London 2012 stadium
2012 Red Arrows
Bradley Wiggins opens London 2012 striking bell
Olympic rings are forged
Mr Bean with London Symphony Orchestra
London 2012 James Bond
David Beckham on motor launch
London 2012 Team GB
Team GB projected onto Parliament
Wow!!! Bravo!! Yiaaa!!! Beautiful Akram Khan choreography, the welded rings, Queen + 007, Dizzeeeee, audience LEDs, GOSH. Magical! Xx – Imogen Heap
Que responsabilidade para o Rio de Janeiro 2016… – Paulo Coelho
[World Wide Web] This is for everyone. — Sir Tim Berners-Lee
A countdown, then it started.
We fly through the countryside, along The Thames, into the stadium.
A huge bell, the largest in the world, is rung by Bradley Wiggins, winner of the Tour de France
Peasants wandering in the fields. Cricket on the village green. A strange mix of Constable, Shakespeare, Dickens, Thomas Hardy.
This pastoral scene, this green and pleasant land changes, smoke pours out of the hill, workers from the factories come pouring out, black and smoky, smoke and flames out of the hill.
Drums, a thousands drums. Chaos. The Industrial Revolution, dark and satanic mills, the countryside destroyed.
Huge mill chimneys rise out of the ground. Mill owners survey the scene.
The two World Wars. The Suffragettes.
The Swinging Sixties. Dressed as Sgt. Pepper.
Molten metal flowing, rings forged, hauled into the sky
A celebration of children’s literature and the NHS. Mike Oldfield Tubular Bells. Children experiencing nightmares.
A clear message to the ConDem government, Hands Off Our NHS!
I was thinking Vangelis, and as if on cue Chariots of Fire performed by the London Symphony Orchestra.
Mr Bean. I just could not stop laughing.
James Bond, special assignment, bring in the Queen.
Musical montage. Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, The Who, The Beatles, Sex Pistols, Queen, David Bowie ….
Sir Tim Berners-Lee and his gift to the world, the World Wide Web.
Montage of the torch relay across the country.
Snippets of David Beckham in a motor launch on The Thames bringing the Olympic torch.
Athletes parade in. More nations than the UN.
Why did the Czech athletes all turn up in Wellies?
Palestine is at Olympics, why not UN?
Team GB march in to David Bowie Heroes. Team GB are competing in every single event. Billions of tiny pieces of paper fall from the sky. Each one representing one person on the planet.
204 nations!
For the first time all the nations will have women in their teams. Even Saudi Arabia.
UK is the home of sport, codified the rules of sport, the sense of fair play.
Back to the music. Arctic Monkeys. Angels on bicycles.
London is the only city to host the Olympic Games three times.
Size of the stadium huge. Like something out of a futuristic film.
A waste to turn into a football stadium Should be used for rock concerts and other special events.
The 30th Olympiad of Modern Era.
Fantastic to see Muhammad Ali but upsetting to see him so ill.
David Beckham arrives by motor launch, hands the torch to Sir Steve Redgrave.
A neat touch to have those who constructed the stadium to provide an honour guard for Sir Steve Redgrave as he brought the torch into the stadium and to have young athletes give a relay tour around the track.
Young athletes were then handed torches. Earlier we saw each team of athletes bring in a copper petal. We now found out what they were for. Each was at the end of a long thin stem. This was the cauldron, which the torches lit. But that was not all. The long thin stems then all rose up to form one huge flame.
Fireworks, not just the stadium, the entire site. To the music of Pink Floyd.
Then the Grand Finale Paul McCartney Hey Jude showing that at 70 he is the World’s Number One Rock n Roller.
Could anything match the Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremony?
Well now we know the answer.
Yes!
Danny Boyle put the Beijing Olympics in the shade, turned it into a sideshow.
There were doubts, should it not have been Andrew Lloyd-Webber or Cameron Mackintosh?
Well we got our answer.
Words cannot describe how good it was: fantastic, phenomenal. Nothing measures up to it.
Hollywood eat your heart out. You could not match this no matter how hard you tried.
Danny Boyle deserves a knighthood at the very least.
Danny Boyle was worried about the BBC, that they would chat over the top.
He was right to be worried. It was unbelievable. Moronic chat ruining the show. It was like being at a concert or the opera and a group of jerks giving their mates a running commentary of what is going on.
But if you thought the BBC chat was bad, on an American network it was far far worse. The video quality very poor too. How can anyone enjoy the show with a constant back chat drowning out was was going on?
With the exception of the torch relay there had been little support for the London 2012 Olympics due to the all pervasive stench of corporate sponsorship. Overnight Danny Boyle converted the public to enthusiasts.
Seeing the artistic performance, the athletes walking in, is what it is all about. An inspiration to all. Not sordid sponsorship by McDonald’s, Coca-Cola. We must kick out the corporate sponsors which are tainting the Olympics and giving it a bad odour.
A very very hard act for Rio to follow in 2016.
All pictures are from Team GB on facebook, where more excellent pictures can be found.
- London 2012 Olympics launches with huge ceremony
- In pictures: Olympic opening ceremony
- London 2012: Danny Boyle explains Olympic ceremony vision
- London Olympics opening ceremony highlights
- Red Arrows fly-past for 2012 London Olympic spectacle
- Bradley Wiggins opens Olympic ceremony
- Olympic rings forged in London 2012 opening ceremony
- How James Bond whisked the Queen to the Olympics
- Mr Bean’s Olympic orchestral appearance
- Britain’s future heroes light Olympic cauldron
Keithpp's Blog 
July 28, 2012 at 1:02 pm |
We knocked the spots off Beijing last night.. — Mayor Boris, Mayor of London
BBC estimate a peak audience of 26.9 million people watched the opening ceremony. This was at the beginning, it then dropped to 19 million. Could this be because people got pissed off with the irritating chat?
To put the figure in context the peak figure for England v Italy Euro2012 was 23 million.
For UK only, can watch again …
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/live-video/p00wm0br
July 28, 2012 at 2:36 pm |
NBC Explains Not streaming Olympics Opening: U.S. Audiences are Stupid
http://j.mp/PTpWZH (This message on Google+)
– – –
http://j.mp/PTnwu0 (L.A. Times)
“It was never our intent to live stream the Opening Ceremony or
Closing Ceremony. They are complex entertainment spectacles that do not translate well online because they require context, which our
award-winning production team will provide for the large prime-time
audiences that gather together to watch them.”
– – –
Oh give me a break, guys. I watched most of the opening on a BBC feed stream that had no commentary whatsoever — not even the endlessly chattering BBC talking heads on the main BBC One feed. I had absolutely no trouble understanding the event, even for purely UK elements like their tribute to the National Health Service (over here, we’d have a tribute to insurance companies and greed instead).
No NBC, U.S. audiences aren’t more stupid than the rest of the world that was watching the opening live. Nor are we stupid enough to not understand that your real concern was slicing and dicing the events for prime time and your own inane commentary, loaded down with commercials.
At least be honest about it. And by the way, you might want to
learn who Tim Berners-Lee is when he’s being featured at the
Olympics. He like, invented the World Wide Web.
Big Time Fail.
— Lauren Weinstein
Danny Boyle had told the BBC not to chat over his show, nevertheless BBC One had three studio presenters who seemed determined to ruin the show with their moronic chatter.
Not though as bad as the poor quality video Michael Moore posted from a US network.
Yes we Brits are proud of our NHS, even though the ConDem government seems determined to destroy the NHS. We cannot understand the crass stupidity of Americans who support a system that is bad for health care and only benefits the private health care companies.
I suspect the London 2012 Opening Ceremony was not streamed for two reasons:
– networks could not cope
– did not want to pay for the rights
July 28, 2012 at 7:49 pm |
Imagine if the Olympics had been in New York (God forbid) and the BBC had edited out a tribute to the victims of 9/11.
We know what the reaction would be. All hell would break lose.
The day after the Olympics were awarded to London in Singapore, bombings took place in London on the Tube and on a bus. I travelled on that Tube line not long after 7/7 and it was like riding a ghost train.
The opening ceremony had a tribute to those who died. NBC edited it out from what they broadcast in the US.
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/nbc-cuts-out-olympic-tribute-to-terrorism-victims-during-opening-ceremonies-for-american-viewers/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-19037588
July 28, 2012 at 8:18 pm |
We are looking at this (the issue of empty seats) very urgently. — Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt
The rapid take down of Olympic footage from youtube is yet another example of the obscenity of corporate sponsorship of the London 2012 Olympics.
https://keithpp.wordpress.com/2012/07/27/whose-games/
Another example is that many seats in venues are empty.
Why?
Because these were seats allocated to corporate sponsors who could not be bothered to take up their seats.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19028979
These are seats that could and should have gone to the public who may actually have an interest in sport.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-19028574
July 28, 2012 at 8:31 pm |
The most leftie opening ceremony I have ever seen – more than Beijing, the capital of a communist state! Welfare tribute next? — Aidan Burley MP
Thank God the athletes have arrived! Now we can move on from leftie multi-cultural crap. Bring back red arrows, Shakespeare and the Stones! — Aidan Burley MP
Aidan Burley used to be a ministerial bag carrier until forced to resign when he attended a party of neo-Nazis.
Maybe it was time his constituency deselected him and he was kicked out of the party.
Maybe he can find a new job as bag carrier for Romney.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19025518
January 14, 2013 at 3:52 am |
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January 14, 2013 at 1:15 pm |
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