We never seem to have enough so with a busy year in sport upon us it made sense to add to our stock. Newly arrived this week, four, latest spec, Canon XJ86 box lenses, all cased up with supporters and accessories are now ready to hire. These lenses are standard issue at major sporting events as well as festivals, theatre shoots and studio based production. The new lenses are being put straight into service this weekend covering football, Shakespeare and the General Election.

We've all seen Mr Bond's gadgets and those lovely ladies that hang off his arm and I’m sure we have all seen the scene in Jurassic Park where the tour cars stop working just by the Tyrannosaurus's paddocks. Well it seems some of these things really can happen!

While we haven’t been attacked by a hungry tyrannosaurus and, as far we know, none of our engineers have been seduced by a double agent, we thought we would share a rather amusing story of Tom's adventures during one Olympic morning.

Tom, waking early (as he usually does) called for transport to one of the venues only to be met by a rather nice German girl (AKA 'Helga'), who instructed him to 'get into my car'. Although he doesn't usually accept lifts from strangers, on this occasion the enticement of her sweet green eyes (and of course the official volunteers badge) persuaded him. Now in the company of this young lady, he was whisked off to the venue and through security... well almost. They had to jump out briefly for a quick walk through of the metal detectors and in doing so Helga had to remove the keys from the ignition and place them on the dash. Unfortunately it seems the cars are self locking and so on returning to the vehicle the car had automatically locked itself leaving the keys on the inside.
With the young lady panicking on how to get back and what to do and Tom having left his bat belt or laser watch in the hotel, they dashed back to the security office.

'Fear not Mr Bond' said one of the security guards and he made a phone call. With both Helga and Tom on the edge, they waited impatiently to see what could be done. Suddenly, and as if by magic the car was open. No it wasn’t a cruel trick, but an ingenious invention.. Unbeknownst to them both, all the Olympic cars have full tracking, remote monitoring and even remote management enabling an operator to unlock the car remotely. Genius!

Back on their way, there was a sigh of relief and a smile on their face! .. and maybe a date in the bar later (but that's classified). Another day in the life of Tom (AKA '008')!

Ok, so it was never actually lost and we weren’t exactly the first people to discover it, but it seems we were one of many who were surprised to arrive at the venue only to not find... well... not very much. It's not new to find things hidden under the snow, but it seems this year saw the entire broadcast compound was carefully secluded half way up a mountain. With a little help from one of the local Olympic volunteers and a ski lift our intrepid team we found their way up and in. Phew!

It's rare we talk about specific technical achievements because every job we work on is different and there’s always something slightly new or exciting to do, but sometimes something stands out. OK, so it's not always a monumental achievement, but sometimes the simplest things can make a real difference.

With the Winter Olympics playing a big part over the last few weeks, we've had kit flying out all over the place and this saw Joe and our other engineers in several different places. Thanks to Joe however it was all made a little easier with a VPN solution. Fully secure he managed to setup connections with all 28 systems across 4 locations, meaning that simple monitoring and any systems management was far easier and faster than for many competitors (who were frequently seen scrambling to get to various locations as systems needed to be managed).

It's good to remember sometimes why we are where we are. If it’s not the pretty faces of our guys on the hire desk, then it’s the technical expertise of our team on the ground.

If you have something you'd like to share about a past experience, then get in touch. We would love to hear from you.