London 2012 Olympic Games: T minus 27 Days

Sock Monkey has been selected as a "London 2012 Games Maker", ie volunteer.  Reach for your life jacket and safety net now because Sock Money will be representing The United Kingdom and how fantastic we are.  Sock Monkey will be checking tickets and saying, "You can't take that in" for a week at Wimbledon.

Sock Monkey spent an hour and a half yesterday collecting the [charming] uniform.  Over the last few weeks I've seen various people wearing this in public and every single one of them has looked like they are on day release from the local lunatic asylum.  I half expected Donald Sutherland to be bringing up the rear shouting, "The Evil has left this place!" so I was extremely relieved to find that I don't look like a total retard in my uniform (although I refuse to wear that hideous jacket or the baseball cap). 

Sock Monkey never posts photographs on here so this is a first.  Sock Monkey may still hit 'delete' at a later date. Picture caption 'Sock Monkey modeling London 2012 Games Maker Uniform'.  We got socks and everything...

However, when I saw scores of people in the same place, all dressed the same (ie like that *points to top left hand corner*) it was pretty impressive and a little bit exciting.  And I chatted to lots of lovely people who were all so motivated and enthusiastic.  Sock Money would also like to point out that none of us are thrilled with the uniform.

Almost 250,000 people volunteered to help and Sock Monkey was one of the 70,000 chosen so, and I am beginning to think it may have been a bad idea, I shall be spending my summer holidays telling tourists where the toilets are and searching people's bags at Wimbledon.

Sock Monkey loves tennis so I'm pretty disappointed to find that I don't have security clearance for the actual courts but I will be able to wander around the grounds (dressed like this) when I'm not on duty.

I've had a couple of training sessions and now have just one left where I will be taught how to carry out the security checks - its the same as at an airport .  This takes place at the All England Club (AKA Wimbledon) soon.

We have to be "The best Games Makes we can be" so that means being consistently nice to complete strangers even if they ask idiotic questions or are obnoxious.  If we aren't, people will go home to wherever and tell their friends, "People in London are horrible."  Sock Monkey could single-handedly screw up the entire Olympic Games!

The most exciting part, though, and I really am very excited about this, is that we have all been invited to the technical rehearsal for the opening ceremony. I am so looking forward to this and its lovely that the volunteers have been given the opportunity to attend.

Sock Monkey shall report from the Olympics but don't expect any insider information or gossip about the competitors.  It aint allowed and I don't want to end up in The Tower.