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Olympics opening ceremony – I liked it

I’m not normally one who really watches the Olympics, but I really enjoyed the opening ceremony of the London games.

Not the athletes parade of course; apart from the quite inspiring presence of some of the really troubled countries like Sudan and Afghanistan and Sierra Leone, I’m sorry, but I find it a real yawnfest.

But the rest of the ceremony I thought was great. I’m sure this is a consequence of being half-English myself — and therefore perhaps immersed in British culture than most Australians — I got a lump in the throat when I saw Danny Boyle’s tributes to the UK culture.

London 2012 opening: Tim Berners-Lee's message
Source: The Telegraph

In fact I liked it from the opening montage at the very start — with lots of little references to popular music, London landmarks, the London Underground (with a blast of The Clash), even EastEnders was in there. The imagery of England’s “green and pleasant land” along with the singing of Jerusalem took me back to singing the song in high school (and let me tell you, massed singing does something to it that is indescribable.)

I liked that it showed both the good and the bad of the development of modern Britain — the genius of Brunel, but also the pollution and upheaval of the industrial revolution; the inequality that spawned the suffragette movement; the loss of war.

The insertion of Mr Bean into Chariots Of Fire was very funny, as was the Queen’s bit with James Bond, and it was great to see Sir Tim Berners-Lee — even if the American NBC commentators didn’t know who he was, and suggested Googling him…

I had to laugh at the National Health Service tribute, having heard my sister and cousin speak of the difficulties of dealing with the NHS bureaucracy, and I wonder what conservative Americans thought of it. It was also funny to see one bed in that segment with two kids in it — hopefully not generally reflective of the state of British hospitals.

So in summary, I suppose I fall into the camp that thinks Danny Boyle is a genius.

Not everybody liked it; UK Conservative MP Aiden Burley tweeted:

The most leftie opening ceremony I have ever seen – more than Beijing, the capital of a communist state! Welfare tribute next?

What a plonker.

By Daniel Bowen

Transport blogger / campaigner and spokesperson for the Public Transport Users Association / professional geek.
Bunurong land, Melbourne, Australia.
Opinions on this blog are all mine.

5 replies on “Olympics opening ceremony – I liked it”

Daniel: “and it was great to see Sir Tim Berners-Lee — even if the American NBC commentators didn’t know who he was, and suggested Googling him…”
I assume you did not make that up, the irony. And if it were commentators from some other country I would have assumed they were having a little joke.

I liked it too. Living in Switzerland now means that we get our English-language telly courtesy of the BBC.

The only bits I wasn’t so keen on were the black creepy figures (surely from a famous childrens’ book, but no idea which one) and the enormous baby in the bed at the end of the (bit too long) NHS segment.

So glad some corgis featured!

Everybody knows that Al Gore invented the internet….

but I did not know that Burundi used to be called Upper Volta, that was news to me, you learn something every day, thanks Eddie !

I imagine that song you like would have left a billion muslims slightly confused.

And we can all now happily blame the poms for inventing global warming. Thanks, Abraham Darby and James Watt !

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