Heh. I thought I'd eaten the funny cheese or had two too many gin and tonics (possibly both), but it was rather off-kilter splendid, and very British. I'd worried we would try to out-Chinese the Beijing ceremony which would have been destined to fail because there's more of them and they all performed like they were one misstep away from a long spell in a prison camp. Previous American ones have always been ra-ra we're Americans and really proud for of the fact for no reason we can really articulate but look – men with jetpacks! (Nicely referenced on Friday.) Sydney was the same, but they crossed out all references to the US and replaced them Australia. They may have had kangaroos with jetpacks, my mind had probably wandered off, if they did, I raise my estimate. Marsupials. Rockets. What's not to like?
I have had to explain the NHS to several Americans in the wake of this. OMG! Socialised medicine! Strange how we could be so proud of something that killed Stephen Hawking (they should have him zooming overhead on a rocket-chair, they missed a trick there). I had assumed the entire emphasis on that section on the NHS to be a reference to 1948 (and an opportunity to rub Cameron's nose in fresh dog dirt).
Only down points for me were the Artic Monkeys who I've always found rather insipid and forgettable, and it really needed an act with more pomp and bombast to match the occasion, not what looked like four scruffy blokes plucked from a local pub's band night. And Macca, who has been dull for longer than I've been alive.
I'd also have liked to see Brian Blessed. Preferably punching a Dalek. That, and the aforementioned Hawking jet-chair streaking overhead (not literally streaking, mind), would have sealed it for me.
