So now we know what the Olympics opening ceremony will look like... Dear God! You lob £27 million at a 'gritty' Oscar-winning film director, and he comes back with this achingly twee vision of a 'green and pleasant land' that never was, an exercise in chocolate-box 'heritage' kitsch (with a couple of 'moshpits' thrown in). And I hope he knows what he's doing with all those live animals - I suspect there might be a stampede or two as the tumult and the shouting get under way (the sheep might even drop dead, which wouldn't look good). According to said gritty director - Jim Bowen lookalike Danny Boyle - 'Our nation 200 years ago was a meadow'. There's a statement that neatly embodies the deep ignorance of the past (among other things) that characterises today's Britain. But who would have thought that Boyle was capable of the dewy-eyed sentimentality on display here? It just goes to show: scratch a gritty realist and you'll likely find a soggy sentimentalist. How very different it all was when London last staged the Games...
Wednesday, 13 June 2012
Down on Jollity Farm
So now we know what the Olympics opening ceremony will look like... Dear God! You lob £27 million at a 'gritty' Oscar-winning film director, and he comes back with this achingly twee vision of a 'green and pleasant land' that never was, an exercise in chocolate-box 'heritage' kitsch (with a couple of 'moshpits' thrown in). And I hope he knows what he's doing with all those live animals - I suspect there might be a stampede or two as the tumult and the shouting get under way (the sheep might even drop dead, which wouldn't look good). According to said gritty director - Jim Bowen lookalike Danny Boyle - 'Our nation 200 years ago was a meadow'. There's a statement that neatly embodies the deep ignorance of the past (among other things) that characterises today's Britain. But who would have thought that Boyle was capable of the dewy-eyed sentimentality on display here? It just goes to show: scratch a gritty realist and you'll likely find a soggy sentimentalist. How very different it all was when London last staged the Games...
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Hmm..doesn't look like £27m buys much, does it? Never mind the almost £10 billion the whole shooting match will ring up. Your link to '48 puts it neatly on a bumper-sticker Nige. No special venues built, and no Olympic Toytown - athletes stayed in the homes of the folk hosting the games. Would it have been impossible to take even a couple of pages out of this book, and scale it down, instead of up?
ReplyDeleteWell quite, and a chunk of that £27 million came direct from the taxpayer's pocket when the project went over-budget (I don't remember being asked). On the other hand, they have got a huge specially cast bell from the Whitechapel foundry - that should be something...
ReplyDelete"Achingly twee"! As a writer, I have to admire that pithy phrase. Perhaps somebody can put up an Olympics banner so adorned.
ReplyDeleteNow I have to go try to recover from having seen the ending of Ashes to Ashes last night. My brain may never be the same....kudos to English TV.
I'd forgive it everything if they found a leading role for Robin Page.
ReplyDeleteAh Robin Page - surely one for Dabbler Heroes?...
ReplyDeleteYes please?
DeleteI don't think I'm quite equal to that particular challenge, Gaw...
ReplyDelete