I dedicate this post to Tine Baun's dress.

My All England experience began earlier than anticipated. In fact, it began with a pre-4AM text and a pre-9AM taxi journey from Durham to Newcastle and back to pick up shuttlecocks for my university, after we discovered that what appeared to be the entirety of the Yonex shuttlecock supply to Great Britain seemed to be being transported to Birmingham for the All England. And not to Durham for the 3 BUCS matches that we had at starting at 1PM yesterday. Which obviously should have been Yonex's priority. Read and take note, all you big wigs out there.

Other than the taxi driver hitting 90mph to get me back to Durham in time for the train, the journey down to Birmingham was otherwise pretty uneventful. Bar sleeping-grey-coated-man, who will most probably not read this (I had him down as more of Crufts man) but who was nevertheless sprawled out across the train table, and who ignored any of my requests to access my seat, which was not appreciated before 8AM. But I ended up with a better seat AND a nice neighbour, so take that, sleeping-grey-coated-man.

Anyway... today was mopping free for me and my 2 apprentice moppers (no, that isn't their official title, but I enjoy using it all the same), so we arrived early-ish to ensure that we got good seats. As it turned out, numbers were on the nonexistent side (who said badminton wasn't cool?!), and we were actually the 1st ones there... Hello, centre court, front row seats (which, after discovering 2 more Durham-ers, I didn't actually sit in, but the idea was there!).

Now, with my 2 apprentice moppers originating from Asia, there was a slight divide in the mopping community, with me supporting the very few Europeans. However, we could all agree on two things:

1. Tine Baun's dress was perfection. (As always) (See my previous very-excited-Tine-Baun-dress-posts)

2. The Chinese kit is pretty controversial. And potentially just a tad too orange.

Whilst I completely appreciate the daring nature of the Chinese top-to-toe-fluorescent-orange-kit, I'm not too sure whether they look like a pack of misplaced highlighters (suggestion for a future game: spot the difference between the Chinese kit and my lecture notes/ my hair), or whether they just posses an overwhelming amount of badminton swag. Although it is, admittedly, most probably the latter, them being China and world number 1s and all, Tine Baun just got it right. And she did so without hurting my eyes.   

In my fashion ratings of the day, the Polish mixed doubles pair and their matching-pink-and-blue-ensemble came in 2nd (their ranking was improved due to the matching physio-leg-tape), and Lee Chong Wei and his shiny red shoes came in 3rd. But they just couldn't touch Tine Baun (or Tyne Boon, as the man sat behind me would call her).

Today saw the entirety of the draw for all 5 events playing all of their matches, so it was a great opportunity to be able to support everyone playing, before I have to get my mopping-face back on tomorrow. It was fantastic to see Tine Baun (winner of the prestigious Mopper's Fashion Award 2012/13) play and win convincingly in what will be her last tournament before she retires, and the Danish men also played a great doubles match against an unseeded Chinese pair, even if the result wasn't the one which I had hoped for. Juliane Schenck also looked strong in the singles, and will hopefully be able to push for a spot in the latter rounds to rep the Europeans amongst us! My win of the day, however, went to Eriko Hirose, who absolutely slogged her guts out to go through with a well-deserved 20-22, 22-20, 21-19 win. It was also nice to see Rob Blair in action again, which allowed me to re-live some of the Glory Days of All England badminton, where you could buy a ticket for the semi-finals and be fairly confident that you would see a GB player in action.

Another interesting feature of the day was the fact that what looked like leaves appeared to keep drifting down onto centre court, delaying play. As Justin Bieber was the last one to be in the arena before the badminton, I am holding him entirely responsible.

After tiredness started to get the better of us moppers (concentration for tomorrow has to come first here at Mopping HQ), we headed back to the hotel (only after spotting a lot of the Korean/ Thai players controversially sporting Crocs outside in the English rain and puddles), and we are currently sat in our room trying to guess what noises our next door neighbours are making. The main debate at the moment is as to whether it is a car, a puma or a puma at large.

I have news...

Coming soon to three badminton courts in Birmingham: me and my mop. Prepare yourself, 340 million global audience. And, if that wasn't enough for you, I am bringing with me two trainee moppers. Feel free to sit down with a cup of tea if that excitement is too much for you. 

A photo finish

This morning was another early one, but I went for the tactical sleep on the train option because sleeping through Olympic finals didn't really seem too acceptable.

The which seating block can we sit in issue continued today but, luckily, the woman on the door this morning mistook me for an athlete when I told her 'my team are up there' and so I made in fine. Although I would potentially suggest that she needs to brush up on her Team GB recognition skills slightly...











This morning I saw:
Men's singles bronze medal match: Chen Long (China) vs. Lee Hyun Il (Korea)
Men's doubles bronze medal match: Koo. KK & Tan. BH (Malaysia) vs. Chung. JS & Lee. YD (Korea)


Going through security this morning (please note: without house keys in my pocket this time, so no alarms were set off), it was beyond weird to get my head around the fact that today was the last day of the badminton competition. I wasn't mopping today because Young Games Makers do finals and, despite the baby face, I am apparently getting on a bit. Even though I wasn't in uniform, though, I kept looking around for the good ol' Games Maker trainers in their plastic bag (FOPers can't wear them other than on court) and the number of times I panicked today because I thought that I'd lost the bag (which was safely in my suitcase in the flat) was pretty ridiculous.




I went back to our lounge over dinner (mainly to eat some of the line judge's food), and managed to get myself a shirt swap sorted as well. When we got our kit, we were all given two T-shirts, and one of the line judges asked if they could swap theirs for my spare once they'd finished their last match. The technical officials shirts are blue (complete with BWF shoulder-y things), so I was very happy to gain a top that clashed slightly less with ginger...

Please ignore my complete lack of regulation trousers/ shoes...

After dinner (I believe that the southerners amongst us call this lunch), I went to the final warm-up area to have a quick photo shoot with all of the Lancashire representatives at the Olympics. We did let Lin Dan and Lee Chong Wei finish their knock-up before we gatecrashed, just in case you were wondering...


I then went up to the seating to watch the men's finals.

This afternoon I saw:
Men's singles final: Lin Dan (China) vs. Lee Chong Wei (Malaysia)
Men's doubles final: Cai. Y & Fu. HF (China) vs. M. Boe & C. Mogensen (Denmark)

The men's singles final was probably the closest match that I've ever seen and, even in final points of the final set, I couldn't tell which way it was going to go. I did want Lin 'wants to be a popstar now' Dan to win, but was also slightly gutted when Lee Chong Wei lost. Lin Dan's celebration was absolutely epic but, what impressed me more, was how respectful he seemed towards Lee Chong Wei afterwards. The crowd were fantastic as well and they were so loud and there seemed to be so many flags, which added to the whole atmosphere. One of the umpires who I spoke to was saying that in Asia the crowds are so loud that when you introduce the players you may as well say that you have Mickey Mouse on your left and Donald Duck on your right, because it's too loud for anyone to hear, and I really think that you got a of a sense of that during today's finals.

Just before the medal ceremony, it was announced over the tannoy that Ben Ainslie had won the sailing. There were a few Union Jacks in the Arena (despite the distinct lack of GB representation in the finals) and the crowd went mental, which will go down as one of my favourite Team-GB-winning reactions of the Olympics so far (along with, obviously, the Jess Ennis/ Greg Rutherford/ Mo Farah Bollywood wins and also everyone in the canteen standing up for the national anthem after we won the first cycling gold).

The men's doubles final followed and China completed their complete and utter clean sweep of the badminton, meaning that, as of yet (we'll have to wait and see how the rhythmic gymnastics goes), no other national anthem has been played in Wembley yet during the Olympics (I'm not counting the 'God Save the Queen' rendition during the dress rehearsals!). It was, however, a nice change to see that there were three different flags raised during the Victory Ceremony!

After the final final, we went back to the lounge to watch the rest of the Andy Murray match/ shout encouragement at the TV (we had been Twitter-ing the live score and reporting to the stand throughout the doubles final, much to the amusement of Peter Gade), before sprinting around the entire Arena to try and get photos of everything because the clean-up operation was already underway. And I am now about to slow your Internet speed down majorly with a couple of these picture highlights...:

Spot the floor mopper in the lounge...

Yey for Team Fern!/ Team FOP!

Considering a career change to a line judge (and probably not looking serious enough for it)...

Pippi Longstocking was always my favourite.

I have some Chinese water bottles. Ebay, anyone?!

Court 1, 20 seconds *stops mopping*

Doctor for the afternoon... Just don't get injured please because I'm far too squeamish.

Yes, I went there.

Despite my own probably-not-legal serve, I also did some service judge-ing.

I did debate taking the mop home, but I'm not sure I'd have been too popular on the Underground carrying it...

London 2012

The warm-up courts

The Olympic rings

Gold medal for ermm... floor mopping?!

It was very strange leaving Wembley and the badminton, but I would go back and do it all again in a heartbeat if I could. I'm still in London for a couple of days, so the blogs will still continue for a while (I know that this has secretly made your day and you can breathe a sigh of relief now). For now, though, I will leave you with an except of a conversation which I got caught up in on the train on the way to Hyde Park/ the world's largest bark park to play some badminton and watch some non-badminton related Olympics yesterday evening.

Very loud Canadian girl: (reading out news headlines) Andy Murray beat Switzerland's Roger Federer... (progresses onto reading texts) that's so funny.

Annoyed English woman opposite: Why is Andy Murray winning funny?

Very loud Canadian girl: It's not.

Annoyed English woman opposite: Is it ironically funny because America didn't win? We've waited so long for him to win. I don't find it funny.

Very loud Canadian girl: I didn't say that him winning was funny.

Very loud Canadian girl #2: Maybe we should speak in French now.

Annoyed English woman opposite: I speak French too.

Very loud Canadian girl: (looks at the extremely cute Chinese toddler next to me in an attempt to change subject) is he yours?

Me: Not that I know of.

P.S. Sorry today's blog took a while to get up, it took me until 1 this afternoon to sleep off my mopping tiredness!

London meets Bollywood

My day began before 6AM this morning (round of applause, please) and, bleary eyed and not at all bushy tailed I made it to Wembley on (wait for it)... the 5-stops-train. Finally. Boom, pre-8AM-Jenny.

I had planned to sleep on the way there, but the man next to me had seemingly decided to recreate his own nightclub on the train to Waterloo and, whilst at the time I was pretty narked at Britney for keeping on 'dancing til the world ends', knowing my sleeping ability, I probably would have slept through all of the train changes, so it's probably a good job that he was such a loud Ms. Spears fan.

I arrived at Wembley to discover that pre-8AM-Jenny wasn't as on form as I had thought and, although I had remembered to charge my camera battery, I'd forgotten the memory card. Again. Hello, dinner-time dash to a Wembley camera shop after Argos and their ''only available for home delivery'' memory cards failed me.


Today I mopped for:

Men's doubles semi-final: Y. Cai & HF. Fu (China) vs. KK. Koo & BH. Tan (Malaysia)


Today we went for, not only the synchronised mop (insert ooh-ing and ahh-ing here), but also the mop after the match had ended, so we had to go off court and then go back on again, which was very exciting and involved walking very quickly backed by some super-cheesy music.

After our match, we went up to the stands to watch the remaining games of the session. After a brief (particularly deep) dilemma this morning consisting of Canadians speak English, I speak English, Russians speak Russian, I speak (albeit very bad) Russian, I decided that I was on Team Russia (сборной России- yey for language geekiness and dual language keyboards!), so I was very happy when they won their match. Potentially not as happy as I was when Denmark won theirs, though. Although supporting Denmark in a stand full of Koreans was minorly awkward...

We then went back to the stands in the afternoon (making it a 2-0 victory to the FOP Team on entering the stands today) to watch China play a lot of very impressive badminton and to hear their national anthem on repeat. In the women's singles final red-shirted-yellow-shoed-Chinese-girl beat yellow-shirted-red-shoed-Chinese-girl, confirming my point that it is really all about the yellow shoes. After the match, red-shirted-yellow-shoed-Chinese-girl put her medal around the neck of her coach, which was super-cute, and her coach was Zhang 'physio-replacement-leg-strapper-upper-for-retired-player-from-bronze-medal-player-match' Ning, which was a super-exciting blast from the past (even if her rather too big Team China top did make her look slghtly more basketball than badminton).

For the women's doubles final, the Japanese national team came and sat infront of us. Courtesy of their lesson, I now have two words in my Japanese vocabulary (oh, and I can say 'hello gorgeous' in Korean, just for the record). The Japanese lost, but it was a really close match and their team were fantastic to watch: they would start off sat up normally, lean forward as the rally went on, and then either jump back in their chair (if they lost the rally) or jump up out of their seats (if they won the rally). They were happy to take pictures with us, too, and we were out of uniform, so the camera came out... (until I encountered camera problem #2 and it ran out of battery).

After the matches we went out for tea at an Indian restaurant with some of the line judges and managed to gatecrash what seemed to be both a wedding and a 21st birthday party. This called for some interesting dancing and, for us anyway, Jess Ennis, Greg Rutherford and Mo Farah all won to a Bollywood/ Nicki Minaj/ Katy Perry mash-up of ''the best hits, playing all night''.

I made it safely back home (after a somewhat bizarre train journey during which a man in leather pants with ribbons asked the question ''do I have too much glitter on my face?'') and I am now just about to go to sleep ready for another very early morning tomorrow. Woop *sarcasm* woop.

However, seeing as it was the women's doubles final today, I will leave you with these:

Guess what I found?!


Olympic spot of the day: Zhang 'beat Gail and Natan in Athens' Bo in the Ibis car park

Free ice creams and the first Victory Ceremony

The air-con-and-free-ice-cream combo of South West Trains pretty much made my morning today. So much so that it even made up for the fact that I got on the 14-stop-tube again (note to self: use. the. Met. line!)

Anyway, 14 stops later, I made it to Wembley Arena. I was a tad later than expected but was sped along quite drastically by the Miley Cyrus song that iPod shuffle decide to select just as I went down the steps to the 'last mile'. Despite the fact that this is horrifically cheesy and I should probably be mortified at the fact that it is on my iPod in the first place (and potentially even more mortified that I didn't skip past it...!), in true Disney-montage-style, the mopper made it to the ball/ Arena on time. Even though the mopper was today on her first ever day off and so was, therefore, not actually mopping.

For some reason, the seating arrangements for us had changed today and we were designated to the 'Olympic Family' stand. This didn't seem to be the easiest place to gain access to...

In the end we made it in (this makes it sound as if we gatecrashed, but we were actually totally law-abiding, accreditation-showing Games Makers) and we ended up on the front row, so I was pretty set for the day (other than the minor issue of neither having got food nor gone to the toilet).


Today I saw:

Men's singles semi #1: Lee Chong Wei (Malaysia) vs. Chen Long (China)
Men's singles semi #2: Lin Dan (China) vs. Lee Hyun Il (Korea)
Mixed doubles final: NL. Zhang & YL Zhao (China) vs. C. Xu & J. Ma (China) (surprisingly, China won this match)
Mixed doubles Victory Ceremony: NL. Zhang & YL Zhao (China- gold), C. Xu & J. Ma (China- silver), J. Fischer & C. Pedersen (Denmark- bronze) (yes, Europe!)

It was fantastic to actually be there and be watching an Olympic final (big tick next to that on the good ol' Bucket List), although it did make me feel like a right old codger, because it meant that it had been 8 years since 'back in the day' when it was Gail and Nathan playing that match in Athens. (In totally unrelated news, this also means that it is also 8 years since I last owned a pet hamster).

After the Victory Ceremony I made full use of the 'Field of Play' access part of my accreditation, and jumped over chairs and ran down corridors (Jess Ennis, watch out) to go to get some pictures of the players whilst they were being interviewed. Contrary to attempts over the past couple of days, this picture-taking was actually all done with a sim card in my camera...


My parents had tickets for today's matches (meaning that they will never witness my mopping ability live on the international stage, only on TV or in the kitchen). (Hi mum and dad if you're reading! It was great to see you and I hope that you had a great Games *big Games Maker smile*, but don't think that you're getting completely off ever cleaning the kitchen floor...)


Anyway I have a 6AM wake-up call tomorrow morning, so I am going to go to sleep (which is something that I do very well) so that I can get up in the morning (which isn't one of my strong points).


Olympic spot of the day: Xie Xingfang in the stand opposite Lin Dan during his match (if my long-distance-athlete-spotting-skills and my camera's optical zoom and are anything to go by).

Lin Dan

I am quite proud of our synchronicity here (although spellcheck tells me that it is, is that even a word?!)

After a morning shopping in Camden, I packed up my stuff and did another flat switch. Luckily, I managed to avoid all contact with the underground, so I just about survived the long trouser, hoodie and lots of bags combination without any air-con-less situations.

I then did the quick-change into uniform that I've become an absolute ninja at, before getting the train. Only to forget which line to use for Wembely at Waterloo, and end up on the slower one which involves about 14 stops. On a dying iPod battery, this was obviously a very tense journey.

(Please note: I am normally a very sociable Games Maker on trains, but I think the free energy drinks may have got the better of me and I was k-n-a-c-k-e-r-e-d).


Today's matches were mainly the men's singles quarter finals, and I may or may not have requested to mop for Lin Dan... (ok, I did).

Today I mopped for:
Lin Dan (China) (defending Olympic Champion, might I add) vs. S. Sasaki (Japan)  (second player to thank me for my mad-mopping-skills. Boom)

Before the match, the umpire took us moppers to one side, and explained that we would have to keep playing really close attention to when and where he asked us to mop (I told you that mopping was a technical business!), because we would be pretty much playing musical chairs for the duration of the game. I think that this prediction was pretty bang on, and both players dived to the floor pretty regularly, leaving us very busy.

FOP Team

At one point, Lin Dan dived to the front left hand side of my side of the court, only to somehow manage to get up and dive to the back right (mopping dilemma #1: where are you supposed to start?!). I watched the TV footage back last night, and you can actually see the line judges look at me and laugh! Both players were also using talcum powder to prevent their rackets from slipping too, and that meant that every time they touched the floor, they left mini snow-angels behind as well. So much mopping, so little time!

We did, however, receive a court mopper chant at one point during the match, which was probably a highlight of my life. The Chinese normally chant ''*insert player's name here* jia'', but they switched it to ''court moppers jia'' during one of the breaks (apologies if I have just spelled the Chinese word totally wrong and warped the meaning of anything!). We also got thanked by the umpire at the end of the match for being on-the-ball/shuttlecock, which equalled my second umpire compliment of the week. These mopping compliments will probably not make it onto my CV, but I was pretty chuffed anyway (also, thanks to those travelling on the train from Wembley to West Hampstead, particularly to the family from Chicago and their child with a ribbiting frog alarm clock, you made my night).

In other news, I am developing two mopping blisters. I am not sure whether laughing or crying is the best option here.

Also, upon listening to the BBC commentary of the match tonight, something along the lines of this quote was said:

''Lin Dan has changed the shuttle and now he's doing some cleaning. His wife must have him well trained''.

I'm sure that Xie Xingfang's totally awesome and all, but I am going to claim responsibility for the cleaning part.

We took a team photo and then I went out for tea courtesy of the Robsons! (Thank you so much for some warm food, and I hope that you have a great rest of the Olympics!)

Olympic spot of the day: Anthony Clark and Adrian Christy in TGI Friday's!