Well, we didn’t see all of last night’s Paralympics closing ceremony. We missed the first 15 or so minutes because we were later leaving the restaurant than planned. But we saw most of it.
And it was good. Less spectacular than the previous three ceremonies, but good. I found it a much calmer ceremony in which spectacle and surreal and drama and music and pomp and circumstance were kept in a balance lacking from the other ceremonies. It was gentle, and that was good.
But London’s eight minutes sucked again. What is it with London? Why did they make themselves look like they’d just escaped the eighties? Is it really going to be London 2012- four years after and 20 years behind Beijing? At least ol’ Boris Johnson managed to remember to shake his counterpart’s hand this time. Then on his way out he stopped to pick some piece of paper out of the sole of his shoe and have a look. What a clown.
But the rest of the ceremony was good, in a gentle, balanced kind of a way. It felt like a relief after the Olympics’ spectacular opening and closing ceremonies and the Paralympics’ awful opening ceremony.
And now it’s all over and on the 20th the Olympic period officially ends and then hopefully everything goes back to normal.
