To be disgusted at Danny Boyle for using live animals in the Olympic opening ceremony!

[balotelli]

According to reports on todays news live sheep will be used in the Olympic Opening ceremony. Its supposed to depict 'rural' England!

Poor sheep will be scared shitless. I am horrified that these poor sensitive creatures are being exploited for entertainment.

No animals should ever be used as entertainment.

Disgraceful.

Well Danny Boyle is from Bury and in the side of Manchester I'm from it's pretty well known that those Bury folk like sheep.

I really really hope we do this well. We were living in Canada at the time of the Vancouver winter games and not once did I hear a negative comment about it from any Canadian, my DSs school formed a human version of the Olympic rings and they took an ariel picture that made the front of the paper. The whole country was gripped with Olympic fever.

I think we all need to pull together and celebrate, let's have a bit of national pride.

Disclaimer......I love Bury folk and I haven't lived in Manchester for a long long time.

Animals?

Strong rural element?

Planned by a film director?

I bet it will be something like this.

I would like to nominate Boris Johnson for the Edward Woodward role.

Well, I personally am not overly thrilled about the fucking Olympics because it is a spectacular waste of money, and will make my life a misery for three weeks.

The whole thing stinks - Vanity Fair did a good article about how ridiculoulsy dodgy the Olympics are. The IOC is very corrupt, and the Olympics are always arranged to the detriment of the host country (only exception being Barcelona) and to the benefit of the IOC. According to that article, Blair agreed to the UK bidding in an attempt to win over the population after the disaster of the Iraq War.

Charming

Compos, .

I was hoping for something like that to happen during the Jubilee. Seeing as it didn't, I FERVENTLY hope it'll happen at the Olympics.

Seb Coe rather than/as well as Johnson, perhaps?

Seb Coe rather than/as well as Johnson, perhaps?

Why not, the more the merrier!

Are you from Cannock by the way?

Whatever way they do it, the animals will have up be fine or they'll get spooked and leg it all over the arena - and being pretty nimble the sheep could be up into the lower seating given half a chance, the crowd probably don't want to be wearing woolly jumpers...

Have tried to milk cows to violin music - turned them into pooing machines so had to retune to Radio 1 quick. Hope they road test the musical selection first...

I'm more disgusted that the opening ceremony alone will cost £27million to stage.

I have no idea why the Olympics moved out of Greece in the first place rather than having so many countries competing to host & vying to outdo each other. They should have a permanent site/Olympic village for all Olympic games forever.

Yes Member the Greeks have shown a flair for money management, let them keep the games forever. Less risk of Usain Bolt having to hide from the rain too.

I like danny Boyle but his ideas for the opening seem a bit lop sided. What about all the millions who live in cities? There is more to us than green fields

I think they should have put me in charge frankly. I'd have Ken Livingstone riding Boris Johnson bareback round a muddy paddock accompanied by the massed voices of every X Factor reject ever. For the dancing girls I'm thinking those old biddies from the last Britain's Got Talent (note to self - could nipple tassles feature here too?). Pyrotechnics to be supplied by the Top Gear production team - perhaps someone could unleash a couple of ferrets up Clarkson's pyjamas? The possibilities are endless. Get some imagination going and let's show Danny bleedin' Boyle how it's really done!

Compos, no; it's my Royal Wedding guest name and Cannock Road was the street I lived on as a kid.

Lentilly, I like the cut of your jib. Add in Mary Berry, Sue Perkins and Mel Giedroyc from The Great British Bake-Off, all coming out of a gigantic cake, and the world will be able to do nothing but watch in wonder.

OMG Sheep Fireworks - with collies and LEDs. Brilliant. Thanks Hiphop.

You can represnt millenia of history and culture with a man who witnessed most of it - Sir Cliff can sing Congratulations, a song that came second.

I'm more horrified that the organisers chose to portray the UK in this anachronistic way.

Fucking sheep and meadows! What about showing the modern side of the UK the rest of the world has already seen the Royal Wedding and the Jubilee, but, the rest of the world must think we are an enormous ruritainian theme park and now they are underlining that with Chickens, sheep and fields WTF!
It was a British man who invented the internet, the first computer was British, the City is one of the major financial centres of the world, and the inventor of the lightbulb was British (a chap called Swan who let Edison develop the idea on his behalf), TV and Photography are also British inventions. Would anyone know that from the opening ceremony? no they are going to think we are a bunch of medieval peasants.

LadyClarice - Mary Berry should be a sideshow in her own right! I'm not at all sure about Cliff Richard unless - and I realise it's a big ask - someone could drop him an LSD tab and have him jelly wrestle a flock of deranged pigeons? Nothing more British than a pigeon - you can't say fairer than that.

TBH we should have probably dug the shite from the Millenium Dome out of storage and bunged that in the opening ceremony... a singing brain in Tommy Cooper fez anyone? anyone?

Depends Piprabbit. Will the brain be singing funky new songs that show a vibrant scene that reflects a 21st century London or will it be a medley of second rate late 90s Britpop latecomers? Or perhaps back to the 60s with a duet with Cilla?

Perhaps I can don my sheepdog costume and herd some pigeons around Trafalgar Square, helped by mime artists and homeless people?

OP, yes, YABU.

The RSPCA says it's fine, and they're going to be performing checks.

So how come you know better than the RSPCA do?

LadyClariceCannockMonty Sounds good! I'm sure you'd get better viewing figures than the real ceremony. I suggest you approach Channel 4 before someone nicks your idea.

Thanks for the vote of confidence, Toaster, I will!

for the record I am totally against the use of any animals in so called sport or

entertainment. I wont have anything to do with horse racing, showjumping,

dog racing, county shows, crufts etc, zoo's, animal circus'.

they will also have cows, horses and goats in the arena.

And yes some people will complain about anything.............

its often the only way this cruel world will change!

balotelli

So what is it that you know about animal welfare which the RSPCA doesn't?

If the RSPCA says the animals are happy enough, why shouldn't we take their word for it?

Oh come on now, what did everyone actually expect?

If it wasn't cringworthy and toe curling it definitely wouldn't be British.
If someone wasn't moaning about it, it wouldn't be British.

Oh course we'll be using our countryside. Its a marketing exercise by the tourist board. I'd kind of be disappointed if we didn't pander to every terrible cliche going.

Get a grip OP FFS. They are sheep, not small children. If you have ever seen a sheep market you would be grateful they are being treated so well.

He should use dead sheep = problem solved.