Sock It To 'Em, Danny

[poliphilo]

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?

Comments

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

My daughter-in-law is South Korean, so I'll be cheering for their team.

I think it would be an excellent idea to give the Olympics a permanent home in Greece, but I don't see anyone calling a halt to the gravy train any time soon- not while countries are still so eager to host it.

[butterscotch711.livejournal.com]

It's true, and it's a gravy train for the Olympics people, but it can be a big financial burden on host countries. I think the latest figures say Sydney lost about $2b hosting the games even adjusting for increased tourism - about the cost of all the new buildings. The cost has left Sydney with decades-outdated public transport.

But I guess it's hard to predict what will come of each games. We surveyed my public school 13-15yo students recently about what they want to do in the future etc and many of them said they want to go to London/the UK. I don't think the UK had a high profile among young Koreans until quite recently.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I don't see how one can possibly quantify the profit and loss. And it's not just about money. Goodwill comes into it too. I know the Sydney Olympics left me with warm feelings about Australia.