The isle is full of noises

[altariel]

Aw, I'm a bit sad that Le Guin didn't enjoy Britain's funny little postcard to the world. "Hello!" it seemed to be saying. "This isn't going to be as impressive as Beijing, because we're skint and a bit rubbish! But here's some stuff we like! You may like some of it too!" (I wonder if the notorious NBC coverage made it less than impressive viewing in the US?)

Personally, I was rubbing my eyes the moment I saw poppies and heard Jerusalem. I may have had a lump in my throat when the children's choir sang and signed the national anthem (sorry, Dad). I bounced gleefully at the TARDIS noise. OK, the parade of athletes went on a bit, but we had a pizza delivered then so I had other things on my mind. But I was back to being in full flow when I saw who was carrying the Olympic flag. I even forgave McCartney. (I suppose if there are Beatles to be had, you've got to have one.) The next day I discovered that the writer, Frank Cottrell Boyce, sneaked in my home town's motto (Ex Terra Luce), and I got all choked up all over again.

Proud to be British? Don't be daft, that's an accident of history and birth (OK, and a conscious decision). But I thought some good things were represented in that big silly old sentimental large-hearted show: things that are, of course, universal.

Anyway, must go and cheer on Beth Tweddle in the gymnastics.

Comments

[dewline.livejournal.com]

Plus, I understand that McCartney went out of his way to keep things affordable. Something about his fee being £ 1, right?

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Really? I hadn't heard that. Good for him.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

It turns out all the big name talent only took £1. The dancers and musicians were paid proper rates, though.

[birdsedge.livejournal.com]

Sadly despite all their promises to the Musicians Union LOCOG was asking musicians to perform for free or for the exposure. OK, Macca might not need the dosh, but most musicians do - and since LOCOG pays all other staff the going rate is it too much to ask that professional musicians be paid, too? After all, you can die of exposure.

[iainjcoleman.livejournal.com]

I liked Lance Parkin's take on the ceremony:

You'll Believe a Queen can Fly

[matildabj.livejournal.com]

Thanks for this link, that's a really spot-on write up. Sorry, Ms Le Guin!

[azalaisdep.livejournal.com]

The Resident Geek and I (and our extended friends-and-family Facebook water-cooler gang) completely loved it. I thought it was witty, self-deprecating, eccentric, bonkers and moving (how was I not supposed to weep at Kenneth Branagh declaiming Shakespeare over the Enigma Variations?!?). It was a £26 million love-letter to Britishness; and in that respect I can see why non-Brits may have been left scratching their heads and going "WTF!?" (Though all the non-Brits I know who know anything about Britain and the British loved it too.)

(The only boring bits were the bits one is contractually obliged to have; the athletes' parade and the speeches.)

The Small People are still hotly debating whether the Queen really did jump out of the helicopter ;-)

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

Of course she did. And what she was writing at her desk when he arrived was instructions to M about what exactly was to be done to Bond if anything went wrong.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Oh, I wish I'd known you were doing live updates on FB! I would have checked in. I was hanging around on Twitter.

[quinara]

I looooooooved it. But then, since I've been going on about little else since the weekend, everyone probably already knows that... ;)

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I've loved your posts! :-)

[azalaisdep.livejournal.com]

All the cultural theorists I know have been raving about it non-stop since Friday :-)

[white_hart]

I loved it too. I thought it did a brilliant job of showing off the bits of Britain I love and am occasionally proud of, in complete defiance of an Establishment (the last lot as well as the current ones, I think) which tries to deny the vibrancy and colour and variety and sheer simple good-heartedness of the underlying culture. But maybe you had to be British to really get it.

(Interesting that Le Guin also doesn't seem to have realised that it was the actual Queen getting into the helicopter, even if not jumping out of it - it wasn't a tacky stunt, it was an incredible coup.)

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Yes, it was an incredible coup. As the Bond scene unfolded and he reached the office, we were both sitting there going, "She hasn't. They didn't. She wouldn't. Crikey, she has."

I can't ever recall the Queen taking the piss out of herself in this way before. (Real Molesworth tweeted: REPUBLIKANISM. DED.)

[katlinel.livejournal.com]

One of the things I loved is that not only did they have the Windrush, but they also had PoC in the pre-industrial village scenes. Because no matter what racist types like to pretend, this is not some kind of "multicultural crap", but an accurate reflection of the ethnic makeup of these isles. We have the documents to prove it in many of our archives.

And that speech of Caliban's is delivered to a couple of venial drunks who are all about the pillaging, delivered by someone whose own mother was defrauded of her land by the magically enhanced invader. Named Sycorax, no less. A name used in another text, for another type of invader, brought down by a woman who was then brought down by an outsider who used his own words of power to do so. It was, as you said elsewhere, a superbly intertextual moment.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I keep rolling that speech, and the layers and layers upon it, around in my mind too.

[jhall1.livejournal.com]

I thought that the ceremony was excellent.

Ursula Le Guin is one of my favourite writers, but she's always given me the impression that she's rather lacking in a sense of humour.

[raspberryfool.livejournal.com]

I kinda watched it over a pint in the local Wetherspoon's public house. It gave me neck-ache.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Aw, you missed a treat. Hope it was a good pint.

[azalaisdep.livejournal.com]

And in case anyone was wondering why Boris Johnson appears to have been bound and gagged and stuffed in the bottom of a cupboard for the duration (there I was waiting for his triumphal entry atop a Routemaster bus, and I don't remember spotting so much as a headshot of him in the Royal Box), perhaps it's in case he went off on one of these...

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Ha!

[huinare.livejournal.com]

Maybe the Queen will be shot up to a hovering helicopter on a rocket in a fountain of fireworks, glowering all the way, and then we’ll get to see the corgis looking up adorably from the palace steps to greet her.

LeGuin is like my favorite writer, but my goodness she can be snarky as hell.

I think I was stressing over filling out some forms while the opening ceremonies aired. *is a terrible world citizen* I really want to watch them at some point though.

(Don't suppose anyone knows if the whole thing might be easily accessible online somewhere...?)

[altariel.livejournal.com]

If you would have been watching in the US, it was time-delayed, with crap commentary, and full of cuts (not least the memorial to the victims of the 7/7 bombing).

It's still up on BBC iPlayer, but I don't think you're able to access that outside the UK? I think they've been pulling stuff off YouTube pretty damn quick, but you could try to catch some of it up there.

[ithilwen.livejournal.com]

Alas, I missed NBC's coverage of the opening ceremony, so I can't help you there. But given that the rest of their coverage has been dreadful, I suspect Ms. Le Guin saw a very underwhelming spectacle indeed! (More commercials than ceremony, I suspect.)

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I gather NBC passed on showing the men's 100m final live, and went for horseracing instead.

[toft-froggy.livejournal.com]

I thought it was great! Sorry Le Guin didn't like it, but, well, whatever. She can't be always right.