Olympic Opening Ceremony

[Paul McKeown]

Not as awful as I feared, but for the most part pretty ghastly. Blairite Cool Brittania Retro Naff.

Unless other people have other ideas?

[Paul Cooksey]

I quite liked the Mr Bean bit. That's terrible isn't it?

[Ray Sayers]

The dancing nurses and sick kids made my toes curl...

[Andrew Camp]

Horrific viewing. Left-wing propaganda throughout.

[Paul McKeown]

"Left wing propaganda"? Don't know about that, but "Horrific viewing"? Certainly. And not just viewing, either. Who were that man and woman with peculiar voices doing the introductions? Reminded me of nothing less than "Hi-Di-Hi".

[Richard Bates]

If people choose to define their opinion of it by their perception of a political message, that's up to them. I thought it was brilliant - as a technical achievement, a spectacle, and for being a bit different to what we normally get from big opening ceremonies. Above all i thought it was fun. Perhaps having a few drinks whilst watching it helped, but i doubt it.

[Paul McKeown]

Well, the bits I liked were Kenneth Branagh as Isambard Kingdom Brunel and James Bond whisking the Queen off to the stadium. Would have liked to have seen her actually paragliding into the stadium, but you can't have everything.

[Simon Brown]

I was expecting the worst as I normally hate this sort of thing. But I thought it was extraordinary and it made me quite proud. Left wing propaganda must have been very subtle.....

[Paul McKeown]

I thought having Doreen Lawrence carrying the Olympic flag was very positive. The point being that fewer than one per cent of people watching around the world will have ever heard of her, but if they choose to find out they will take away the message that the British people value justice, however long it takes and however hard fought.

[Paul McKeown]

But I found the overall effect was: cheese. Everyone has different taste, though.

[Paul McKeown]

A very brief scan of foreign newspapers suggests the ceremony was extremely well received overseas.

"spetterend" - de Volkskrant

"Britische Coolness, Understatement und Humor - Das hat Charme und ist sympathisch." - comment BTL Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

"Quel spectacle !" - Le Figaro

"With its hilariously quirky Olympic opening ceremony, a wild jumble of the celebratory and the fanciful; the conventional and the eccentric; and the frankly off-the-wall, Britain presented itself to the world Friday night as something it has often struggled to express even to itself: a nation secure in its own post-empire identity, whatever that actually is." - New York Times

So it was a good show and I'm just an old grouch!

[Paul Cooksey]

So it was a good show and I'm just an old grouch!

Me too I suppose, I think Simon and Richard are more with the public spirit.

I always watch the Opening Ceremony, because you have to suffer through it to watch the sport, which I love. I suspect this is a conversation I should be having with a psychologist.

Anyway, actual sport. Yay. Ian Thorpe is good isn't he? I already feel like an expert

[John Upham]

But I found the overall effect was: cheese. Everyone has different taste, though.

In Danny Boyle's place what would have been your theme?

[Matt Mackenzie]

Horrific viewing. Left-wing propaganda throughout.

Do tell us more, Aidan

[Paul Cooksey]

But I found the overall effect was: cheese. Everyone has different taste, though.

In Danny Boyle's place what would have been your theme?

Simple. Big picture of Olympic rings and Chariots of Fire theme, one athlete per country with a flag. Seb Coe to read out "Welcome to London, let's get on with it" from a cue card. Flaming Boris Johnson to be tossed into some sort of receptacle to get the flame going. 10 minutes max, and then on with some sport. In fact, if the sport was football, maybe we could have done the opening ceremony at half time?