To think the Opening Ceremony was truely appalling and here's why

[kate2mum]

Danny Boyle - a cool dad in jeans who thinks of the world through the prism of music of his youth. He sees everything through music.
Had Viv Westwood been in charge, for example, the history of the UK would have been seen through fashion.
But, no, a billion people have to listen to the personal playlist of a Nick Hornbyish (oh, they are friends!) music trainspotter.

Shame if you don't see the world through that sort of music - but I guess you had to be there, and DBoyle probably was.

Tribute to NHS!!! Sorry, but I didn't know everyone who works for the NHS were all angels and volunteered for free instead of working for one of the biggest employers in the country. And just remembered this event is about SPORT and the way it can transform, so why oh why demonstrate 100's of "sick" children - to demonstrate how "caring" the NHS is.

Then children's literature done by the man who bought us Trainspotting - initially I thought the scene was still about the NHS turning into a nightmare, but NO, the best way to illustrate childrens' literature is to show how truely scary it is! Yes, reading can be terrifying and books are a fearful place. Not a place of safety, or unlifting, not inspiring, not poetic, just a nightmare (where were all the positive characters???).

Only people Danny Boyle's age would thing Mary Poppins was appropriate..

My children fell asleep; they could have cut most of it, had David Beckham ride in on a motorbike, light the flame, and then have some fireworks.

Lighting designer was good though.

I don't think it glorified the Industrial Revolution, just put in some context.

LRD - if the recession could have been sorted by the cost of the Olympics do you honestly think it wouldn't have been done by now. Really, the cost of two weeks of sport could sort out the recession?

Great article spamm.

Meglet, what channel are you watching on? Can't find any repeats on TV for DH.

LRD if more people did sport, it could help sort out the Recession. As in you'd have more motivated people and healthier ones who used up less resources too.

I didn't think the Industrial Revolution bit was meant to be purely celebratory - it seemed to portray the two-side aspect of great feats of engineering and the destruction of the rural landscape, enclosure of the land (or was it just me that read that into the people rolling up the turf).

The only other opening ceremony I've sat through in it's entirety was the Beijing one (watched it on a big telly all day at work ) & I didn't get all the cultural / historical references that (maybe?) Chinese people understood - it was just loads of random spectacular and/or cheesy Chinese stuff IIRC.

By that standard we did pretty well. £27million may a lot of money, but it's a tenth of what the show in Beijing cost, not sure how much cheaper we could have gone without it being laughable. The BBC paying Jonathon Ross £6m a year is shocking, £27m for a show that definitely wasn't 10x crapper than Beijing seems about right.

The doves on bicycles were beautiful and the torch/cauldron was a lovely piece of engineering to finish off with.

And having NHS made out of glowing hospital beds that you could proabably see from space. Priceless

(probably )

I loved it, apart from Macca.

gee - could be so. I'm admitting I'm not sure.

lavender - 'two weeks sport' - yeah, but two bloody expensive weeks!

Forgive me for not having total confidence in our country and our various governments' proven track record with economics, I have these sneaking doubts on account of WE ARE IN THE MIDDLE OF A RECESSION!

it was fantastic

we went to watch it at blackheath, the atmosphere was wonderful and we enjoyed every minute it was brilliant

i laughed and cried and through it all i felt very very proud

Spamm - thanks for linking to that article, that's put a lot of things into perspective, even the Hey Jude song! I was thinking earlier that the worst song they could have picked was "Revolution" - didn't know it was the B side to Hey Jude and the relevance of the date is also interesting.

So - Danny Boyle - political activist and sticking a couple of fingers up at repression and the govt - all round good bloke then!

I have to say, I have not been looking forward to the Olympics at all. Not that bothered about sport. Have watched the gymanastics, swimming and diving in the past. Probably wont bother about much else this time.
I have been completely fecked off by all the sponsorship stuff, and the feeling that as Londoners we didnt really matter.
I wasn't blown away at the start, felt a bit seasick by the dragon fly flight, apart from the children's choirs (which were absolutely beautiful) but there were far too many men in Top Hats, and "commoners" mucking about. Kenneth Brannagh was good, but again, I was thinking Eh? Olympic ceremony? dont think so.
The forging of the rings was well done-the aerial view was spectacular, but a lot of what was going on around that was a bit meh.
Then Daniel Craig wandered into the Queen's drawing room. And I cracked and was blown away.
All of my friends were going mad texting and tweeting its "the actual Queen".
Totally sold from then onwards.
I am an NHS worker of many years and I loved the tribute. (Although the big baby was a bit creepy, and I can tell you we dont do much of that dancing at work!)
Loved the literature stuff, (although Hazel called Voldemort VoldemArt!)
Adored the athletes parade, and thought the torch ceremony and lighting of the cauldron was inspired.
Yay Beckham, Yay Redgrave, Yay all the rest who nominated the young athletes.
Wasn't impressed with McCartney though. He has indeed contributed loads to music and Britain but he could have done with some help. He just doesn't have the voice any more.
Overall I loved it. There was way more to love than to criticise for me, and everyone will have some parts that they like more than others.
The BBC commentators were appalling though, and someone has taken note, as the opening ceremony is available on iplayer with NO commentary.

I just watched, went in excited, but found it very messy and lots of missed opportunities.

Most of the cut away film was boring and pointless - could have had all the dancing without seeing the inside of the house.

When the mini came on, me and dh got excited and expected some racing around, but nothing.

If the link between NHs and literature was made through Peter pan, then wtf was he? Why weren't there lost boys soaring around the arena instead of dementors? That section could have been so much better. And I don't think the rest of the world is as impressed with the NHS as you might think.

this is how good it was - I've just watched most of it again on iPlayer! I started because I missed the beginning when I watched it before, but I just kept it on all the way until the torch lighting. I'm switching it off now before the Macca disaster starts again. God, that torch is just the best thing ever, I love it!

Great link Spamm - I didn't know about Hey Jude being no. 1 the day of the black power salute, fascinating reference. Bet Boyle did know and used it for that reason.

LRD - they could be gold-plated weeks and it still wouldn't sort the recession out :-) However, a successful games could have an impact on confidence and mood.

People seem to be complaining about what wasn't in it, but apart from the things that were shown, we have everything in the world ever, which would be difficult to fit into one stadium.

You may well be right - I hope so anyway.

I didn't think it was appropriate for the ceremony to be so political. Sport is supposed to be apolitical. I also think they missed an opportunity to showcase the UK to potential tourists. In my opinion the NHS shouldn't have been included in the opening ceremony. I liked the Mr Bean and James Bond sequences. I thought the Queen was brilliant but the ending was wrong. DH, who is Danish, thought the ending was disrespectful to the Queen (I just thought it could have been better). Macca was singing live and I think the issue was more with the sound. I liked his performance though.

I did think that they should have showcased more British music. Macca should have sung let it be, Artic Monkeys should have done one of their own songs and George Michael et al should have been brought on to sing we are the champions by Queen. Would have been a better finish to the ceremony and more fitting to the theme which was the Olympics (the althetes are the champions of the world). I did notice that opera was not represented while rap was. I can only guess that it was lost to the classical music provided by the wonderful orchestra. Annie Lenox should have been allowed to perform Sweet Dreams too. Very fitting for the olympics.

I thought that the olympic flag should have been carried in by people such as Derek Redmond and others who have set up charities or people who have done extraordinary things to raise awareness. I know she is no longer with us but people like Jane Tomlinson is what springs to mind.

To be fair to Danny Boyle, worked miracles with his budget. GBP27 million for that ceremony was nothing.

Good article. I loved it - I laughed, cried and felt very proud of my country.

To the OP :

What did you want to see? What music would have been more appropriate?

there are many facets to British culture & history, not all could be represented.

I think Danny Boyle did a fantastic job of a very very difficult task.

showcased more British music

I thought they did showcase lots of british music - I even remarked to my DH that we've produced a lot of good bands!

I thought that the olympic flag should have been carried in by people such as Derek Redmond and others who have set up charities or people who have done extraordinary things to raise awareness

Seriously. did you watch the same ceremony?! One of the bearers was Mrs Lawrence!

my six year old dd was mesmerised, it took alot of explaining but she understood the meaning, maybe you should have engaged your dcs with it and they may have stayed awake.

Can I ask? A couple of people mentioned the Chinese ceremony being 'just' spectacular, and not meaningful. I didn't see it and am not Chinese - can anyone who is both of those things or knows about Chinese culture clarify, is it possible there were meanings and we just missed them?

FWIW I did like the people who carried the olympic flag, and the tributes to them for the qualities they represented.

cfwb Yes the UK has and it one of the UK's biggest exports.

They should have had the bands play live, not as part of a strange dance routine with a boy meets girl who loses her iphone.... They tried to have the focus on the girl and boy when they should have placed the focus on the music. Culturally an opening ceremony which was like a Royal Variety Show would have been more fitting.

You know, they talk about this being a recession, how many downloads of British music would there have been today from those based outside of the UK if they had placed more focus on the music? Would have been a boost for the music industry and tax revenue.