Olympic Opening Ceremony - Surprisingly Good!

Imagine my disappointment when I realised it was Danny Boyle doing the Olympic Opening Ceremony, I thought it was Danny Dyer. Well all I heard was Danny and Oscar winning, so naturally, like any rational minded person, I assumed it was Danny Dyer. I was quite excited to see how DD was going to represent all that it meant to be British, what an eye opener for the rest of the world. But no, it was Danny Boyle, at least he has made films about drugs and zombies, so it can't be all bad.

And it wasn't. For a long, add your own longs here, show it never really had that many truly boring moments. The opening with the cows, sheep, and cottages, I felt the only thing missing there was a wicker man. Then we got Sir Kenneth Branagh boldly striding out into the industrial revolution. This  was where the BBC commentary came into its own. "That's Isambard Kingdom Brunel" Hew Edwards solemnly intoned, no it's not it's Kenneth Branagh in a funny hat we all echoed back. The whole ceremony, kind of, had a flow that was reasonably easy(ish) to follow so we didn't really need Hew, Hazel Irvine and Trevor Nelson chirpily chipping in, they added nothing and we didn't really need them until the team parade. Then we had Mr. Bean, who divides public opinion between those who can't stand the sight of him and those who hate him with a passion, I fall in the latter camp, so I found that whole Chariots of Fire segment as enjoyable as Dustin Hoffman enjoyed his trip to the dentist in Marathon Man. But there can't have been anyone who didn't like the Queen and James Bond, that was brilliantly done. I must admit, while admirable and  brave, I got a little distracted by the whole NHS bit, where is Hattie Jacques when you need her? And the modern communications segment lost me completely, but it moved at such a pace that it didn't really matter, and, thank God we had Trevor Nelson on hand to tell us who Dizzy Rascal is. 

Obviously the slowest part of the show was all the teams traipsing around the track. I think we all thought 'roll on Zimbabwe' as Denmark wandered on. I didn't even spot the mysterious lady in red. What seemed like an eternity later, we got the lighting of the flame and that was impressive. To end it all we were treated to Sir Paul McCartney (is there nothing he doesn't end? ) and it seems The Arctic Monkeys can do Beatles songs better than Macca these days, their Come Together was a lot better than Sir Paul's, going on forever, Hey Jude. We didn't even get Live and Let Die, which would have been a great song to light the flame to. 

But for a very long, yet again add your own longs here, show, on the whole, it was pretty good, the volunteers were suitably enthusiastic, nothing went wrong, and even the rain stayed away what more could you ask for?

Over