The Olympics Opening Ceremony - My Part In Its Downfall
...although in the event, the Olympics opening ceremony didn't look much like Alex's curry. I watched it round Justin's, with Bobs and Mum and Nicki Hunt. My first thought on seeing the pastoral landscape Danny Boyle had come up with was, oddly enough, of Dizzee Rascal. That, before long, Dizzee would appear, singing Bonkers while dressed as a sheep, seemed strangely inevitable. And appear he eventually did, although not dressed as a sheep. It was a goat, as I remember, although I had had a lot of wine by then.
The surprise was - it was good, staying more or less the right side of tacky. Evelyn Glennie with her mad witch-hair, fronting a thousand drummers - inspired, I thought. I know that those huge chimneys thrusting out of the earth is an image that has been branded 'a cack-handed symbol of industrialization' by no less an authority than me, on this very blog. But I was talking about Lark Rise To Candleford then. A cack-handed symbol of industrialization was precisely what the ceremony needed at that stage. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if Danny Boyle hadn't googled the phrase, and got the idea off here.
You could also argue that the history was a little bit approximate here - according to this ceremony, the Beatles released Seargeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band midway through the industrial revolution - but, let's face it, this was mainly intended to be watched by foreigners, so what the hell.
'Organised chaos' was how one of the commentators described it, which wasn't far off the mark. Even on TV it wasn't always easy to follow, and Nicki for one had trouble identifying some of the participants. 'Harry Enfield' turned out in fact to be Kenneth Branagh. Daniel Craig was initially greeted as 'Boris Becker'. A huge representation of the Child Catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang-Bang was mistaken for Tony Blair. OK, so I made the last one up, but Justin did dream the other night that the former PM was nuzzling him in an attempted seduction, and what's that all about then?
I wasn't quite so keen on the music later on, which reminded me of that bit in Sam's nightclub when they used to go 'back in time' and play snippets of old hits - and even they would have drawn the line at Tiger Feet, surely. And most people had their patience stretched by the parade of athletes from 204 (I believe) countries. Half an hour had gone by and they were still in 'A'. I mean, American Samoa? Who knew? Was Brazilian Samoa going to be represented? Czechoslovakian Samoa? Danish Samoa? As Harry Hill used to say - you get the idea.
But it all ended spectacularly with Paul McCartney being burned alive in a giant cauldron, so everyone was very happy and excited, and I for one can hardly wait for the closing ceremony.
The surprise was - it was good, staying more or less the right side of tacky. Evelyn Glennie with her mad witch-hair, fronting a thousand drummers - inspired, I thought. I know that those huge chimneys thrusting out of the earth is an image that has been branded 'a cack-handed symbol of industrialization' by no less an authority than me, on this very blog. But I was talking about Lark Rise To Candleford then. A cack-handed symbol of industrialization was precisely what the ceremony needed at that stage. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if Danny Boyle hadn't googled the phrase, and got the idea off here.
You could also argue that the history was a little bit approximate here - according to this ceremony, the Beatles released Seargeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band midway through the industrial revolution - but, let's face it, this was mainly intended to be watched by foreigners, so what the hell.
'Organised chaos' was how one of the commentators described it, which wasn't far off the mark. Even on TV it wasn't always easy to follow, and Nicki for one had trouble identifying some of the participants. 'Harry Enfield' turned out in fact to be Kenneth Branagh. Daniel Craig was initially greeted as 'Boris Becker'. A huge representation of the Child Catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang-Bang was mistaken for Tony Blair. OK, so I made the last one up, but Justin did dream the other night that the former PM was nuzzling him in an attempted seduction, and what's that all about then?
I wasn't quite so keen on the music later on, which reminded me of that bit in Sam's nightclub when they used to go 'back in time' and play snippets of old hits - and even they would have drawn the line at Tiger Feet, surely. And most people had their patience stretched by the parade of athletes from 204 (I believe) countries. Half an hour had gone by and they were still in 'A'. I mean, American Samoa? Who knew? Was Brazilian Samoa going to be represented? Czechoslovakian Samoa? Danish Samoa? As Harry Hill used to say - you get the idea.
But it all ended spectacularly with Paul McCartney being burned alive in a giant cauldron, so everyone was very happy and excited, and I for one can hardly wait for the closing ceremony.
posted by martin at 11:15 AM
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