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Jul. 28th, 2012

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Daniel Craig in character as James Bond strides menacingly into Buckingham Palace. A grey eminence escorts him into an inner sanctum where a dumpy little woman with a tight white hair-do sits with her back to the camera- obviously a lookalike. Bond coughs discretely. The woman turns. "Good evening, Mr Bond."  And- Oh my God. It's really her. It's the Queen. She's acting!

Danny Boyle's Olympic opening ceremony was altogether bonkers and amazing. Kenneth Branagh climbed Glastonbury Tor dressed as Isambard Kingdom Brunel, recited Caliban's speech about the isle being full of noises, then supervised proceedings as smoking chimneys erupted through the soil of an idyllic rural England, Evelyn Glennie led an army of drummers, the Queen parachuted in, J.K Rowling read from Peter Pan, real doctors and nurses and child patients performed a ballet in tribute to the NHS and our great heritage of children's literature,  Voldemort loomed, Sir Simon Rattle and the LSO played the theme from Chariots of Fire- with Mr Bean as soloist, Michael Fish forecast fine weather and down came the rain, a gaudy, celebration of British pop culture- music, TV, cinema and texting- ended with a suburban house shooting skywards to reveal Sir Tim Berners-Lee- yes, really him- sitting at his console, tapping away like the Wizard of Oz,  Akram Khan wandered forlornly among dancers enacting the horrors of war while Emeli Sande sang Abide With Me, cyclists with flapping wings rode round the arena, the Arctic Monkeys sang Come Together, a lone birdman soared heavenwards on invisible wires.  And so on.  We kicked off with Bradley Wiggins and ended with fab Sir Macca leading us in a sing-along version of Hey Jude. Altogether now, "Nah, nah nah, na-na-na-nah...."

Feeling a little rebuked now, are we, Mitt?
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Tamara Drewe: Posy Simmonds.

Posy Simmonds has spent her life anatomizing what we now call the chattering classes. Her work has grown subtler and more compassionate with the years, but there's still a finely honed edge to the scalpel.

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo: Stieg Larsson

A big, gripping thriller- with elements of the golden age detective novel- full of wishful thinking, but definitely important as a straw in the wind. It came out in 2005 and we're only now catching up with Larsson in his righteous hatred of the fucking investment bankers.

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