Sunflower and Honey Bee

I shouldn’t comment on “Mitt the Nit”, what with his recent bull in an English tea room approach to diplomacy, even though I really want to. Although, conversations with my brother Chris, have him egging me on to be more politically edgy. Instead, I’ll try to askew further politics and concentrate on the Olympics themselves. 

I watched the opening ceremonies, well mostly. At four and a half hours, they were a bit too long for my meager attention span. What I did see of Oscar-winning Slumdog Millionaire director Danny Boyle’s show was boisterous, very British and at times a wee bit odd.

Let’s start with the good parts. Many of these occurred outside the stadium and were broadcasted into the stadium and then around the world. The Queen’s entrance was fabulous, simply fabulous. I loved the corgis. I was glad to see that she eventually dumped that Bond guy and rejoined Prince Philip for the opening ceremonies. People were starting to call her the new Bond girl. I was a little worried though, what with Philip being missing in action during her jubilee. Maybe he was just under the weather.

Mister Bean (Rowen Atkinson) killed in the Chariots of Fire sequence. I was on YouTube immediately afterwards, marveling on how they could have made that sequence. Finally to complete this trifecta, there were the shots of David Beckham motoring up the Thames, bringing the Olympic flame to the stadium. He looked very dashing.

I promised not to get political here, but Danny Boyle didn’t. His salute to the National Health Service, complete with dancing sick-kids probably fell flat in the American living rooms of ObamaCare’s foes. The giant Franken-baby that NBC’s Matt Lauer questioned, “I don’t know if that’s cute or creepy”, probably didn’t help anyone’s political agenda.

Also squarely under the odd moniker, were the flying bicycle doves that look more like flying monkeys, the Mary Poppins air raid and of course, Voldemort. The house-afire digital-age tour of British popular music was too long, but the music was nice. I lost interest in the show somewhere around China’s entrance, although I did leave it on.

Now it is time to switch from spectacle to sport. Let the Games begin! There will be agony and ecstasy, winners and losers. Will these games be a success or not, I don’t know, but I could ask an ‘expert’:

You know, it’s hard to know just how well it will turn out; there are a few things that were disconcerting, the stories about the private security firm not having enough people, the supposed strike of the immigration and customs officials that obviously is not something which is encouraging.

So I lied, sue me. 😆