I managed to watch the Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Games the day after, as it was just too late for me to sit up until 4am to watch the whole show! I must say that the first time I watched it, I was ambivalent about whether I liked it or not….the second time , however, I really managed to see a lot more of what was going on and I liked it a lot more..and my goodness there was a LOT going on!!
The music part the show was the worst part for me…messy, loud and very very confusing! The good parts though, made up for the bad bits…I loved the history lesson….not too crazy about the kids and nurses flying around the stadium though….the gold forged rings were spectacular, as was the Olympic cauldron made up of all the individual pipes and lit by the young athletes..very symbolic I thought!
I also loved Mr Bean, the BBC film featuring Her Majesty the Queen and James Bond, and the flying bicycles near the end….
The athletes parade was summed up very well by a blogger who said : “The thing about the Parade of Nations was, it was nothing if not a reminder that Olympians are basically the most attractive people in existence.” I agree whole heartedly!!
I did write a fluffy post about about athletes’ uniforms here and apart from South Africa, who I thought looked really great on the day, my opinion remains pretty much the same….I did realise, however, that when I saw the Dutch team, their colours were in fact navy, white and orange…duh! Dutch flag? Much more orange than in the image I posted, it has to be said. I still think the US looked great …very smart and so confident…..
Team GB was a tiny bit disappointing in that I liked the white and gold but I thought the gold collars looked a bit tacky and cheap…or was it just me?
All in all, I managed to sit through almost the whole parade of nations…I felt very bad for the poor drummers…their hands must have hurt like crazy after that marathon of drumming!
I thought David Beckham’s arrival was quite fun…very 007 and he looked amazingly pulled together.
All in all it was jolly good entertainment and I think the British should feel very proud of themselves…it was an incredible feat to pull off in the midst of a massive recession.
A Decorator's Notebook 