a fortune. In America it’d be impounded. Here it’ll just sit there until morning and you barely see one more badly parked van in a sea of badly parked vans. I’ll take all my forms and passes upstairs with me cos I’m paranoid and sleep two minutes from the van. Passes all go in my shoe so I don’t forget them. Out and straight to work in the am, usually remembering my lenses.

If it’s humanly possible I’m not gonna bother trying to get into the van gate unless my load literally can neither be carried or hauled onto a trolley. I did it this morning as those pallets would’ve been a tough carry. They’re thorough but reasonable at YDM. I might grow old waiting for some of the van gates to open, were I to wait. I’d sooner carry three heavy boxes around than try, half the time. I’ve grown jaded.

I’ve learned the location of pretty much all the logistics areas – not all, but most. Some of them have had to change halfway through the event, like the ALX drop which is now miles from the van gate and involves a flight of stairs, but they were kicked out of their tent. All their cardboard boxes have consequently munged in rain. Their stuff is going to come back messy and it’s not their fault. They’re working around it as well as they can. It’s always been a tricky venue, that one.

I’m tooled up with enough info now that, like GRP, most places can get a stealth drop at whenever time makes sense. I don’t have to stress about the clown show and can work to timings that make sense to me. There’s much to do. I have to carry upgrade passes for venues otherwise I can’t get in. I have scavenged begged borrowed and stolen loads of them. The first time I had it explained to me at Versailles when I had to hand a drill over the fence, it was an absurdity. “You have to have a specific upgrade attached to your badge or we won’t let you in.” “There are over fifty venues and I never know where I might need to go next.” “Yes.” “So I need to have over fifty passes just to be able to respond promptly?” “Yes.”

The warehouse has some now, to check in and out. Add to them the large quantity that I’ve begged borrowed and stolen, we now have enough to do our job so long as we pool resources. There are lots of other people who are drivers in all sorts of vehicles. Technically we shouldn’t even need the upgrade pass if we are in a van with everything done, but we won’t get past the cops without one for our venue. They don’t know what they are looking for really, apart from reasons to say no. So I go sealed even if I’m dropping by hand, carrying as many passes as possible, trying to remember to switch them onto my badge as that is a thing too – if it’s not attached to my neck it might not count…

And then sometimes they just wave you through. I guess I’m fixating on the times they don’t. When you’ve got a job to do you remember the impediments.

Trying for an early bed tonight despite the heat. I’m expecting everything to go bananas again soon so I’ll take my rest when I can.

Into town with the Luton van, to a little restaurant opposite Bercy Arena, and the local cops are going mental nowadays. They’re all very excited about having the limpicks happen, but I had a right shouting match with one of them after I perforce drove through a no entry sign. Once you’re through the barricade, signs and lights no longer have meaning. We all know that. We are all driving in bus lanes and on the wrong side within the closures. We had no choice but to do it, road was closed anyway. She didn’t like it one bit though. Ran after me and a panting monologue through my window. She wanted to confiscate my driving licence, but thankfully some idiot gendarme already has it and besides the road was closed, and I was supposed to be there and she can go fuck herself.

I think she was off duty, and very possibly not actually working on the games. It was all very hectic and sudden and I was just doing what I needed to do. In plain clothes, at my window with a badge, talking twenty to the dozen. I tried telling her I had all that papers I needed, she said she didn’t care. Didn’t check my accreditation. “I don’t care about your accreditation, you drove through a red circle with a white line.” “Yes, yes I did and I do it every day and I’ll do it tomorrow. Look at all the other vehicles that have done this?”

For a pretty authentic looking badge I might write her off as a local lunatic. I turned the van round and she fucked off to block my route out with ped barriers. While she was fucking around I opened the back and slung in the podiums and a whole pile of rubbish and if her job was to stop me doing my job she’s fucked it. Then I drove up and moved the ped barrier, took the van through, parked it next to another unloading vehicle and walked back to replace the barrier. Saw her haring towards me.

The more I think about it the more I’m convinced she was off duty, maybe not even from the area, getting stuck in when she literally didn’t have a fucking clue. About my age but short and built. Glasses and close cropped white hair. Tattoos to the shoulders but not the arms, but she’s wearing a crop top so they’re poking out. Talks threats at high speed and doesn’t act on them. On holiday from small town France to the big Olympics. P’tit QuinQuin, used to being the great I am, likes giving orders to large men in large vans. Bucket list.

I’m gonna watch a bit of extremely healthy people running while my room cools down. Then to bed and another early start.

What is this madness? I’m here in the middle of Paris and I’m trying to smooth the edges for this vast event. They are all running and jumping and pushing and pulling and achieving. Behind the scenes, incredibly organised people are Excelling in vast numbers. Work is happening hugely.

I’m periodically wondering how the hell I’ve ended up in this. By saying “yes” of course. But within that… I racked my brains for the right human to take my place. I’m leaving mid August. There’s a lot I’ve learned and relationships I’ve made. Rather than just fucking off now I’ve got so much in place, I thought long and hard about who to bring in with the driving confidence, chutzpah and calm attitude. I ended up bringing in Ffi. We finally got her accredited today.

Morning took us into GRP after having improvised a table saw with Kearan. Seriously lethal, a circular saw bolted to the underside of a table, cutting through. We needed to make a load of cardboard strips and we we only had corners. Had to leave the saw running which caused battery hell. But largely it went well. We were in central Paris, barely able to move for pedestrians, running in the stuff that needed running in.

It’s all sorted now and I’m gonna go to sleep. A lot more handy now, I am. We get that way on these jobs. This has been a wild upskill. My french, my tools, my handy. Hard to imagine that in a month all I’ll be having to think about is iambic pentameter…

I’ll try and be specific before long, just knackered by the time bed comes, always. Just as well I dream free. I’m starting to miss the things of home, the wonders of Lou, the shape of the non olympic world…

Ali and I are sitting watching the games.

This morning an announcement came through suggesting that people were using their passes to watch the games. Apparently the obstructive motherfuckers at what they call P24 have become concerned that legit workers from our side of things are doing fuck-all – like most of their core staff – but then getting benefits.

I am happy to look into this because I’m not a games fan. I used to give a shit about the bob in the Winter Olympics. cus it was dad. But I’m not concerned about it all. Lovely of M to have facilitated my momentary access to his media stand, but that’s just me following the energy. It’s probably better that I only care about cricket. I’m not swept up in the details so I can just try and solve problems.

Considering how majestically incompetent the P24 security lot are, I’m delighted they’ve tried to make a request about how we use our passes. I’ve had people telling me I can’t walk through exits. I’ve had some people manhandle me on leaving – literally the man with no voice treated me like a bad prisoner when I had walked out of his logical unguarded exit. I was literally just going. The man is an idiot. Nobody is wasting time on our team, everyone is wasting time on their team. Useless self important fools.

I’m just going to bed. It’s been long again. I gave up driving through road closures and got the metro. I’m tired. Too tired. But half of why I’m so tired is because these fucking lunatics at P24 have no clue what it is to prioritise. They are a catastrophe. I’m largely just parking and carrying things in these days, as it is absolutely pointless trying to cope with the p24 fuckwits at the van gates. I would honestly be happier punching myself in the face.

Night night Paris. I’m getting to the point where I can’t be fucked there’s too much obstruction despite me trying to smooth, but… someone has to carry things… I’m good to continue to respond… but I’m fucked.

A quick run in the morning to Yves de Manoir. All the local police and security are clueless and they love to toot their whistles. I just had a pair of staple removers and I was on my own. Without someone to take the van I ended up being pushed from place to place until I was about a mile from the venue, at which point I reversed up to a bus stop right by the entrance to the official car park and told them they were going to have to get me towed if they didn’t like it, but that I was only there for as long as it takes to walk to the stadium and back.

Michael was there to take receipt. It took less than ten minutes. England was losing to Argentina in the women’s hockey. I just did my job and went. Loads of noise from the stadium. Nobody towed me but I had to have a heated discussion with the car park lady.

I’m still going into venues all the time but I can’t be fucked with going by van unless it is crucial or way too far to walk. It’s so obstructed. I’m so over these clowns.

The van gate guys are there all day, but they are mostly astronomical wankers and they don’t want to work. They’re not here to work, they’re French. It’s not worth having to get past their desultory shit. Even at VNS today I had some lardy old twit forcing me to jump through all sorts of hoops. Not because they were necessary. Just because… It’s idle work syndrome. They sit there all day doing fuck all. When someone shows up and everything is in order they don’t just wave through as they feel like this is their opportunity to justify the fact they’ve been rearranging their testicles for the last three hours. The other option for me is to walk miles though. I don’t have time for that shit. So for venues like Vaire Sur Marne Nautical Stadium I go sealed and then have to justify why I’m there in my unusual French. Today they made me get Marcus to come and wave at me from just inside the compound. I very nearly started playing the clown music.

Then a harness to Eiffel on the metro as the roads are closed, and a chance to return my media upgrade card to Micheal. I’ve got another one now. I find him in the beach volleyball. He has been quietly insistent over the last few days, using the Australian “eh” for gentle emphasis. “Drop it back when you can eh” It’s a clever little linguistic motif. In two letters it kicks responsibility to the recipient. It’s neat. I know it’s important.

I get myself onto the Champs de Mars. I’ve learnt to ask nothing of the site managers so I’ve switched on my resource management and I’ve arranged my accreditation swatches so that a high numbered media pass is the first thing the average Joe Potato sees. I meet with M and in a bout of boyish enthusiasm that we share he takes me up to the media tower between matches. “I’ll start to get anxious after about ten minutes,” I tell him. We look over the crowds. We take a selfie. We both start to get anxious as we are both here to work. We both tell each other we’ve got shit to do, which we do do, and we shake hands. Good lad that Aussie. Without getting that pass before I sorted my own I’d have been turned away for two deliveries.

“You two look similar,” observes Lou. I’m not posting his picture here as no permission. But he’s a solid geezer. We both use “unthreatening alien” as a way of breaking the rules while people mend them around us, we have both honed it to perfection, we know a fellow grafter when we see one. “I knew you’d need that pass mate. It’s why I let you make off with it.” Good lad. I believe him. “I think this is the best situated stage I’ve ever worked at,” he says. And I get it.

Gustave Eiffel was working with metal at a time when that was the new sexy thing. He put a small private apartment at the top of his tower, as you would. He used it as an office and to sweeten deals with the likes of Thomas Edison. The Liberty that stands in the bay in New York to remind people that the landgrab we call USA was largely pulled off by huddled masses of immigrants – he made that.

His tower still stands, monument to the optimism and fire of The Industrial Revolution. Guy de Maupassant, the French Chekhov, hated it. He ran from it in horror the first time he saw it. He was a humanist and a contrarian, a syphilitic social commentator, detesting the flock. Were he alive today he would have been happily using the word “sheeple” 5 years ago and now he’d be pretending he had never done so as he’d have realised it is a word for wankers. Like how the intolerant currently misuse “woke”. Clever clear human, Maupassant, but convinced he was the only one, perhaps as he was the only one at school or something. It happens to a lot of people.

He made a point of eating in the Eiffel Tower restaurant because it was “the only place in Paris I don’t have to look at it”. What a lot of discomfort for a soundbite.

His writing is dirty in the human detail. He taught me aged fifteen that fingernails and hair grow after death. Many of these curious voices push to the front through self-importance. He was one of them. Doctor Holland got me onto Bel Ami at school. I am very close friends with men very like the protagonist.

Anyway, the tower. The lightning nexus. Here in the electrical storm, I drove over the panels laid down over wet ground, not stopping until my back and front wheels both hit the concrete floor, carrying signage material. I slowly and carefully unloaded everything on my own as dawn broke somewhere behind the clouds.

Then back into the mangle until, at about ten past four, I emerged from Velodrome having brought some seriously industrial staples to make sure the signs don’t fall on the riders. I couldn’t keep my eyes open. Thankfully that’s why Ffion is here, and even if she can’t get accredited she can take the driving. She took me home and then I chucked the key out the window down to her so she could give it to Ali to get in and I could pass out naked on the bed for three hours.

Now I’m up watching the boxing, which is at North Paris Arena – Tiny’s venue, which makes sense. He’ll like men hitting men. Lots of little things making a big thing.

I’m quite proud of myself for letting myself stop, and I’m happy Ffi saw it and immediately took the slack. It’s a calm before a storm right now, despite meteorology. It’s time to rest, having been on go go go. I’ll sleep a proper sleep tonight. And I really know this crap now, even if some venue managers and security are making it hard – the key is to handball over time. Very few deliveries won’t clear pedestrian security if you speak French, have Tools of Trade Sticker and don’t give up. Van entry is generally fucked as the local security team keep moving the goalposts and restricting delivery windows even though they are manned full time. I’m sure it’s because someone has decided that signs are never important, and that’s my Macguffin for being here on response. Tell Alexis at VEL that signs aren’t important, now he’s got a massive load of rapid staples and a gun that will stop them from falling on the cyclists. Tell Herless at DEF that they aren’t important when I found some sealant that will make damn sure nothing falls in the pool mid race. Prevention is always invisible. That’s the point. And I’m on a lot more than just signs.

The French security idiots can’t quite make sense of the fact that a man with a box of sealant and guns can be classed as an emergency delivery, so they’ve kicked us down priority as we are mostly anglophone. I had a security guard on his first shift today tell me before I had spoken but after he had seen my company name that he couldn’t understand a word I say. I immediately asked him if he was Polish, he responded in French that he was French but he couldn’t understand anything I said at which point his supervisor who knows me told him he should be able to understand me and I asked him how he had decided he couldn’t understand me when I had said very little if anything to him. It was an exposé of the fuckery. “The DW guys speak no French”. He’s learnt that. I had a security guy say in an undertone “You don’t understand a word I’m saying do you,” while smiling and nodding, and then looking surprised when I said “That depends on if you’re saying anything useful or not.”

I’ll keep doing what I do. Get the stuff to where it needs to be, learn the system, game the system, seek cracks, find them shored up. I can be like a white hat security hacker. I know enough to spot flaws in the system, and when I exploit them someone retrospectively closes the loop. But… it’s frustrating. I’m largely known to the gate managers. Some of them are helpful, personable, decent. Others are absolute twitbiscuits. Others are just being careful. The clown show music is reserved for ALX and INV. EIF/CDM/STE have been surprisingly helpful at security, perhaps to balance the arrogant venue managers. It was at CDM that the guy tried to diss my French, but that’s just detail – they largely treat me like a real person with a job to do.

I cover so much ground, it’s nuts. But the local obstruction is off the fucking scale. Ffi can’t even get accredited. They’ve closed it for the whole games. Absolute clowns. Still, I’ll hopefully give her enough info that she’ll be able to do the me for the paras, as I’m going home.

“No smoking. No farting. No sudden braking.” I’m not driving. Ali is. “We probably don’t need to go this way,” he says. We are going up the Champs Elysee. “How often do you get to do that?” he says.

Every day… Often a few times. It’s ace being the connection guy.

But not in an explosive van.

We nicked Dean’s propane canister about a week ago. I dropped it off on Pont Alexandra at 2am connected to a blowtorch. He wants it back. He lives in the warehouse yard and has barbies in his van. We needed a hotfix to dry the roads when we believed it wasn’t going to rain throughout the opening ceremony. Literally hot.

Ali and I are the only people on our miniteam who are successfully through checks and accredited. I didn’t know if I’d manage the thing solo, plus it was quiet at base. So In roped in Ali. About an hour ago we walked through the grounds of Grand Palais and then through an indifferent security, carrying a huge fucking great improvised blowtorch and nobody batted an eyelid.

I trust Ali not to crash and turn us into a fireball now the thing is in the back of my van. I can smell the propane but it’s probably just on my hands.

So I’m happily writing my blog now. Left the house at half 5 today and will leave at half 4 tomorrow. None of us sleep but I’m feeling very unsleeperated currently, and those heavy headed arseholes at CDM are my drop off tomorrow so that’ll be fun. I’ll finally get to meet Nico and I might need a shower afterwards.

Same old same old random. I’ve got Ffion on my team suddenly and I’ve been encouraging her to drive vans in difficult places cos she keeps doing it brilliantly and nobody dies.

The new game is working out what rules the venues have about deliveries. The more I establish where storage areas are the better I can drop what people want at times that suit me without disturbance. Apart from the CDM alphas who are too busy vanishing up their own arseholes to expedite things.

I’m loving this work drawing lines between people and shifting shifting shifting. There’s been an electric storm over the city for two days. Maybe that’s why they’re so uptight under the tower. The clouds have been spiking lightning, at times threatening and at times glorious. The world is doing sports, while thousands of sleepless men and women run around caring too much about ridiculous tiny things.

I’m almost home. Will seal the Luton, fill it with signs, seal it, fill in the papers, make myself wet, then faze into Dreamland. Should be asleep by eleven. Better than nothing. Irregular early mornings… yuk