Day out in London ahead!

That's how quickly these things go: I was appalled by the amount of empty seats in so many Olympic venues -- I never did put in for tickets because I assumed after all those reports that they'd all sold out in May. Whoever managed to mess this one up, the upshot has clearly been that more tickets have come back onto the market, with corporate sponsors and the so-called "Olympic family", I'm almost certain, having their arms twisted to release those tickets to the general public that they know they won't be able to fill now. And I can recognise an obvious opportunity. Nobody wants to see Olympic volleyball, basketball, handball? We'll see about that!

After a handful of failed online attempts at booking various women's volleyball, basketball, handball, football events that the site had advertised as "available", and failing (I even looked briefly at women's boxing and weightlifting to try and trick the website into reserving tickets for me, any tickets) -- the website finally surrendered 2 tickets, prime A-grade seats superclose to the action, for two men's volleyball games at Earl's Court next week. OH, whose belated b'day present this is meant to be, was excited as well, and only kvetching a little -- he had been really keen on studying, live and at close range, the ritual buttock-slapping amongst female volleyballers after every point ("So intriguing!") but it was the website that said no, not me! The men was all I could get!

I'm certainly not complaining. It's been, oh, 17 years since I last attended a live volleyball game and a full 21 years since I last played the sport. I mostly used to spike the ball into the net and I never did master the jump serve but my setting was very respectable and if a bad pass went astray, I would  dive and dig it back out from as far as the caretaker's cubicle if that was what was needed. It's a brilliant spectator sport and I'm really looking forward to this event. We'll be able to watch Italy play Argentina and, icing on the cake, Germany play the previous Olympic champion, the US of A. How fab is that? Go Deutschland (especially after the 0:3 hammering they've just received from the Russians)!