A Flame Extinguished

We were promised that the Olympics closing ceremony was going to be a celebration of bad miming to British music and, with the notable exception of One Dimension, this proved to be the case. The tone was set from the start when those titans of the British rock industry - Huw Edwards, Hazel Irvine, and the other bloke - were chosen by the BBC to make fatuous and banal comments over the music we were supposed to be celebratin'.

The quality was, of course, variable. The aforementioned gang of schoolboys, One Direction, simply gave up on even bothering to mime and just postured on the back of a lorry instead. The one direction they should have gone in was straight out of the stadium and into the Thames. One Dissection have, in fact, been referred to the International Boyband Federation after allegations they simply weren't trying to qualify for any applause, but I suspect that was as good as it gets from them. George Michael's 'Freedom' was a good choice and chimed well with the Olympic ideal, but his second song was protracted, obscure, and just too crap for such an event. I wasn't convinced by the need for the hirsute, priapic Russell Brand to declaim 'I am the Walrus' into a loudhailer either. I suppose we should be grateful that Liam Gallagher managed to refrain from bellowing a hail of profanities at the assembled throng; it certainly would have been a treat to see Noel's luxuriant mono-brow gyrating like an apoplectic caterpillar at the sight of his treasured sibling sneering through his composition on the world stage.

The parade of the athletes into the stadium clearly took a lot longer than the organisers envisaged and soon became wearisome; there are only so many shots of Montenegrin yachtsmen or Costa Rican fencers taking photos of each other and yelling "Hello Mum" one can take. We were occasionally treated to shots of some of the volunteers windmilling their arms at the Olympians in a vain effort to get them to get a shift on. Elbow tried manfully to extend their uplifting anthems but it ultimately meant the soundtrack of the songs we had already heard were played again, giving us another chance to hear One Digression's lame effort.

And then there were The Spice Girls being driven around on the top of London taxis. I am pleased to confirm that another world record was broken during this segment: Victoria Spice has now held the same sulkily pouting facial expression for 15 years and 27 minutes so shove that up your six-pack, Ennis. It seemed she might fail to break the record at one stage as she was filmed making increasingly panicky grabs at the handrail but her features held firm.

Posh Beckham breaks world record and adopts celebratory splay-legged Bambi stance 

That old trooper, Ginger Spice (who was 73 last month), also set personal bests  in the unsynchronised dancing and asymmetric boobs. I surely can't have been the only viewer, though, to hope the drivers would suddenly slam their brakes on and cause the the caterwauling coven to dash their talentless bones to pieces on the stadium floor. Mind you, it was during their turn that the camera thankfully fastened on Bozza Johnson 'dancing' like an electrocuted beluga whale; at least he managed to avoid impaling the Mayor of Rio on the Olympic flag. However, I really could have done without a gaggle of models stalking surlily up the catwalk; Kate Moss could only have been there as a reminder of the great debt British music and fashion owes to the Colombian narcotics industry, whilst the presence of violent yobette, Naomi Campbell, was baffling. I suppose we should at least be grateful she avoided ramming a stiletto heel into the eye of a disabled volunteer, or kicking Mo Farah in the knackers.

The ceremony also confirmed what many of us had long suspected: Prince Harry and Kate Middleton are now clearly stepping out together. Poor Wills was left at home in an empty, echoing palace, polishing his bald patch and playing with his toy helicopters, while his wife and brother openly cuckolded him in public. Poor show!

Harry: "Back to your places or mine?"

But there were stand-out moments - Madness; a Kate Bush song; the Mod scooters; Ray Davies performing the sublime 'Waterloo Sunset'; Eric Idle leading a decent sing-a-long; and The Who showing they can still perform live, with power and passion (take note Mr McCartney) - and it was good to see Anita Dobson can still churn out a decent guitar solo. Overall, not a bad gig and the Brits done good.

Chariots of Fire

There is a miserable, non-entity of a Conservative MP called Aidan Burley who infamously tweeted that the gloriously eccentric and anarchic Olympic opening ceremony was "leftie multicultural crap". We should not, perhaps, be surprised by this as the last time this chap bothered the news was when he attended a stag do with his very funny mates dressed as Nazis. Burley whimpered that his tweet had been "misunderstood" which merely proved that he had no idea what his own witless fingers were writing. It would have been interesting, therefore, to be a fly on the wall in Burley's household when black Muslim immigrant Mo Farah romped home in the 10,000 metres last night and then draped himself in the Union flag; perhaps he shared a consolatory beer with Nick Griffin and John Terry.

The magnificent, soul-swelling, heart-bursting victories of Farah and Jessica Ennis - glowing with vitality; exuding radiant grace and elegance; smiling pure sunshine - represent the life-affirming victory of a Britain that Burley and his egregious ilk will never understand and will never accept: a Britain that is open, inclusive, warm, and welcoming; a Britain that joyfully welcomes the fact that, no matter your colour, your creed, your background, you are British and can represent Britain with as much pride and distinction as anybody. That was the truly memorable message of yesterday's events. I mean, even a pale, ginger (GINGER!) bloke won the long jump and there is no minority more traduced than us gingers! The only sour note of the whole day occurred in the velodrome when Sir Paul Macca's querulous yowling caused deep distress and offence to many spectators.

When these athletes, including the rowers and cyclists, give their post-race interviews they are characterised by good humour, self-deprecation, and generosity to everyone who has helped them. With the rowers, in particular, this is all the more remarkable as they clearly go through intense physical, mental and emotional pain to achieve victory; some almost physically disintegrate with weariness at the finishing line. Many are clearly grateful for the massive avuncular frame of Sir Steve Redgrave to collapse onto once they reach terra firma; sometimes, his brawny arm will appear from off camera and give them an additional celebratory/consolatory pinch that would make a polar bear yelp. Compare this to the whingeing, whining, inarticulate, self-exculpatory and self-aggrandising interviews given by many footballers (and their managers) after their latest tedious failure. As the banking scandals have proved, paying people vastly more money than they deserve does not mean they will perform any better. For no amount of money can ever match the commitment, passion and determination shown by Farah, Ennis, Pendleton, Sir Hoy, et al.