Last night was my first Olympic event – beach volleyball. As I approached the stadium, rows and rows of Chinese men dressed in “Beijing” uniforms were lined up in perfect rows, standing at attention. At first, I had assumed they were cleaners, like those I’d seen at Tianamen Square a few days before:

But these guys didn’t have brooms…

…or dustbins…

Still, I thought it was worth a photo, because it’s not often you see people standing so straight or so evenly placed in a sports ground… And then I saw where they were sitting in the stadium…

…These guys weren’t cleaners, they’re the security. And possibly not just any security, either – one of my fellow spectators explained that she’d seen one of the guys in the uniforms above sporting an Olympic photo ID, and he was wearing a military uniform in the photo.

I guess having a hundred Chinese military uniforms in the stadium would have been a little confronting. Polo tops with chinos as camouflage? Who knew?