Olympics Opening Ceremony

Posted on 2012/07/29 09:34:12 (July 2012).

[Friday 27th July 2012]
I'll openly admit I've been something of a curmudgeon when it comes to the Olympics. The constant dire warnings about the disruption to public transport have made me dread the whole thing, and given that I don't really like sport anyway, there's no particular upside.

That said I was keen to watch the opening ceremony this evening (on the TV of course) if nothing else than out of a kind of nervous apprehension that it would be a complete flop and the rest of the world would me mocking us over it for the next decade. Thinking back though, although China had set quite a high bar last year, most other years it has always been a bizarre and farcical spectacle, and so perhaps having one which was comparatively decent wasn't such an unachievable aim. I definitely enjoyed some bits of it - although you can't help but wonder how much of it came out of a focus group trying to answer the question "what do other countries like about Britain?" to which the reply was clearly The Queen, James Bond, The Beatles and Mr Bean. OK then, let's get all of them. Nonetheless well done to Her Majesty for having a sense of humour.

On the downside it did at times take what I considered to be an unacceptably militaristic tone. At a peaceful international sporting evening there is absolutely no place for Dambusters, and, I'm sorry, even Churchill is crossing a line in my opinion. It depresses me that in a global forum like this we still can't stick to Basil Fawlty's advice of "Don't mention the war".

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