Good History Lesson In The Opening Ceremony of Olympics

I missed it this year due to the time zone difference and the fact that I was pretty busy over the weekend. I was not home when it was televised here. I might not have watched it anyway unless the rest of the family was keen on seeing it as I have not really heard too much about the games in the lead up this time. It all has seemed very low key this year, at least to us in this household anyway. How was Paul's singing? Can he still belt out the song alright?

I remember when I used to watch the Olympics, I am actually quite disgusted that it has turned into nothing more than another way to make money. I do believe the Olympic games was historically something where the greatest athletes of the world went to compete, and countries more or less set aside they're hatred towards each other. Now it's just a big TV production with exclusive licensing, half the people can't see it, and it has nothing to do with anything. The greatest worldwide tradition ever known to man, turned into a glorified I-pod commercial.

Britain did themselves proud. And I think raised the bar for other countries.

I enjoyed the opening ceremony. I like how it touched on the industrial revolution, national health and hospitals, children literature and pop music. I got a kick out of all the music and bands played like the Stones, the Who, the Kinks and the Beatles along with Bowie, New Order, OMD, Mud, the Jam, Blur, Pink Floyd. It summed up pop culture in a few minutes.

Olympics began, and their opening ceremony in London, has made ??an entire planet amuteasca emotion. I've never seen so much greatness, so splendid, so much dignity in such an artistic showdown. I wrote the other day how much we need to move, forgetting an essential dimension of sport: fair play. Rules must be followed strictly, beauty fairness, joy to take the game to the end, even when you were defeated. For sports there are really losers and winners, there are only people brave souls of all those who enjoy watching them. Are there and our athletes, wonderful young who have taken the difficult mission to make us again proud to be Romanian. Let's keep our fingers, pray for them, follow them with all our love for them to feel power over our head. Come on, Romania! Thank you, dear Romanian athletes!

I love some of the responses but I do like the olympics for just it being a break from the ordinary. It only happens every 4 years so it is a nice distraction... Yes, there is great history behind it and I think that the people representing the nations should describe what their nation means to them. I mean it is a competition so they might as well make that part of it as well... Anyway it was good to watch.

I liked the opening ceremony. It was well designed and executed. The theatrical and the musical aspects were well thought off. But what I loved were those moments of British humor which was being played out such as the helicopter jump by Queen Elizabeth with James Bond at her service. Mr. Bean was his immaculate best on the piano as well. :) Cheers! Ram

I would watch in years past but without someone to watch it with it doesn't really interest me. I am very disinterested in the Olympics. I must say, though, that your family is watching TV as it's supposed to be enjoyed, as an social activity. I like the way you remark on things and discuss ideas. I see so many people just staring at the set, it's as if they're all in soundproof pods and isolated from each other.

I thought the whole thing was excellent - a real spectacle, with touches of typically British humour. I would have liked to see a bit more of the military - perhaps a military band or something similar - but I thought overall it was something to be proud of. I do think Paul McCartney is way past his best, though. The torch was sensational.

Couldn't see it! Obviously the BBC was not prepared for the games. The basic website took minutes to load and the important pages just wouldn't come. Even now, bbc.co.uk takes 35 seconds for anything to appear and hasn't finished loading after 4 or 5 minutes. It's got stuck loading something called "ichef". It is only what we have come to expect from Britain. There will no doubt be a lot more failures yet!

We reckon Sydney 2000 Olympics was much better! All-in-all, not a bad effort, but do you really think it justified the time & the monetary expenditure? I think it was a fairly good effort that lived up to the promised "very British & quite eccentric"; I just hope that their tourism industry & economy in general gets a big boost out of it. I reckon Sir Paul did a fairly good job of Hey Jude... & if you squint a bit & tilt your head to the side, you might say he resembled himself many years ago??? He still has quite a bit of energy for his age, don't you think? I reckon Sir Paul did a better job at the Olympics than Englebert Humperdink did at the Eurovision Song Contest. Now it's on to "digging for Gold"!

Yes the opening ceremony was very much interesting and eye catchy as it threw the entire world about the history that many are not even aware of. In fact opening ceremonies of the Olympics have always been special in terms of the history and celebrations that are being made. And London Olympics was no different.