The Staggers

The New Statesman’s rolling politics blog

Olympic opener: madcap Britishness or "multicultural crap"?

How Danny Boyle's vision went down.

By Jonathan Derbyshire Published 28 July 2012 10:03

The opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympic Games in London (Photograph: Getty Images)

Apart from some dyspeptic grumbling on Twitter from Toby Young and a spectacularly ill-judged tweet from Tory MP Aidan Burley ("Thank God the athletes have arrived! Now we can move on from leftie multi-cultural crap"), the reaction to last night's Olympic opening ceremony, directed with astonishing panache and imagination by Danny Boyle, has been almost universally favourable.

The Olympic flagbearers included Doreen Lawrence. Photo: Getty Images

Like many observers, former deputy leader of the Labour Party Roy Hattersley, writing in the Times (£), "rejoiced at the tributes paid to the National Health Service" (Boyle's sly paean to the "nanny state" had a squadron of Mary Poppins ministering to children in NHS beds). "It is no longer the best system of medical care in the world," Hattersley went on, "but it is, after the monarchy, the most popular institution in the country. That is proof of our national compassion and evidence of our collective goodwill. It represents the true spirit of Britain."

The density of historical allusion conjured by Boyle might have struck foreign viewers as mostly incomprehensible, but for the Telegraph's Jim White it was a measure of the director's daring: "Boyle’s bravery was to say, never mind if outsiders didn’t get half the show’s many allusions, enough of us will have done. Which was fair enough. Because after all, we paid for it."

The Olympic "cauldron", made of dozens of copper petals. Photo: Getty Images

For Owen Gibson in the Guardian, Boyle's "attempt to define Britishness in the opening hour of his Olympic opening ceremony was a madcap, surreal, moving and often confounding affair". His colleague Peter Bradshaw, the paper's film critic, thought this was "Boyle's 3D multimedia masterpiece", while Marina Hyde praised those moments of "subversive lucidity" that so enraged Young and Burley.

The flying dove bikes. Photo: Getty Images

And what of the view from abroad? The New York Times described the ceremony, not unaccurately, as "weirdly and unabashedly British". El Pais in Spain struck a different note, however. Britain, it declared, had "presented itself to the world as it is - a country with more past than future". But France's Le Monde was more gracious, noting that the Queen had "embodied the sense of humour of her people" by taking part in a short film with the actor Daniel Craig.

Tags: olympics

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48 comments

Sat, 2012-10-27 20:15 — lookhere02 (not verified)

Individuals who will not see results with creatine, ordinarily you should not have superior training programs

Mon, 2012-10-22 00:57 — CymnDyday (not verified)

We would undoubtedly

Sat, 2012-08-25 22:47 — a voice (not verified)

If you are liberally and multiculturally indoctrinated and have no means of perceiving reality without this all enveloping propaganda adjusting what you see, then the show was a triumph and would make every Brit Proud.

If on the other hand you know you are not blinded by the mountain of propaganda you have been exposed to over the years, then you will see the show for what it is. A left wing, liberal equality attack on the culture and history of Britain. A fantasists apology for all out historical crimes. A tirade of historically revisionism and lies. And above all that the proletariat of this country must and will be forcibly interbred with mainly Africans as a punishment for the ideals of Hitlers national socialist. We 'where' after all mainly German. The default representation of a Brit now is a half English Half African person. MInority righted over majority right. A massive distortion of reality but a window into our intended future. Vile. But the reaction to this awful piece of prop proves how our media is infiltrated by liberal interlopers and the public have mainly been brainwashed into rejecting there own genetic history of achievement and sacrificing it to prove we are not evil racists. The ultimate crime of the 21st century.

Fri, 2012-08-17 22:39 — Nancy McFergeson (not verified)

Wake up and smell the ZIONIST conspiracy to destroy ALL "White" nations. They had control of the games from the start, (just look up videos on the 2012 logo spelling out ZION on youtube.) Their plan in Britain is to depopulate the caucasians by interracial propaganda on shows like TORCHWOOD and DR. WHO as well as increased immigration until there is no British character or culture at all. They are doing it everywhere with their control of the media. like her in America. WAKE UP and fight these scum! Real jews hate zionists and so should you! Stop worshipping a dead jew (Jesus) whose book was written by a murdering sociopath (Constantine.) Multiculturalism is another word for destruction of the Caucasian countries. Do some research and you'll see what these evil scumbags have done over the centuries and what they have planned for you and your children before its too late!

Tue, 2012-07-31 20:51 — joe hill (not verified)

If Doreen lawrence and Oninbhaji or whatever her name is are ok, why did they not have any relatives of all the elderly white people who have died in fatal muggings by the Afro-Carribean community, or relatives of the victims of the 7/7 bombings to give their views on cultural enrichment?

Mon, 2012-07-30 00:47 — AAMVN (not verified)

I think it was a no win situation. Whatever they did would fail on some level. It does look odd to see so many blacks right from the start - but it would have been asking for trouble to have only whites at any stage. There certainly were black communities in the 18th and 19th centuries, though the 1950s was the era most associated with black immigration.

I honestly wish they could have done without it all. Just had the torch, the athletes, some fireworks, classical music and been done with it.

Tue, 2012-07-31 00:36 — Spondulicks (not verified)

Can you tell me how many black people were settled in Britain in the 18th and 19th centuries, what towns they lived in, where they came from and what they did for a living? I already know about the Sherwood Forest Massive and King Arfur's Posse. (Only joking.) And can you direct me to the source(s) of your information? Thanks.

Mon, 2012-07-30 12:08 — Robert Taggart

Here, here, here...
Such a show would not have been special - one could live with ourself for not shelling-out silly money (£1.6k - £2012.) for a ticket !

Sun, 2012-07-29 09:54 — Pavlova

The proof is in the pudding I guess and the online comments from foreigners, particularly the Americans is that is was boring, unintelligible and looked badly rehearsed.

A few have pointed out that this became more the case as the show progressed into the modern era, a comment that may be more profound than was intended.

Sun, 2012-07-29 09:50 — Pavlova

I can imagine how the NHS bit would have looked to Daany Boyle when he conceived it, something like that Oliver Twist musical number with all the street sellers. It could have been quite good if that was what was achieved, but in the end it looked quite shambolic and weird and seemed to suggest that we had loads of ill children and overweight nurses in baggy uniforms. And it went on for far too long, so became a bit embarrassing.

Sun, 2012-07-29 09:02 — A.Cole (not verified)

Overall a fantastic ceremony.

However it was predictable in it's portrayal of British history. An example being the number of non-white performers up to the 1950s. For this display to be historically accurate there should have been an overwhelming white presence up to the arrival of the Windrush feature.

The presence of the libertarian extremist Shami Chakrabarti also indicated a liberal/left wing bias in this performance.

In this sense it was lefty/multicultural crap!!!

Sun, 2012-07-29 08:21 — Pavlova

The multiculturalists who commissioned his show always had the refrain that this was a London games, rather than a UK one. So why then did they plunder the history of the North of England for the opening ceremony?

Wouldn't it have made more sense, been less of a mishmash and less dismissive of Britain's white majority and the East End's Jewish contingent if the ceremony had just concentrated on the history of E.London? Dispensed with the mills and steel workers and gone for boats and trade and as much ethnic 'diversity' as they liked?

Sun, 2012-07-29 04:38 — Harold Stassen (not verified)

You were being lectured; these spectacles are the 21st version of a medieval passion play or a Nonconformist lecture. Your betters are telling you what to think, how to feel and what they expect you to believe.
Another reason to stay home and tune this out.

Sun, 2012-07-29 02:20 — Gideon Polya

The 2012 London Olympic Games Opening Ceremony was a drab and dishonest attempt to outline English social history from the mid-18th century, from the misery of the enclosures and the Industrial Revolution to the post-WW2 welfare state and National Health Service (NHS). The profound dishonesty lay in ignoring the carnage of about 2 billion avoidable deaths from British-imposed deprivation and merciless genocide on 5 continents (not to mention genocide and ethnocide of Gaelic Britain) over the same period.

The description of the Ceremony as "leftist" is neo-liberal poppycock. People who are "anti-racist humanitarians" (notably anti-racist Jews and anti-racist non-Jews opposed to the evil of the Apartheid Israel and the Palestinian Genocide; Google "Jews Against Racist Zionism" and "Non-Jews Against Racist Zionism") are typically described as "lefties" but being an anti-racist humanitarian opposed to mass murder and genocide is not exclusive to socialists. Indeed in this century even impecunious "lefties" in the UK (2003 per capita income US$28,000) are vastly richer than former British imperial subjects, for example the Bangladeshis ( 2003 per capita income US$400) and are thus pretty theoretical "lefties" in a Spaceship Earth sense (18 million Third World people die avoidably each year on Spaceship Earth with Anglos in charge of the flight deck and most UK "lefties" are mostly overweight from chips and beer).

Some of what the Opening Ceremony in its lying by omission (the Silent Lie) did NOT tell the gathered World about the footprint of a greedy and racist English Establishment (the men in top hats in the Ceremony) on the World over the last 2.5 centuries: genocide of Indigenous inhabitants on 5 continents; 1.8 billion avoidable Indian deaths from British-imposed deprivation, 1757-1947); 10 million Indians butchered in reprisals after the 1857 Rebellion; massive man-made famines in India from the 1769-1770 Bengal Famine (10 million killed) to the 1942-1945 Bengali Holocaust in which Churchill, with Australian complicity, deliberately starved 6-7 million Indians to death for strategic reasons; 1950-2005 avoidable deaths from deprivation in countries variously occupied by the UK in the post-WW2 era totalled 727 million (the corresponding figures being 142 million, 82 million and 24 million for people subject to France, the US and Apartheid Israel); 12 million Muslim deaths since 1990 in the continuing UK and US War on Muslims, a Muslim Holocaust and Muslim Genocide (for the Awful Truth see my books "Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950" and "Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History" both now available for free perusal on the Web).

It is what is called "the left" (i.e. all decent, anti-racist humanitarians) who should be profoundly angered by the lying by omission (the Secret Lie) inherent in the 2012 London Olympic Games Opening Ceremony. Google "Mainstream media lying" to discover numerous quotations from eminent writers about this obscenity. One of the more pertinent is that from Voltaire's "Candide" in which Pococurante declares: "I would be happy with the freedom that inspires the English geniuses if party feeling and party spirit didn't corrupt everything estimable in that precious freedom."

From an anti-racist humanitarian perspective the 2012 London Olympic Games Opening Ceremony (in addition to being drab and uninspired from an artistic perspective) was damned by its genocide ignoring and holocaust ignoring, noting that genocide ignoring and holocaust ignoring are vastly worse than repugnant genocide denial and holocaust denial (variously criminalized in some European countries) because at least the latter admit the possibility of public discussion.

Sun, 2012-07-29 23:41 — Pavlova

You need to read Empire by Niall Ferguson. You seem to have absorbed a number of myths.

I won't go into all of your mistakes in your emotive rhetoric, but here are a few examples to chew on: many if not most of the East India merchants and 52% of the Colonial civil service was Scottish, it was more a Scottish Empire than an English one.

The alternative to the British empire for colonies was not self- rule, it was use by one of the other competing powers such as Holland, Belgium, Russia, Japan, the Ottomans. If you want to know how native people's would have fared under those regimes, I suggest you go and look up the Dutch Antilles, the Belgian Congo, the Rape of Nangking and the Arab slave trade.

Britain suffered huge financial losses because of the massive investment into the infrastructure of India and Africa. Without the British empire their prospects would have been much much worse. No rule of law, no democracy, no infrastructure in much of the world. You take those things for granted, but you shouldn't, it was because of a small handful of civil servants based in colonies who frequently died in the process.

Your Leftie principles were forged in the colonies and in Clapham.

Sun, 2012-07-29 02:01 — Spondulicks (not verified)

Well, it was a spectacular show, but with thousands of people and millions of pounds at your disposal, that was a target that was hard to miss. Thematically, it was a dog's breakfast, what with toffs & plebs, satanic mills, cycling doves, hospital beds (for a sporting event -- I ask you), and apparently randomly-chosen, pounding pop music coming to dominate the visual as well as the aural dimension. (Such brilliant organisational skill required to make the equivalent of an iPod playlist. My Boy Lollipop. Pretty Vacant.) Then there was a minute's silence for victims of a terrorist bombing. Very festive -- that'll get them in the mood. Much of the show was pre-recorded. Complete cop-out, as this does not constitute performance in the commonly-understood sense. There was a big hoo-ha over the fact that the "giant's footsteps" in Beijing had been pre-recorded, but it was the only part of the Chinese show that wasn't live. One rule for you...? So, if they were going to depend so heavily on recording, and given the public's concern over the cost, wouldn't it have been better to get Nick Park to do a series of Wallace & Gromit shorts, and just project them on to Sebastian Coe's ego? The whole thing could have been wrapped up in twenty minutes.

Oh, and there were lots of black people. Black people apparently symbolise Britain, or if not Britain, London. Danny Boyle must never have been to any other major European cities, or he would know that they are all plentifully supplied with black people. Black people first came to Britain on that iconic vessel the Windrush, which leaves unexplained all the black Victorian gentlemen in top hats that we saw earlier. All the children on NHS beds that the cameras zoomed in on were black. A black Romeo and Juliet played out a cringe-making sub-"plot" that had nothing to do with Britain, London, sport or anything except an unrealistic view of copping off. A black rapper chuntered aggressively into his mike. Black people carried the Olympic flag. A black singer with a Mr Whippy hairdo sang Abide With Me. (Was Joan Armatrading too busy?) I never knew black people were such a central part of British life. People in China, Chile and Chad probably never suspected that British people were mostly black. Now they know.

I suppose it can be argued that no-one should be prevented from portraying a top-hatted toff because he is black. Fair enough, but how can one then prevent white or Asian people from portraying black people arriving on the Windrush? Was it just fortuitous that when they were casting for the boat-passengers all the people at the front happened to be black? And where is the commitment to diversity in a show that did not contain a single overtly gay peasant or toff, nor even one transsexual? And if an accurate portrait of modern London was being shown, where were all the Poles? Equal opps casting would have meant that many of the peasants and toffs should have been played by Polish immigrants, who would be easily recognised by their red-and-white costumes and their vigorous dancing of the polka.

And so on, and on ....

Sun, 2012-07-29 00:50 — Pavlova

I just wish we'd stop defaulting to mixed race or ethnic minority being representative. They aren't, they are a tiny minority that have so far only produced modest achievements. Yes include them, but why'd they have to dominate everything? Not a single white British person carrying the Olympic flag, two ethnic minority Brits doing so instead. And according to Danny Boyle white people are of the past.

Let's look at the evidence: all odour greatest cultural achievements were prior to the Windrush's arrival, there was an embarrassment of riches so that most had to be left out. After it arrived in the stadium, we get texting and a dance to remember terrorist murders.

This is what people mean when they say it's multicultural crap, many people are fed up of having their achievements handed to others who didn't earn them.

Sun, 2012-07-29 02:07 — Jono (not verified)

"their achievements handed to others who didn't earn them." so you're suggesting that white Brits "earned" the achievements of Shakespeare, Milton, etc. and that non-white Brits didn't? How exactly did we "earn" them? By happening to share their skin colour? The ceremony was supposed to be a celebration of Britishness, not a celebration of the White British ethnicity.

And in any case, where is your evidence that ethnic minorities "dominated" the ceromony? As I remember it, there were appearances from Daniel Craig, The Queen, Berners Lee, J.K. Rowling, The Arctic Monkeys, Paul McCartney, Rowen Atkinson... which of them are minorities, Pavlova? Well, I suppose the Queen is German...

Sun, 2012-07-29 09:16 — Pavlova

I don't think I said they dominated the ceremony, they dominated the section meant to represent the modern and future Britain. The evidence? The representative chosen to take the olympic flag from Beijing to London in their closing ceremony was an Ethiopian immigrant girl, the London/British family and dating scene had one white woman, two black men and two mixed race ones. The flag was carried by not a single white British person, but one British-West Indian woman and one British-Indian woman.

I thought, "okay, maybe it is really the case that 80% of East Londoners and those involved in volunteering for the Olympics are from ethnic minorities, and the biggest achievers in London too, so maybe this casting just reflects the reality", but then you look at the crowds and the athletes and the volunteers and the actual statistics and you see clearly that it does not.

There was nobody in the rest of Britain's 65 million population that had done anything to further the aims of justice and the Olympic ethos who could carry the flag? No child who represents Britain more effectively than an Ethiopian immigrant? Really?

So this representation it's by design, and there is a political motive for any kind of design. The representative family was cast based on race because the directors wanted to convey something. What they wanted to convey is that ethnic minorities represent Modern Britain and are the inheritors of the legacy, are the new Jarrow marchers and suffragettes and that white people are not the future. It's the same dynamic you see in all public sector marketing of Britain. Go and look at any government brochure or website, any publically-funded charity one, any BBC coverage of comprehensive schools. Without fail black and Muslim faces will be used to represent those bodies. You don't get to make highly racialised, political statements like that and then cry foul when somebody picks you up on it.

As to whether white people have earned it, yes: Shakespeare, Milton, Blake, those mill and steel workers and 1st world war dead, et al were our relatives, not some disconnected group of people. British people weren't born in Britain because they were lucky, but because those people were our great great great grand parents and they worked hard and were successful, and we treasure them. We live in their houses, we inherited their stuff, we understand what made them tick. All that stuff is imbued in us via a real oral tradition passing it down the generations.

Some people arrive 50 years ago or less and they represent the legacy?

A tiny example, I read recently of an old woman living in an area of London, now become very multicultural, who always polished a remembrance plaque in her local church, the new congregants asked her what she was doing and hadn't heard of what it memorialised.

Yes immigrants represent a (small) part of its legacy, but they do not represent it ubiquitously which is the way the lefty multiculturalists always try to spin it. It's offensive and dismissive, they need to man up and accept responsibility for their insulting behaviour instead of blaming people for noticing,

Sun, 2012-07-29 10:36 — Richard1000 (not verified)

The thought police will be after you for this. Independent opinion is not allowed in the UK. We must all bask in (and have forcible enjoyment from) the mental illness of self-hate that is modern Britain.

Sun, 2012-07-29 00:47 — david205 (not verified)

Olympic opener: madcap Britishness or "multicultural crap"?

No, just crap.

Sun, 2012-07-29 00:45 — KurtS (not verified)

After the NHS section I went onto the Daily Telegraph site to see how it was playing with the conservative association taliban. 1432 responses, almost uniformly negative (and racist...country stolen, PC rubbish...unbelievable bile etc etc) Result Mr Boyle! Made me proud.

Sun, 2012-07-29 23:48 — Pavlova

The Olympic ceremony's central casting ( aka Danny Boyle) select people primarily based on their race (or did you think it was a coincidence that the couple in the house were different races?) and other people are racist for noticing it or commenting on it? Way to want it both ways.

Mr Frankie Average Symbol of British youth in the modern act of the ceremony is a Portuguese immigrant who has been in the country since 1995. I say it again, a Portuguese man. This wasn't a casting based on ability ( no ability was required for the role), it was one based on the perverted notion that 2% of the popluation represent it. Why do people find it so dreadfully difficult to allow Britons to represent themselves? Who is it that has the problem with race in that scenario, British people who are being sidelined from their own culture and history or the ones who are deliberately choosing to sideline them?

Sun, 2012-07-29 10:31 — Richard1000 (not verified)

Great to make the opening ceremony political. More and more like apartheid South Africa, communist China, etc, by the day. But wait... you'd be opposed to racial politicisation in apartheid South Africa (discrimination against the majority) but be in favour of it in the UK. Low IQ or what?

Sat, 2012-07-28 23:49 — Richard1000 (not verified)

I took a couple of diazepam and went to bed, and by the morning had forgotten all about it.

Sat, 2012-07-28 23:48 — Richard1000 (not verified)

I took a couple of diazepam and went to bed, and by the morning had forgotten all about it.

Sat, 2012-07-28 21:29 — mbrecker (not verified)

It's too bad the IOC has a virtual global ban on any live feeds going out from the games to "unapproved sources" (the public). In the States, NBC has a sports TV network (as does Fox). Soon, NBC and CBS will have sports radio networks as well. Despite all that, NBC could have run the Opening Ceramony live. Instead, it was pre-recorded soccer. Then, pre-recorded Opening Ceramony stuff. Essentially, it's an 17 day advert for Comcast (NBC's parent firm).

Canada, the UK, Europe, Asia. Is there ANYPLACE where it's not blacked out?

Sat, 2012-07-28 21:02 — Tesco Shelf Stacker (not verified)

Its waaaaaayyy too bloody long for a start!!

It had its moments I suppose - the bits where we take the piss out of ourselves I liked cos that's what we Brits are good at innit, the queen and James Bond etc - then there was the the fireworks I suppose were good too. Beckham - yeah that was good.

I dunno - overall it just fell a bit short for me - not only did I feel like I was being preached at times but it also seemed like a load of cliched codswallop at times - too much cringe-worthy boll*cks for my liking. I mean blimey, that NHS bit and then there was the load of guff about posh people being nasty to the poor people, I mean come on purrrleeeez - couldn't they have left the political messages out just for one f*cking night? Is it too much to ask not to be preached to by the wealthy right-on luvvies of this world!! lol Now that would have made this ceremony so much better - an Olympic ceremony free of right-on politics for once ... more good ole British-style piss-taking and less of the PC sermons! lol

Judging by the comments over at the tax-avoiding Guardian newspaper - it seems that the anti-capitalist multi-culti PC brigade loved every minute of it - even though the entire bloody event is one big pro-capitalist commercial activity from start to finish.

Oh, Mr Bean was good- yep I liked that bit ... I dunno? Keep politics out of sport in future - that's what I say. Leave that to the dictatorships of this world. Hey! but what do I know? lol ;-)

Btw: Why was French spoken before English ?

Sat, 2012-07-28 22:19 — Scurra

French and English were used fairly interchangably actually - I noticed that the primary language switched a couple of times during the evening.
It's because they are the two "official" languages of the IOC. Last time out, all the announcements were in three languages; we should be grateful for small mercies...

I would also like to point out that the Olympics is surprisingly uncommercial compared to pretty much every other sporting event in the world. You will look in vain for advertising hoardings or sponsors logos anywhere. Considering how much the "official" sponsors pay, they don't actually get a great deal out of it in terms of coverage.

Sat, 2012-07-28 20:23 — Indu Pendent

Sorry reading some stuff on this page but I thought the opening show was world class ... best I've seen. Whilst I was watching I was thinking 'how could we do better?' but came away thinking wow that was fabulous.

We could not compete with the vast vulgar shows of some of the past Olympics nor would we want to .... instead it was uniquely and strongly British unlike any other ceromony -- no body tells the Brits what to do. It set a new benchmark by being creative and intelligent. I suspect other countries will follow our lead in the future.

I thought it showed Britain as a compact nation of free people, compasionate, complicated, a little bit grubby, a little bit hard with a tough herriatge and strong underlying people values, the beacon for the world liberal agenda. I agreed with the left messages it made (and that coming from someone often called a Tory troll!!!)

Sat, 2012-07-28 19:17 — joe bloggs (not verified)

From Andrew Murray in the Spectator: couldnt have put it better meself:

Until last night I thought Danny Boyle was the respected director of a film about smack-heads. But after seeing the Olympics opening ceremony I now realize ‘Danny Boyle’ is the nom de guerre of the satirical team of Rod Liddle and James Delingpole.

In their capable hands what might have been merely an opportunity to showcase Britain became instead a hilarious example of our national humour. This included pretending that our national life only really began with the Empire Windrush, that our national religion is the NHS and that our leading icons include – and I never thought the boys would get away this this one – Shami Chakrabarti. It was so funny I almost wept at times. But then I reflected on their choice of music and became solemn.

Because of Delingpole’s deeply proletarian tastes, this element was far too limited. I am willing to tolerate jokes about us being a nation of idiotic lefties who spend our days bouncing on NHS beds, but the organisers should have shown that our nation’s musical heritage started before the 1960s.

My hopes were raised when Sir Simon Rattle emerged. But he was only there for an extended joke with Mr Bean – the classical masterpiece he was permitted to conduct being the theme from Chariots of Fire. Otherwise it was all the Clash and the Sex Pistols with extended episodes given to Dizzee Rascal, the Arctic Monkeys and Sir Paul McCartney struggling to sing a song he has bored us with for forty years.

So in the end I regretted the choice of directors. My main fear is that a young person from elsewhere in the world – better educated, but possibly lacking our sense of humour – might take it all literally. They may have learned of a Britain which was a serious country and produced many of the world’s greatest writers, leaders, thinkers and artists. After watching last night’s ceremony they will realise that Britain is in fact a country which, though once inhabited by hobbits, is only around fifty years old and stuck in a state of permanent adolescence. This will make them doubt their teachers and probably end up becoming anarchists. So while congratulating my colleagues on the quality of their satire, in the end I think it was misjudged and could end up doing serious damage to our tourism industry.

Thank goodness the whole thing is now turned over to the athletes.

Sat, 2012-07-28 17:24 — Fraziel1

It was leftie multicultural politically correct crap but watchable and enjoyable for all that.

Sat, 2012-07-28 17:03 — joe bloggs (not verified)

Christ, will we ever hear the end of Doreen Lawrence? She really has managed to turn her son's murder into a long term career. As a friend of mine rather nastily but not inaccurately described it as Lamplugh Syndrome: an (entirely false) belief, obviously nurtured by the meeja, that a tragic personal bereavement somehow makes you an interesting or original social commentator.

Sun, 2012-07-29 23:50 — Pavlova

Doreen Lawrence I didn't mind. She has worked hard to improve justice and it's right to include a representation of that particular struggle in a London ceremony for a movement that has an ethos of equality. But when combined with Shami Chakrabati who has achieved nothing apart from being on the BBC's list of favourite QT panel guests, the power of that statement gets lost and it just looks like another attempt to further a particular agenda. Any claim that she represent this country was undermined by the fact that the crowd's cheering suddenly dipped when her name was read out, her face showed she was both antipicatimg and aware of that. So you are left wondering why she was chosen, the obvious candidate would be Leftie multiculturalism.

It all seemed several years out of date too, whatever public presence she had ended with the media mood change that took place when the coalition came to power. I suppose these people were chosen 6 years ago.

Sat, 2012-07-28 17:54 — McMac

When I saw her I thought,'That's going to upset a lot of arseholes.'

Sun, 2012-07-29 01:12 — Spondulicks (not verified)

That was witty. Follow up your verbal dig to the solar plexus with a right cross of explaining how Doreen Lawrence is a significant cultural figure.

Sat, 2012-07-28 14:42 — John Cheese (not verified)

Overall, a decent show. Some of the current music is crap..lowest common denominator I guess. Not sure why the boxer Ali is so revered though....

Mon, 2012-07-30 01:00 — Spondulicks (not verified)

Olympic gold medallist in Rome, 1960 (light-heavyweight division). Three times undisputed world heavyweight boxing champion. Fought classic bouts with many of the greatest heavyweights in boxing history. Became a focus of the American black civil rights movement by throwing his gold medal into the Ohio River when he was refused service in a cafe because he was black, by giving up his "slave name" (black slaves were given the surname of their white slave-master) for a Muslim one, and by refusing to be drafted into the American Army and be sent to Vietnam to fight the Viet Cong ("No Viet Cong ever called me 'n*gger'"). Punished by losing his boxing licence and hence his livelihood for three years. His second comeback fight was against Joe Frazier. He lost, but regained the world title against the most intimidating fighter anyone could remember, George Foreman, in 1974.

Ali was also the most charismatic sportsman in the world, and arguably the most charismatic figure of the twentieth century, certain politicians aside. He showed great courage in his outspoken support of black civil rights, at a time when lynchings were still common and when civil rights activists like Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated. He was noted for his keen wit and sense of fun, and was generous to a fault to people in need.

Ali isn't a god, nor a saint, and can be criticised on many grounds, but he is nonetheless an outstanding human being who had a notable role in two of the great struggles of our time, the black civil rights movement and the anti-Vietnam War movement. He was widely loathed in his heyday, but since he succumbed to Parkinson's Disease, probably caused by continuing to box long after his prime, many more people have come to appreciate and revere him.

Sat, 2012-07-28 14:38 — FOR GOD'S SAKE, WAKE UP! (not verified)

"...proof of our national compassion and evidence of our collective goodwill... represents the true spirit of Britain."

Nevermind the true spirit of Britain, it represents the true spirit of GOODNESS and COMPASSION everywhere, and I agree, in this country we have these in abundance. It was a brilliant "in-your-face" demonstration to the powers-that-be that we have bright, bonny children full of talent and joie de vivre, and that's how we would like to keep it.

Unfortunately, the powers-that-be have a different agenda and we need to know what's going on over our heads. There is evidence to support the hidden agenda that
they want to decrease the population of the world from 6billion to 500million, that means they want to kill 5.5billion of us. Look up the following list on youtube, hear the testimonies of doctors, scientists, ex-military, ex-government, ex-CIA, even ex-bankers, who wanted to get out when they knew what was going on. listen to victims of their mind control programs, and judge for yourself. Listen to victims' testimonies:

MKUltra

Operation Paperclip (now declassified US GOV material)

Cathy o'Brien Speaks of Mind Control (victim)

Josef Mengele Experiments- Nazi Experiments on Humans (this ba*tard was shipped over to USA after the war to continue his experiments)

Arizona Wilder on Government Mind Control (victim)

MK Ultra Victim Brice Taylor (victim)

Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, LBJ, Bush Jnr, Bill Clinton, Obama, Victims of MKUltra?

New World Order's Population Reduction Plan (to cut UK population in 20 yrs by HALF - that was in 2001) DO NOT ACCEPT GRATUITOUS VACCINES!

Disney New Subliminal Message

50 year old cartoon predicts the future! New World Order in cartoons

Georgia Stones, Elberton, Georgia, USA, prophesying reduction of world population to under 500million

Mysterious Deaths

Sat, 2012-07-28 14:17 — gabriel 9 (not verified)

Millennium Dome 2 ....
another excruciating twee event.

The money wasted on it and the billions spent hosting the Olympics, could have been better spent on a housing program that would have provided much needed jobs and homes, for even if Olympics earn more money than was spent on hosting it, it will be money that will end up in pockets of the rich.

Sat, 2012-07-28 14:01 — hugh markey (not verified)

Oh Boy, are the Tories seething but having to put a brave face on it? And wait till after the Olympics - what a downer. Cold turkey for the sucker bait. Wunnerful!
No matter how many Golds the UK racks up the general population will be lucky to possess a 'brass farthing'.
Boris is brilliant. Dispensed with the Latin tags, thank goodness. He'll get Turkey into the EU yet. He's mmm Turkish Delite in pink ribbons. Scrumptious!

Caliph of Londinium