I tried to get into the beach volleyball on Tuesday afternoon.

It was an impulse thing: a test event for the Olympics' ultimate good-time sport suddenly seemed strangely alluring in a city enduring very bad times.

I regret to report that I didn't get in.

On approaching the box office, I was told that the event had sold out (kudos to the organisers).

And when I tried to go the media route, a nice woman called Sarah very properly (and apologetically) advised me that she couldn't let me in as I had neither my passport nor driving-licence with me.

But while I missed out on the bikinis (honest), the afternoon provided an opportunity for observation and all kinds of food for thought.

To cover the most prosaic issue first: as I scrunched around the blue perimeter fence on Horse Guards Parade's ochre-coloured gravel, the temporary venue seemed to be operating smoothly.

One of the features I hadn't expected, at the venue's south-east corner was a big, plastic watermills.net drinking-water butt in British racing green.

But things like phones (Cisco) and computers (Acer) seemed to be branded by the appropriate Olympic partner and the main sound, punctuated by bursts of applause and energetic music, was the hum of Aggreko generators.

Visa branding was very prominent too, including along what looked like the top net cord of the warm-up courts.

Omega was also visible via a digital clock on the Mall linking Trafalgar Square and Buckingham Palace.

This famous pink street was otherwise decked out with Union Jacks offset by the heavy late-summer foliage of majestic plane trees.

My perambulations also brought home to me what a seriously strange Olympic venue this will be.

While behind the screens, scantily-clad athletes played ball in the sand (or so I must presume), off-court the Horse Guards appeared to be operating much as usual, with a gold-helmeted, red-tunicked figure in thigh-length riding boots with a sword going through his jerky, ritualistic, guard-y motions for the benefit of the tourists.

A sign at the entrance to the square meanwhile urged us to "Visit the Household Cavalry Museum", although quite how that one slipped past the International Olympic Committee's famously vigilant sponsorship police, I am not at all sure.

The venue also, unusually, features offensive weaponry in the form of two pretty fearsome looking cannons parked on the square's east side.

One of them, presented by Spain to commemorate the raising of the siege of Cadiz, is angled perfectly, its barrel supported by metal dragons, to lob a hefty cannon-ball past the tapering, stainless-steel floodlight pylons slap bang into the playing area.

The other, a so-called "Turkish Gun" constructed in the Royal Carriage Department Dartford, is equally impressive with lion's-head wheel-hubs and a crocodile motif.

However, I was unable to decipher further details from an accompanying plaque, something that should be rectified if the weapon is to remain in situ for next year.

The strangest thing, though, was that this sleepy, thoroughly pleasant little test event was going on at all when considerable tracts of the city had just witnessed what my evening paper was describing as the "worst scenes since the blitz".


I had to keep pinching myself at the sheer normality of the recumbent forms soaking up the sun in the well-tenanted green-and-white-striped deck-chairs in neighbouring St James' Park, at the meandering tourists, at the deadpan announcer telling ticket-holders that once inside the venue, they would not be permitted to leave and re-enter.

There was a police presence, but it was suitably low-key, with the officers possibly reflecting on where else they might be spending the afternoon.

The only hint I detected that these are terrible days in the capital is when I overheard a supervisor assuring staff that if any of them felt uncomfortable and wished to go home early, he perfectly understood.

On one level, of course, this is reassuring, since it suggests that nothing, but nothing can knock London out of its Olympic stride.

On the other hand it signifies a disconnect in UK society upon which it is perhaps best not to dwell for too long in this particular article.

I snapped myself out of it by considering which of the many statues in the vicinity had the best view of the action.

Down by the Downing Street garden wall, Kitchener gazed on in the general direction of the arena, looking understandably quizzical.

The mounted figures of Roberts and Wolseley, to the east, enjoyed a grandstand view.

So too, from on top of his massive column up a stairway on the other side of the Mall did Frederick Duke of York who is billed as Commander in Chief of the British Army from 1795-1809 and 1811-1827, prompting the question, 'What can have happened in 1810?'

Unfortunately, the recently-arrived waving figure of Yuri Gagarin, the Soviet cosmonaut, has no sort of view.

Nor, from his plinth near the Old Admiralty Building, does the tricorned Captain James Cook.

Indeed, the great explorer and navigator has his back turned on proceedings.

Not very Yorkshire, that beach volleyball lark, clearly.

David Owen worked for 20 years for the Financial Times in the United States, Canada, France and the UK. He ended his FT career as sports editor after the 2006 World Cup and is now freelancing, including covering the 2008 Beijing Olympics and 2010 World Cup. He is regular columnist for insidethegames and insideworldfootbal. Owen's Twitter feed can be accessed by clicking here