Olympics winding down

[neadods]

The opening ceremonies were very much about "the UK's place in world culture." As far as I can tell from the pictures and clips coming out of London, the closing ceremonies are about "the weird shit someone's been smoking." Arising from "newsprint rubbish trucks?" Heck - is the printed news really anything to be celebrated over there right now?

On a brighter note, congratulations to the UK for its many medals and overcoming the initial teething troubles to pull off a safe and excellent Olympics.

Comments

[wendymr.livejournal.com]

Currently watching the closing ceremonies by live stream on the BBC's iplayer, and I don't recognise that description at all! Basically - other than the parade of athletes - it's British hit pop music over the past 30 years. Not as clever or watchable as the opening, but not bad.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

From the NY Times liveblog:

-- Emeli Sande, who sang at the opening ceremony, sings at this one, too, after being “unwrapped on a newspaper rubbish truck,” according to the official program. The song is called “Read All About It.”

-- The rubbish truck carried Ms. Sande away and she has been replaced by the people from Stomp, and a choir of people singing the first chords to “Because,” by the Beatles. The Stomp people are hanging from the newspaper Tower Bridge playing the drums

(Nea's note: I'm very fond of Stomp.)

-- And then a car explodes and Batman and Robin come out. It’s apparently a dual reference to the movie “The Italian Job” and a British TV show called “Only Fools and Horses.” This is going to be absolutely inexplicable to the vast majority of international viewers, but it gets a huge cheer.

-- Meanwhile, hundreds of people wearing what looks like blue lederhosen, along with lightbulbs on their heads, are entering the stadium from a different direction. They do not have flags, but neither are they wearing long pants. We on The New York Times panel are not sure what they are supposed to represent.

Etc. I can't make heads or tails of it.

I haven't seen anything other than the Times coverage; NBC will deign to show something riddled with adverts and incessantly talked over in about another 3 hours and I will knit and make a note in my calendar to check UK websites for a highlights DVD in a couple of months.

[wendymr.livejournal.com]

I missed the first half-hour or so, and came in not long before the lightbulb people - which was during the parade of athletes, incidentally - so I no doubt missed what he was talking about.

However, the bits I did see before the parade included some musical performances with models of notable London architecture as scene-dressing. It was quite nicely done.

Edit: parts of the stage are painted with fake 'newspaper stories', including quotes from famous writers about Britain or London. And the later musical performances include David Bowie, the Spice Girls and a hilarious performance by Eric Idle singing 'Always Look on the Bright Side of Life'.

If you have access to a proxy server, you'll be able to see the entire closing ceremony on the BBC's site for at least the next week or so.

[redpanda13.livejournal.com]

The newspaper rubbish trucks, along with the ramps up to the central stage and some of the costumes, were printed with bits from British literature. Once in a while you could actually read a line or two. Not sure why the ones that seemed to stick out were "To be or not to be" and "To die will be an awfully big adventure".....

I had to leave for about 40 minutes to give insulin to a client's cat, but unless I missed it, it would have been nice to have some music I'd ever actually heard before by some people that I'd more or less heard of before (other than, say, the Spice Girls or Queen, whom it's hard not to have heard of).....

Loved Eric Idle's bit, including the inexplicable Bollywood intrusion and the opera diva with enormous trident... and especially the fact that everyone in the stadium, including Prince Harry, obviously knew the song.

[paratti.livejournal.com]

The Prime Minister slagged off 'Indian dancing' being done instead of sport at schools (which doesn't happen) this week. It was an epic trolling of that to pop it up randomly.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Oh.

TBH, I've got a Bollywood dance workout DVD, and it kicks my ass. It may not be a sport, but it's certainly exercise.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

The quote that got me was "And the rest is silence" during Stomp.