The Kennel Kernel

As a representative & telling review of all things British I thought it utterly outstanding.

No, really. Think about it. Shit load of old used2bes, outstaying their welcome like a drunken Uncle at the christening, unsubtle, unsophisticated, rehashing ancient wins & missed all the real opportunities by such a margin that one is drawn to wonder if it wasn’t sabotage. The only nod to contemporary affairs is that it had more spin than a top lashed by 13 epileptic Blairites on pharma grade whizz.

Give us 9billion squids & we still can't get the real deal acts to come along, who does to mime properly, whoever was supposed to be engineering the mikes for the vocals to get that right & the one single 'name that UK in one' brand that encapsulates the entire Kingdom to park her arse on a seat. She probably looked at the set list beforehand & banned herself from it.

"I say Philip, I see young David Bowie, that Kate Bush you so like, Mr Clapton, most of Pink Floyd & Genesis, none of the clever 90s Britpop lot, & not one of the Strolling Bones can be arsed to turn up. Just a guitar windmilling kiddie fiddler, sid snot & a dead Beatle. After that ghastly chopper gag at the start, if they think I'm coming this time they can jog on. I'll send the yoof-Harry or whatever his name is this week." No wonder he looked fit to cry-there was bugger all in it for his gen.

Talking of drunken uncles I enjoyed quite a lot of it. AV cranked up, dinner on the sofa, knackered from the day & needing no-brainer input. Plus wine. And actually I think we did the visuals pretty well. Loved the roller-blading big hatted nuns & the tantalising prospect of the bloke on the tightrope falling off or also going up in flames. Eric Idle doing a Tommy Cooper checkout. Those taxis with the spicegirls did get vairy close to the edge of the front stage..Prince Henry doing a tired & emotional flounce.

TBH I thought musically that Ray Davis, George Michael (Freedom anyhow) & Jessie J nailed it. But I was by then a fair bit of vino down & besides the boys must have moved damned fast 'coz I'm positive I saw both Ray & George consuming a '99 flake cornet whilst hanging around the Crazee Golf circuit in Whitby yesterday. Seedy looking fuckers.

The extinguishing of the Olympic Flame was an entirely different affair. Architect Thomas Heatherwick’s ‘Cauldron’ was a superbly considered piece. Each team carried in a petal or leaf when the games all started, which went onto the plants. When they left the 204 teams were given a by now charred copper leaf each to take home. I thought that idea excellent & another largely unsung demonstration of the UK’s worldwide reputation. It also didn’t do the public perception of ‘monstrous carbuncler’s’ any harm either.

The soundtrack to this was the Spirit of the Flames, composed by David Arnold which started with high Germanic operatic vocals, & then took on a big ship’s rowers timing pound with soaring strings. He blew that clean up with a distorted guitar top strings on top of a high energy percussion that must shaken the entire structure. Powerful, aggressive perhaps even angry? Bloody furious I’d say & the phoenix lifting in Darcey Bussell from her retirement heralded the lift off phase of David Arnold’s floor to ceiling show. Bit of rest with some chanting, some intricacy with the strings, more elecro beats, building hypnotically to a full on combine-the-lot with a strident Wagnerian crescendo, finishing on a sudden, iconic stop. Then the stems slowly descended to a Last Post crossed with Dvorak’s New World lament & lay flat to the ground like the dying flowers they represented, whilst the flower flames danced their last. Beautiful, haunting & elegiac done with grace, style & pace. I did wonder if the ever thoughtful Thomas had designed in the extinguishing process or if down underneath it all, where the gas pipes live, there was a chap in a brown overcoat twiddling the taps with a 3/8” nobber. It doesn’t matter. The twinkling stars slowly going out, a quick suggestion of a flicker of resurgence & then, the stillness after the last breath. And it’s on that note I think maybe things should have been left. I don’t want to talk about what happened next. Or more accurately, who.

Unsurprisingly the leaf idea will happen again during the Paralympics, except this time each leaf is stamped to distinguish them from the Olympics just gone. And if it was a chap with a spanner putting put the fires then perhaps he could return because that merited an AmDram gold.


Mind you, if you think our lot were a bit lacking, consider American viewers who were unable to see the extinguishing part as NBC chose to cut it..


Darcy Bussell: BBC iPlayer - Olympic Ceremonies: London 2012: Closing Ceremony

Sources:
Balletic climax to London 2012 Closing Ceremony < News - Royal Opera House

Olympic cauldron was designed to be temporary, says designer - Xinhua | English.news.cn