Olympics hijinks

When G4S messed up their security bid for the Olympics it meant certain security work had to be farmed out to local door companies.  I was lucky enough to be asked If I wanted to go to Newcastle for two weeks and work security there, I jumped at the chance of course with the company boss setting up digs for me and one other doorman from Yorkshire, all we had to do was get ourselves there and we'd have two weeks with twelve hour shifts every day, something good to put on the CV I thought.
When we got there we found out our team had been assigned the vehicle IED checkpoint, in other words any vehicle from cars to HGV's to police vans that wished to enter ST James Park had to come through us first, 20 doormen per shift working 7-7 shifts, myself on the quieter night shift and able to utilize some hi tech equipment, a big responsibility one which I'll add at this point (before I tell the funny stuff) we took very seriously and performed with ultra efficiency, much to some policemen's disgust and our joy, after all the police didn't really like being searched by a group of doormen!
Now the basic layout was a blocked checkpoint at one end of a street, two marquees, one for vehicle checks and one for personnel checks, and a final checkpoint at the other end of the street.   Now when a vehicle stops at the checkpoint it's always radioed through to the team leader and if it has the necessary documentation then is allowed straight to the vehicle marquee, this gives around one minute from radio contact to the vehicle pulling into the marquee, the amount of times this was pushed to the very second because, A, we were watching a movie (or porn) against the marquee wall, B, several people were asleep, one time I do actually remember saying, "someone wake Tom up and get him out of the X-Ray machine please" or C, we were messing around in some other way, we're doormen after all and always find a way of entertaining ourselves.
We never let anyone see just how relaxed we were sometimes but then that's the point, when we needed to we were switched on in seconds and I'm proud to say I worked with some great lads there, we did however get a bollocking once as, having been presented with an industrial size X-ray machine it took seconds for us to discuss who was going inside for a scan, totally ignoring the MASSIVE yellow sign warning us not to!   Our team leader took responsibility and, my camera phone at the ready he lay down on the conveyor belt and was then x-rayed coming out of the machine and seeing me filming he shouted "That does not go on YouTube!"
Yes I still have the vid and no it's not on YouTube, (It's on the Facebook Page.)
Much laughter ensues as we see the scan and his ahem, appendage appears rather on the small side!   What we then found out, or rather the following day when we got a bollocking, we were told the damn X-Ray machine was networked and the images had gone straight through to HQ!  From then on the machine was only used for X-Rays, and sleeping.
Things would get a little tedious in the wee hours of the morning and, to keep us on edge, the sacking's, and choking's began.   Choking is as it sounds as an unsuspecting doorman would be taken roughly from behind as it were and placed in a choke, the record stood between 3-4 seconds from taking hold to either making the doorman tap or, well begin to blackout really!  Staff training at its finest and a lesson to always be on your guard.   Sacking's however are something I've always hated as the victim will usually receive a backhanded slap to their balls!  I still work with guys who find it hilarious to do that to each other, myself I prefer the overkill is underrated approach, in other words if you sack me, I'll pick you up by yours!
Needless to say the combination of chokes and sacks led to us standing in the street, on more than one occasion, in the biggest circle you can imagine, just so we could all keep an eye on each other!