This event was something that makes me just a little bit proud to be British, a celebration of the best that this whole nation could be, and it's an utter shame that there's now a big ugly stain on my pride for Britain.
I do think nostalgia plays a big part of my love for this ceremony, but 2012 was a truly great year to be proud of this weird and wacky country.
The short film at the start was a great way to open, and then that whole Industrial Revolution scene just amazes me every time, it's an absolute spectacle and I can't believe I got to see it live on TV at the age of 5.The Queen and James Bond segment was a great section of course
I really liked the celebration of the NHS which then led to a celebration of British children's literature soundtracked by Mike Oldfield playing his iconic track Tubular Bells. Rowan Atkinson as his iconic character Mr. Bean performing Chariots of Fire with Simon Rattle and the London Symphony Orchestra was just an utterly excellent piece of comedy.
That whole celebration of British music, film, and pure innovation culminating in Dizzie Rascal performing Bonkers and Sir Tim Berners-Lee having a standing ovation for inventing the World Wide Web was well, bonkers.
The Arctic Monkeys were pretty good, liked their cover of The Beatles' Come Together. The Olympic cauldron design by Thomas Heatherwick was utterly glorious and absolutely genius on his part, and then Paul McCartney finishing off with The End and then a very poor performance of Hey Jude purely because they fucked up the ADR so badly, Paul was actually singing and his band were playing perfectly.
Overall, I don't think it was the biggest spectacle ever for an Olympics ceremony (Beijing 2008 comes to mind of course) but it's my favourite.
This event was something that makes me just a little bit proud to be British, a celebration of the best that this whole nation could be, and it's an utter shame that there's now a big ugly stain on my pride for Britain.
I do think nostalgia plays a big part of my love for this ceremony, but 2012 was a truly great year to be proud of this weird and wacky country.
The short film at the start was a great way to open, and then that whole Industrial Revolution scene just amazes me every time, it's an absolute spectacle and I can't believe I got to see it live on TV at the age of 5.The Queen and James Bond segment was a great section of course
I really liked the celebration of the NHS which then led to a celebration of British children's literature soundtracked by Mike Oldfield playing his iconic track Tubular Bells. Rowan Atkinson as his iconic character Mr. Bean performing Chariots of Fire with Simon Rattle and the London Symphony Orchestra was just an utterly excellent piece of comedy.
That whole celebration of British music, film, and pure innovation culminating in Dizzie Rascal performing Bonkers and Sir Tim Berners-Lee having a standing ovation for inventing the World Wide Web was well, bonkers.
The Arctic Monkeys were pretty good, liked their cover of The Beatles' Come Together. The Olympic cauldron design by Thomas Heatherwick was utterly glorious and absolutely genius on his part, and then Paul McCartney finishing off with The End and then a very poor performance of Hey Jude purely because they fucked up the ADR so badly, Paul was actually singing and his band were playing perfectly.
Overall, I don't think it was the biggest spectacle ever for an Olympics ceremony (Beijing 2008 comes to mind of course) but it's my favourite.
