The ‘show’ was quirky to say the least of it. True it celebrated not only an idyllic kind of country in the starting bucolic scenes but also the power of the nation through the industrial revolution but it also celebrated some odd things like CND, the suffragettes and the NHS. I think I get the point about the suffragettes i.e. that we are a country that sometimes needs to be brought kicking and screaming into the modern day but the NHS? Was the point to celebrate our caring nature or a statement that big Government works? Either way it was inappropriate. As to CND it was never more than a side show and mostly thought of as loony. The pop music section was far too long and the glorification of multiculturalism was not only embarrassingly bad but overdone. The overall theme of the ceremony took some working out and will have been confusing for many of our visitors but there was no doubting its vibrancy and panache through the use of clever lighting and other stage sets. The most fun bits were HM The Queen doing her Bond bit and Mr Bean. I don’t go along completely with what Tory MP Aidan Burley has said but he has a point about the show's leftie bent. The ceremony definitely had a socialist message about it as acknowledged by Alistair Campbell of WMD fame (for example CND and the representation of Mrs Thatcher as a witch) which is a pity since the show should have been inclusive and not used to poke a stick in the eyes of many of us. It is an even greater pity that it was so inward looking, so parochial and that events of truly global significance like the Magna Carta were missed out. For a view of this country's influence on the world, apart from our influence on sport so well captured by Mr Rogge in his speech, one only had to watch the competing nations as they came into the Arena and count the number of them who either had been or are still British colonies. As at the close of day 3 the whole shebang seems to be going rather well but the dictatorial manner exercised in these Games from the use of the Olympic logo to lanes on the roads for the exclusive use of the Olympic family and the press leaves a very nasty taste in the mouth. The lanes are hardly necessary as traffic in London today is down to weekend congestion levels, that is congestion free in the areas I've been driving. London is always quieter over the school summer holidays but this year a lot more seem to have left the capital for the two weeks of the Games rather than later in August. A wise decision.
