The Show's Over

On Friday I started watching the late-night repeat of the Opening Ceremony for the 29th Olympiad, turning it off once the inane and snarky commentary just got too much. This afternoon, once the Closing Ceremony spectacular began, the same three commentators of Huw Edwards and the two inconsequential blondes were huddled around their microphones but this time they were obviously passed a note that read: SHUT THE FUCK UP UNTIL AN APPROPRIATE LULL IN THE PROCEEDINGS.


Unfortunately they didn’t get it until toward the end of the opening routing performed by the multitude of drummers, that included two giant drums like rounds of Edam cheese floating about the floor of the Bird’s Nest Stadium, and the marvellous choreographed routine featuring the dancers clothed in bells. But at least they dialled it down for the first explosion of fireworks.

After that, it all seemed to go very well, with them pretty much keeping out of it until there was something useful to add. Yes, it was a feast of colour and a feast of sound, but I could work that out myself without having the Fat Welshman telling me. The hand over took place between the Mayor Beijing and the Mayor of London. Good old Boris enthusiastically waved the Olympic flag to order without bumbling or tumbling. But after that...


I’ve never paid enough attention to previous Closing Ceremonies to know the drill; that the next host had an eight-minute slot to advertise their four-years-away wares. Now, obviously a different culture is going to provide something different but what in all that’s holy was that mish-mashed clusterfuck on offer all about?

The horrible cheap-looking computer graphic sequence, apparently put together by some Soho keyboard drones, looked like it was some piss-poor, misguided attempt to resurrect all that Cool Britannia bullshit. Punks and bloody Abbey Road? Oh, cock off! And then we get a ‘real’ red London bus that pulls up to a zebra crossing and a Lollipop Lady. What fucking madness was this? Is that all that’s truly representative of this country now?

I guess the alternative would have been some Morris Dancers and a bunch of those people who re-enact Civil War battles on their weekend. And if Pearly Kings and Queens turned up, marksmen would have quite probably been instructed to shoot on site, but at least they could have happily danced around Chas ‘n’ Dave belting out a tune on the old Joanna before heading into the Anderson shelter.


At least it wasn’t a bloody bendy-bus, or the fucking TARDIS. But then to add insult to injury the top deck collapsed like a village fete float that was meant to be a Transformer and up pops a winner off The X-Factor and dinosaur rocker Jimmy Page who then proceed to belt out a barely audible version of Whole Lotta Love. To add to the abomination a bunch of dancers with umbrellas cocked about like drunken ramblers trying to shelter from a storm in a telephone box.

We’d been told that the Chinese performers had been rehearsing their performances for both ceremonies for years and it showed. This load of old nonsense looked like it had been cobbled together by people still suffering the effects of a violent hangover.

So is this a taste of things to come? Just as news arrives that four of the top Olympic sponsors have decided to withdraw their financial support is the best we have to offer a kiddie picked by Blue Peter voters to hand Beckham a football? I bet the nincompoops behind the Millennium Eve fiasco in the Dome breathed a sigh of relief after they witness those eight minutes, as long as they weren’t involved again. No wonder Boris made a speedy getaway.


Once the ceremony was over and it cut from Beijing to Claudia Winkleman grinning like an idiot as she presented the party on The Mall I switched off, simply because I was too exhausted to claw my eyes out. Apparently it was just as fucking awful, which isn’t a surprise. Now, I know we should all be very patriotic and back 2012 all the way, but on the evidence presented today the wise thing to do would be to pack up and get the fuck out while we still can.