to think the queen could make a bit more effort?

[twofingerstoGideon]

... sitting there looking so bored and grumpy last night. Even when the UK team did their parade she looked completely unenthusiastic. Make an effort, woman! We pay you enough.

It looked like one to me.

She looked like she massively enjoyed her Jubilee to me, saw her smiling a lot.

Agree, it was too late and she should have been seated closer to her family - poor woman's all about duty and sat with Robbe etc.

A friend of mine who was at the opening ceremony has told me that when the athletes entered the stadium (and first appeared on the tv cameras) they were round the opposite side of the stadium to where the queen was sitting, so by the time they were parading in front of her she was looking up and smiling although this didn't appear to be shown on camera.

You know, Carri, I did wonder that - I didn't think the Queen was sitting right where they came out, it was just bad linking by the tv crews. Glad to have had that confirmed :)

YABU shes very old - and it was late after a busy day/week. Plus no one smiles constantly for three hours bad timing for the camera is all!

I agree it was a lot of bad camera work. Surely some of the cameras are stationery (ary?) so they have a feed all the time? Couldnt they just wait until they saw the royals responding and showed that?

The whole family looked bad, I though the younger royals looked bored to tears but as people have said, a very long ceremony, they cant looked excited for all of it. Seeing Will's reaction to his Grandmother with James Bond would have been nice. The moment they caught Camila and Charles in fits of giggles was lovely.

Love the way we all KNOW that at the time the camera was on the Queen was when the GB team was passing her! She probably still had Yemen/Zambia/Zimbabwe in front of her. 2 hours of walking athletes jeez, enough to make any woman in her 80s scream to be allowed to go home.

Sorry! x-posted!

And I loved Charles and Camilla's giggles. Seb sitting next to them looked miserable though. Maybe he'd heard it confirmed Ovett was lighting the flame!

She looked exhausted, I thought

She was up at the Olympics this morning, she popped I'm at the swimming with a big smile

I saw that Bruffin

After the, standing in the rain for four hours and Phillip being hospitalised, episode from the Jubilee, you'd have thought they would have let her have a lie in today.

YABVVVU

I agree about the unfortunate resting expression thing; I have a scary face when I'm not actively thinking about it. The Queen's always had that Windsor bulldog thing going on, although I thought the Duke of Edinburgh looked pretty chipper for most of it. And in a way I prefer the honesty of someone who naturally looks grumpy but has a real sunshiney smile, than someone who grins constantly and looks fake.

Maybe she was worried about Philip, having to sit through another 4 hour epic without a break, so soon after his last State Occasion-induced surgery. Maybe when the nailpicking was going on she actually had Zimbabwe in front of her and was saving herself for the moment when the GB team actually made their way around. Maybe lots of things.

To be fair if I had to sit through the a-z of country parades I'd look bored too! Hooray for sky +!

It's not the Queen that needed to make more of an effort, it was the bloody BBC and their awful camera angles/reporting.
They should not have cut to her when they could see quite clearly she was picking her nails. Like some one earlier on the thread said, I'm sure there was some point when Team GB passed that she clapped or was animated, probably just wasn't shown.
When the Indian contingent came out, BBC panning to a bored queen "The queen looks interested with the Indian team". No she didn't and we didn't need to see her at this point, as barely got to see any of the Indian team at all.
The BBC is good at certain things(imo-children's programmes, dramas), but not at reporting live events, they made a complete mess of the Queens jubilee too.

I agree with Hawsie,they hardly showed the Indian team, also I think she looked a bit ill and all that thumping loud music probably did her head in. My husband was tired at 11.00 and was falling asleep I had to keep nudging him. She looked a lot better this morning at the Aquatic centre.

She's 86 years old - i expect she was falling asleep - and the segment where the athletes comes out IS boring.

Maybe it was safer to show her looking predictably, traditionally stuffy than it would be when Mr Fiji was going past....

thumbwitch, that is a real shame they had to miss the opening ceremony...

Queen would probably love to retire... but she's trying to delay handing over the crown to the not very popular or sensible Charles & Camilla for as long as possible!

At 86 the majority of people don't have the best cognition / eyesight etc so maybe she just didn't realise that team GB were going past until she had looked at her nails or was so tired she was past caring

poor queenie

I was bored to death during the athletes walk too - but i had copious amounts of alcohol to keep me amused :)

I really don't know what people expect the queen to do, she took part in the film and then sat through a 4 hour ceremony. She was never going to walk to her seat gesticulating wildly seeking applause and grinning at everyone like a loon. She has a very good sense of occasion, the opening ceremony wasn't about her . Amazingly after leaving at 1 am she was back in the Olympic park for 9 am yesterday attending events, walking around and, yes, smiling!

She looked very emotional when the children were signing the National Anthem

She has a nice smile but the cameras only seemed to be on her when she looked bored or fed up. I thought she'd had a fight with Phil before coming our (as some couples do). Its a shame they didn't show her smiling.

Still, she has more stamina than I do, and is pretty good for her age.