Friday, 27 July 2012
I wish I had heard the bells
ringing for the Olympics this morning. That made me sad. I shall be watching the opening ceremony tonight, though probably not all of it. I really do not understand the endless negativity about it from Brits I have heard. Isn't it good to showcase London? Isn't it good that many thousands of people are being employed in east London for this event? Isn't it good, just after a British sporting hero has won a world-renowned title, the first Brit ever to do so, that top-class British athletes will be performing to the world, on their home ground? Apparently not. Someone said to me the other day that the Olympics were crap because they had enabled developers to come in and build luxury apartments that ordinary east London people could not afford to live in. Well, so they undoubtedly have - building on land that wasn't being used for all that much. And if there were no Games then those same developers would have been all ready and willing to build decent low-cost housing with affordable rents for those ordinary people to live in, wouldn't they? Wouldn't they?
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5 comments:
I have just seen it and am now digesting it.
I think that overall, it was very successful - such a thing is bound to be individual as an interpretation and this was Danny Boyle's.
Terribly sad to see Cassius Clay -- can't bear what has happened to him
And similarly Paul Mcartney . I was always a John Lennon girl, but it was a nasty shock to see the face close up and it is the face of a rather old man with that papery skin. And his voice is going now. I thought it was at the Diamond Jubilee and now I know it is. Very upsetting. Oddly enough, the most moving Beatles' song was the Arctic Monkeys' excellent rendition of Come Together - with cyclists wearing wings. I think the time has come for Paul Mcartney to stop it now. I really do. The one sin is to grow old and I am sure that Oscar Wilde must have said that because he did say most things.
I'm a Lennon girl too. I thought it was a fabulous success, and a very individual vision of England (not really GB) and that Kenneth Branagh was the rather unexpected star. He grew up in Reading btw, having been born in Northern Ireland. Come Together is a wonderful song, underrated when it came out. I do not like Mr Bean but the rest of the world does, so I can understand the choice. I roared at the Queen "Good evening, Mr Bond". Excellent.
Yep - Liz Windsor was quite the natural.
And nice to see that Branagh's origins in Reading go some way to compnesate for the shame of the Salter connections.
There will always be negativity.
There were moaners about the Jubilee and the royal wedding, conveniently forgetting the millions who turned out to cheer.
L9
Yes - they are always forgotten until their voets are wanted.
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