Here's London Mayor Boris Johnson at Horse Guards Parade leading the beach volleyball crowd in the wave: http://pic.twitter.com/7mSh5FGZ.

I chased him down to ask what he thought about the stadium that was plopped down in the middle of the city. "It looks wonderful, absolutely wonderful," he said as he was rushed back to his seats in the grandstand.

I also had to compliment him on his recent foray into journalism. In a column for one of the local newspapers, he singled out beach volleyball as an Olympic highlight. "As I write these words there are semi-naked women playing beach volleyball in the middle of the Horse Guards Parade immortalized by Canaletto," he wrote. "They are glistening like wet otters."

Is it possible the mayor got some help with that one? He drew a blank when I asked him about the "wet otters" line. After I explained where it came from, he said, "Oh, I was writing fast."

— Jimmy Golen — Twitter http://twitter.com/jgolen

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EDITOR'S NOTE — "Eyes on London" shows you the Olympics through the eyes of Associated Press journalists across the 2012 Olympic city and around the world. Follow them on Twitter where available with the handles listed after each item, and get even more AP updates from the games here: http://twitter.com/AP_Sports