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“I think it was the opening ceremony to end all opening
ceremonies - of a certain kind,” Danny Boyle said of the
Beijing extravaganza. “This is a chance to start again and
take a slightly different approach … something that’s
perhaps a bit warmer, and more inclusive, and more
involving.” The show is based on that most inclusive
(just kidding) of Shakespeare’s plays The Tempest and
aims to be the Glastonbury Festival meets The Last Night
of the Proms. News of green fields complete with cows,
sheep and precisely nine geese was met with hoots of
laughter in the papers. If cynicism were an Olympic sport
then Press Team GB would always get the gold medal.
The show will open with the ringing of Europe’s largest
bell. It is twice as big as Big Ben and like it’s more famous
cousin the Olympic bell was cast by London's Whitechapel
Foundry, Britain’s oldest manufacturing company which
has been hammering away in the East End since 1570.
After the Games the bell will hang at one end of the
stadium where Danny Boyle says he wants people to hear
it for hundreds of years or until the stadium is paid for,
whichever comes first. Joking apart the cost and thrills per
television minute cannot increase exponentially forever.
Eventually they would have to move the whole thing to
Cern and have the athletes run after the Higgs boson
particle inside the Hadron Collider. What else could they
do? Let’s look at some opening ceremonies from history.
Athens 2004, he confesses was a bit Greek to him. All
mythology and white tunics and the bizarre bit with wacky
Icelandic singer Bjork’s great big dress billowing out.
2008 was Beijing and the Chinese spent over $100 million
on an opening ceremony called One World, One Dream,
which is a bit rich for a country that has spent so long
isolating itself from the world. One China, One Way might
have been a tad more honest. Those of us familiar with the
instruction booklets that come with appliances made in
China and therefore fluent in Chinese Factory English will
not struggle with these words from an official press release
following the Beijing Opening Ceremony:
The world people were very happy watching the opening
ceremony through the national television channel,
especially the magical entering of their delegates, which
led to a lot of fanfare they passed on the television's screen.
A Lot Of Fanfare
London 2012 will be opened with a lot of fanfare by Her
Majesty the Queen. This will make the Olympic opening
tally ten Presidents, seven Kings, one Queen (twice) and
one each of Princes, Emperors, Vice Presidents, General
Secretaries, Royal Consorts, Governors-General and
Fuhrers. The London 2012 Opening Ceremony is called
Isles of Wonder,
which if nothing else, means that for
years to come Chinese visitors to the UK will be trying to
book tickets on the Isles of Wonder ferry from Portsmouth.