Olympic Diary: Sick of sun and smiles

Sydney is smiling in the sunshine and it's enough to make you sick.

Three days out from the opening ceremony, I've been instructed to have a good day so often that I'm thinking of getting one of those curmudgeonly T-shirts emblazoned with the rejoinder: "Don't tell me what kind of day to have."

The local newspapers' "Today in History" columns noted on Monday that it was the birthday - the 115th if you're interested - of English novelist D.H. Lawrence, who visited the sunburned country and found that "Sydney goes by itself, loose and easy, without any bossing." Being loose and easy has turned from a way of life to a sort of corporate intent in the Olympic City.

The cheery, unpaid workers smiling in greeting everywhere you go keep getting called "an army of volunteers," but the word "army" understates the numbers. This is a force the size of which hasn't been seen since the world wars.

More than 47,000 of the 130,000 working on making the Games a success are doing so out of the kindness of their hearts. At least 1000 come from Western Australia. They've paid their own way here and they are finding their own accommodation and food in return for the privilege of standing round in blue parkas and smiling and waving furiously at everybody.

There is bonhomie around every corner. "have a nice [experience]."

nteIt takes the most persistent investigative prowess to penetrate this wall of goodwill. I asked dozens of these volunteers whether they were under instruction to be nice and they all looked at me with a tone of injured innocence.

"It just comes naturally," they cry, or "I'm always like this" or "Look! [this last is delivered as they wave a hand at the clear blue sky] It's a brand new day."

I finally managed to corner the extraordinarily jovial Kim Haberbusch who had said "GOOD MORNING!!!" - at roughly that volume - to me three times in 10 minutes as I went in and out of the dining hall at the media village.

No, she said, she didn't get sick of saying hello and she was sorry that she hadn't remembered my face in the passing stream and said "Good morning - again."

"I don't get sick of it at all," she beamed. "In fact, when you wish someone 'have a nice day' you start to have a nicer day yourself."

The generosity of spirit is not universal. I rang directory service the other night and the voice on the other end announced that it was "John Howard speaking."

"Hells bells!" I said. "I didn't expect that standard of service."

The temperature of the receiver dropped four degrees as the Prime Minister's namesake breathed deeply and wondered how many times he'd had to put up with that lame joke. "What city, please?" he asked.

Whatever D. H. Lawrence may have thought, Sydneysiders have been putting up with a lot of bossing around and there's a lot more to come. But they ignored the rules in their thousands at Saturday night's opening ceremony dress rehearsal at Stadium Australia.

The caterers suffered a 10 per cent loss of turnover as patrons poured in with bulging Eskies, snubbing the inflated food prices at the venue and defying a controversial stadium rule which bans BYO tucker. Let's hear it for the larrikin spirit.