I have returned from sunny Spain to a transformed UK that is rejoicing in Olympiad fellowship. With no internet where I was in the Costa de la Luz, I feel I have missed something vital those few weeks away. Stories abounded of visitors happily picking up the litter of others at the games, opening doors for the elderly, a spirit of shared goodwill and bonhomie unheard of in contemporary inner London.
So as I donned a corporate branded polo shirt for our yachting sponsorship yesterday, I too transformed into a "volunteer", with tourists smiling and asking me the way to the ferry, public loos and ticket prices. Maybe it's the idea of a uniform, especially a casual one for baristas and holiday reps, but it's now a jovial universal passport to a sort of Big Society anonymity. So a bloke winked at me in the Kilburn High Road last night, but wearing a jacket with the words "Sailing Team" on the back can carry a different, even metro ironic tone the further you get from the Solent and the Isle of Wight.
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