2012 London Olympics

[Zmapper]

It's that time, for the 2012 London Olympics.

For those who don't want to wait, you can watch the opening ceremony right now: http://www.vipbox.tv/watch/63204/1/olympics-opening-ceremony-countdown-live-stream-online.html

It is somewhat challenging to get rid of the popups, but what you need to do is hover over the X button in the upper left for a few seconds, until the "real" X button in the lower left appears.

[1995hoo]

I still think their official logo looks like Lisa Simpson giving a BJ. I wonder if that might be one reason why NBC are using a different logo on their broadcasts.

[tdindy88]

NBC has had special logos for the Olympics in both Vancouver and Beijing and I think even Turin, so their London logo is nothing new. Got to admit that the official logo is "different" to say the least.

[Road Hog]

It's extremely bogus that we don't have the option of watching the opening ceremony live on one of the multiple NBC channels. We have to wait for them to spoon-feed it to us in prime time with a sugary coating of cut-in feature stories, like the idiot Americans we are.

[tdindy88]

Yeah, but then their advertisers couldn't make as much money if it weren't in prime time...I'm being sarcastic, I think. It was rather dumb when they were on tape delay on the West Coast for the 2010 Olympics, for games that were taking place in their own time zone. Of course complaining about NBC's coverage of the olympics is becoming an American Pastime every two years.

[english si]

Unless you are on the West Coast, surely it ended in prime time? It makes no sense to delay the feed to not be live if you push the cauldron being lit off the back of prime time (nearly 1am BST) - you simply get people watching it without ads online.

7 kids lit the cauldron, which was made of pieces carried in by every country that processed in and is absolutely beautiful, so were the doves and the singing from all four nations at the beginning.

I thought that was one of the reasons why the ceremony didn't properly begin until 9 - to allow a more sensible US airtime (see the timing of Euro2012 games to put them in prime time in Western Europe) - that, and needing it to be rather dark half an hour in.

I watched the full 6 hours of BBC non-stop coverage (could have been earlier if Macca didn't draw out Hey Jude after all the good stuff had happened). No adverts, 'cos it's Auntie Beeb, though occasional annoying cuts to something else (eg fireworks at the end to some clips of past Olympic glories).

Can someone remind me what Romneyshambles (though we can't forget how undiplomatic Obama's administration has been towards the UK in the past 4 years - often offensive, but quickly forgotten by an adoring press. TBH, the President's absence tonight alone is worse than Romney's insult - especially as until Mitt made it, pessimism about planning was rife throughout the realm) planned in Salt Lake? I'm pretty sure I watched it but I can't remember what they did there in the middle of nowhere - throw some snow and do a display of suit-wearing young men? That opening ceremony needed more planning than the whole SLC Winter Olympics.

Top that Rio de Janeiro!

[Alps]

I still think their official logo looks like Lisa Simpson giving a BJ. I wonder if that might be one reason why NBC are using a different logo on their broadcasts.

Things that cannot be unseen, dammit.

Top that Rio de Janeiro!

Actually, I think they go topless there.

[Takumi]

The US telecast is playing right now. The commentators won't stop talking, which is even more irritating to me than it normally would be, since two of my favorite music groups/producers, Underworld and High Contrast, made a good amount of the music. Yes, it'll be available on soundtrack soon, but still...
[/rant]

[english si]

We had that on the later bits, the BBC commentary team consisted of:
Huw Edwards, the newsreader and major events commentator, who brings class and gravitas to the commentating, and said next to nothing (if that much) as there was not a huge amount to say other than the odd sentence, and his talkative co-commentators had already said what needed to be said.
Hazel Irvine, a sports presenter who really didn't say a lot that was meaningful as there wasn't a huge amount of sports stuff to say, but did say quite a bit in order to compete.
Trevor Neilson, big name pop music DJ whose sister and cousin were in the thing (which was good to mention in the build up, but not good where he points them out in the event) and talked all through the digital revolution (music romp though the years) and then wouldn't shut up for too long after that.

I guess there's some references that you over the pond wouldn't get that might need teasing out, but not that many that aren't subtle ones that you don't need to know.

Things that cannot be unseen, dammit.

you learn to block it out after a couple of months, but then again, you don't have a couple of months. It's grown on us since it was revealed.

Rio will be different (though I doubt there'd be much toplessness) and no doubt a very good show, but I can't see how you can beat London's (OK, I'm biased). Beijing was something I enjoyed, but their strength of numbers routine was less of a spectacle than the story of nation routine that ours was. Similarly, Rio's carnival spirit doesn't cut the mustard compared to London's creative spirit in terms of opening ceremony.

[Zmapper]

Personally, Vancouver had a better opening ceremony than London. Granted, I had to leave about halfway through the Parade of Nations, so I missed the latter part of the show.

[cpzilliacus]

I enjoyed the bike road races (for men and women).  Fun to watch the smallish, narrow roads in the English countryside, and then  the streets in London.   

[formulanone]

I still think their official logo looks like Lisa Simpson giving a BJ. I wonder if that might be one reason why NBC are using a different logo on their broadcasts.

I've noticed products and services have been using the USA and five-rings logo for some time now, at least two years. It's a really hideous logo, and some of the angular "London 2012" typefaces look really childish and annoying to the eyes. It's as if they're over-conveying motion and futurism.

I suppose the 1996 Atlanta mascot was quite odd, but London thought it was pretty swell, and made two of them.

[english si]

Only Wenlock is the Olympic mascot, Mandeville is the Paralympic mascot - both named for the villages which the birthplace of the movements. Both appear in merchandise though. Both are one eyed monsters, keeping the innuendo levels high.

Looking back at the opening ceremony, the middle bit (the truimph of the Nanny State as Mary Poppins bashes Voldemort while they honour the NHS and children - including a giant baby that looked as if it was aborted) wasn't amazing and the politicising of it hasn't been great. Macca didn't need to come out after the cauldron formed either. However the build up to the forging of the rings and the understatement and tongue-in-cheek humour as good. The digital generation bit wasn't bad, as long as you treated it as a celebration of music and film first and foremost.

The memorial bit (the IOC must have blocked it being explicitly obviously a 7/7 memorial - plus it gave a chance to have something for the victims of Munich to pretend it was more generic) got the mood needed spot on - though it's disgraceful that NBC cut it, as with the time delay and their vast staff they neither had to cut it and also find out what it was about (surely one member of staff was watching the BBC coverage, to get bits that weren't in the programme?).

---

When TeamGB won gold on the rowing lake, I nearly was able to hear the crowd - it's only about 10 miles away from here. Sadly that didn't put us above the Australians on the medal table, though we are above them now, so that's good (though surely now, with our natural friendly competition behind us, our eyes must turn to less friendly rivalries with the Frogs and the Krauts).

Hopefully the NBC news will talk about Boris getting stuck on a zip line, rather than the important USA results - I know how NBC coverage is dire, but you have to put up with it (or use proxy servers and get BBC coverage).

I enjoyed the bike road races (for men and women).  Fun to watch the smallish, narrow roads in the English countryside, and then  the streets in London.   

Well, I'm sorry if it wasn't wide enough for you. A lot of the English cars have steering wheels.

The weekend's races had the circuit at Box Hill - they used one half (the original pre-historic half) of a 1920s dual carriageway that is twisty and separate from the other side (which takes a straighter route), and some country lanes. The main roads (in the towns) were typically narrowed by the barriers and the crowd, though they avoided that. The trees help narrow the view of the road. Today's time trials didn't really go into the countryside - mostly parks and residential roads in leafy suburbia. The track for the cyclists was nearly never as wide as the road. Foolishly we made a road race too hilly for Mark Cavendish and a time trial too flat for Emma Pooley and Chris Froome .

It would have been nice if they mixed up where the cycling races were - these were the big audience can come along for nothing events, along with the marathon and the sailing. Instead both were in the Esher/Epsom/Kingston area.

[triplemultiplex]

Every Olympics, it seems I manage to catch a sport I have never seen before in my life, even if they've been Olympic sports for decades.  This year, one of those sports is water polo.  It only took about 3/4ths of a match to finally develop some basic understanding of the rules.  I'm still not sure why the refs blow their whistles so much and then nothing different happens.

Now that I think about it, though, I guess I have seen a few frames of water polo during a couple episodes of "Star Trek: Enterprise" but not enough to get it.

But I definitely never heard of this "dressage" thing before this year.  Not only is it the stupidest competition anyone has ever thought of, but it's completely incomprehensible.  The commentators are like, "Oh that's going to be a deduction..." and literally nothing happened.  Just a 19th century-looking douchebag riding a crazy-walking horse.  On top of that, the only thing that would make it more elitist would be if they were doing it on a giant gold-plated yacht.

I know there's a lot of obscure sports in the Olympics, but at least stuff like ping pong requires some amount of athletic ability.

And yet baseball isn't good enough for the Olympics anymore?  C'mon, man!  There's enough international talent in the MLB to suggest it would still work.  It's more interesting than badminton.

Ah well, it's still kind of fun to revel in a little good-natured nationalism even if we don't care about the sports we're competing in.

[english si]

Every Olympics, it seems I manage to catch a sport I have never seen before in my life, even if they've been Olympic sports for decades.  This year, one of those sports is water polo.  It only took about 3/4ths of a match to finally develop some basic understanding of the rules.  I'm still not sure why the refs blow their whistles so much and then nothing different happens.

The person grabbing hold of the player with the ball (often under the water) lets go when the whistle blows.

But I definitely never heard of this "dressage" thing before this year.  Not only is it the stupidest competition anyone has ever thought of, but it's completely incomprehensible.

I watched some - I understand it, but don't have the skill to spot what I understand I'm meant to be looking for.

The commentators are like, "Oh that's going to be a deduction..." and literally nothing happened.  Just a 19th century-looking douchebag riding a crazy-walking horse.

The BBC was quite good - a case of NBCfail? Also, unless someone got 0 (I think deductions go upwards) or 10 or whatever is a perfect score, something did happen.

On top of that, the only thing that would make it more elitist would be if they were doing it on a giant gold-plated yacht.

not really - it was based on something that army cavalry did. Sure having access to a horse can be expensive, but so is going to the swimming pool all the time. Note, however that the Princess didn't win.

I know there's a lot of obscure sports in the Olympics, but at least stuff like ping pong requires some amount of athletic ability.

Riding a horse with that amount of control requires both skill (like shooting, archery, etc) and athletic ability. Also those doing dressage also have to do show jumping and cross-country riding, which involve quite a bit of effort.

The biggest problem with it is that they put it in the wrong place - ruining a lovely park (for years, if not permanently) and the course for cross country is too squashed in.

And yet baseball isn't good enough for the Olympics anymore?  C'mon, man!  There's enough international talent in the MLB to suggest it would still work.  It's more interesting than badminton.

Not really enough international appeal, despite the talent. It spend many years as a demonstration event before becoming a proper medal event in 92, 96, 00, 04 and 08.

Bare in mind that Cricket (the most played sport in the world) failed to get enough votes to be included, despite lots of countries playing it as their national sport (ie not just Cuba and the USA). Rugby Sevens got in for 2016 though.

Also there's the overhyped professional issue - the men's football has been pretty poor to watch, whereas I've enjoyed the women's. Olympic Gold isn't the highest honour in the sport (though somehow tennis works) and that brings down the event.

[agentsteel53]

But I definitely never heard of this "dressage" thing before this year.  Not only is it the stupidest competition anyone has ever thought of, but it's completely incomprehensible.  The commentators are like, "Oh that's going to be a deduction..." and literally nothing happened.  Just a 19th century-looking douchebag riding a crazy-walking horse.  On top of that, the only thing that would make it more elitist would be if they were doing it on a giant gold-plated yacht.

no, the sort of horse event that attracts the gold-plated yacht crowd is also the kind where they sometimes shoot the horse at the end.

I'd much rather have dressage, inscrutable as it may be.

[english si]

Don't bother with the closing ceremony. Or, rather, I beg you please don't watch it!

Proud of most of the stars that performed in it - and proud that we Brits have the tunes, but song choice, linking and scenery varied between mediocre and poor.

There were some genuinely good moments, though they would go woosh over non-British heads, plus lots of bad decisions high up the food chain.

[on_wisconsin]

I watched the whole thing live on the web and thought it was really good. The Lennon tribute was well put together and The Who where awesome as always. George Michael was the only low light but overall a very great closing ceremony. Good games, England!

200th post!

[NYYPhil777]

I still think their official logo looks like Lisa Simpson giving a BJ. I wonder if that might be one reason why NBC are using a different logo on their broadcasts.

iAye carumba! 

[realjd]

Don't bother with the closing ceremony. Or, rather, I beg you please don't watch it!

Proud of most of the stars that performed in it - and proud that we Brits have the tunes, but song choice, linking and scenery varied between mediocre and poor.

There were some genuinely good moments, though they would go woosh over non-British heads, plus lots of bad decisions high up the food chain.

I enjoyed what little of it NBC decided not to cut. I really would have enjoyed seeing Muse or The Who, but I guess NBC decided that cutting large chunks of the ceremony to make time for the pilot of their animal hospital sitcom was a better idea.

[english si]

The Lennon tribute was well put together and The Who where awesome as always.

I was just imagining all the good things about these (and every other) Olympics not being there - the religion that drove a great many medal winning athletes and the volunteers who made the games, the religion inspired the athlete who inspired the film that the song during every medal ceremony was written for, the countries that meant these athletes compete for something bigger than selfish ambition (religion does this too), national pride due to the existence of countries also gets the crowd out to watch as well as athletes not to be up their own ass, the living for the future (rather than today) that gives the desire for delayed gratification and hard work in training, etc, etc, etc - as the song told me to do.

Also wondering what the fuck the Latvians, Lithuanians, Poles, Romanians etc were feeling about a song that glorifies the ideology that they were oppressed for decades because of. Sure many of the athletes in the middle would be too young to remember that, but those back in those countries wouldn't.

Why should Lennon get a tribute, and not other dead people (except Freddie) - where was the tribute to the musical stylings of Handel, Gilbert & Sullivan or Amy Winehouse? The sentiment of my twitter feed at that point is summed up with "Come back 1Direction all is forgiven!"

There was no story or links, a lot of the choreography and staging was poor, song choice was often poor, we have more than two current female singers, so there was no need to drag out Jessie J to sing the opening song at the end (we *will* rock you should surely go at the beginning, not the end) in a different skin coloured outfit, given she'd already had a medley - this tweet sums it up "the Indian Team have the mystery lady with no role in the team. Queen have Jessie J". I reckon Jessie J photoshopped into musical moments like the John Terry photoshopped into sporting ones (because he lifted the Champions League trophy without playing the last match and a bit, where Chelsea did good) is going to be a meme.

There was also the repeat of the opening Madness (Our House not as good as done earlier this summer)-Blur (why weren't they actually there? why not a longer rendition of Parklife?)-Pet Shop Boys (West End Girl is the wrong side of London for Stratford, which is to the eastern end of the East End)-Wand Erection medley. WTF?

Like how the flame extinguishing was set up for something spectacular, what with a pheonix on top of it, and turned out to be a damp squib, so was the closing ceremony.

Most British people were unable to not praise the Olympics and were proud that we could put on a party. While 1D did dampen the mood, Michael Caine and the Trotters lifted it again for a couple of seconds, then Madness repeating Our House started stabbing that sentiment and joy. Not Madness' fault, but rather the people who planned it. I was following it on twitter, and while there were few bad words for the performers, there were lots of comments about the production itself (added into some humorous ones). Such tweets like
"Danny Boyle is currently going through his CV bolding and underlining the word "opening" ."
"Word is some athletes have started trying to trade their gold medals in exchange for being smuggled out safely. "I hear you can get me out.""
"If the opening ceremonies were about what made Britain a great country, the closing ceremony is a reminder of why it's falling apart."
"My dad says this is Britain's revenge for the #eurovision song contest #closingceremony"
"Now it's clear why Her Majesty and those directly in the line of succession decided not to attend."
"What an awful way to close a fabulous couple of weeks. Giving up and going to bed. #London2012 #closingceremony" which illicited a response of "Don't go to bed, you're going to miss the Spice Girls. Hang on, wait..." captured the mood of the nation. We'd put on an excellent show for two whole weeks and then we go and spoil it all by putting on that production - which was only saved in the eyes of the world by the performers' fame, the songs fame and that they performed well (not great, but well).

The bar was set high, and they had a pole in the performers, but they didn't even get close - it's not like the pole didn't break, it's that they missed where they were supposed to put it. Perhaps they heard that high jumpers clear the bar by flopping and misunderstood the term.

I guess NBC finally had a bit of a win editing it for tape delay, and skipped the poor bits.

Roll on the Paralympics (pun intended) - should get tickets (if I've won the ballot) for the flame lighting ceremony in the post in the next couple of days.

[english si]

Roll on the Paralympics (pun intended) - should get tickets (if I've won the ballot) for the flame lighting ceremony in the post in the next couple of days.

I didn't get tickets for the flame-lighting, but the Paralympics were brilliant. I'm not a fan of watching Swimming and Athletics, but I was happily watching both - even when GB weren't winning. The opening ceremony was on a par with the Olympic one, and the closing ceremony - even though it was mostly a Coldplay gig - was far better.

Here are some photos of the Olympics:

At the race walk (in early August), I was downwind of the mist-shower. Which was good on that hot morning, even when this picture was taken, at about 8am (race started at 9)


500,000 were watching, on average, men walk around a 2km circuit 50 times. These photos don't do justice to the atmosphere. I can't think of many cities where that could happen.


Someone's in trouble - warning for running


Crowd staying on to cheer the remaining couple of athletes, despite the race having been won over 30 minutes ago - most of these people have been here for 6 hours.

[english si]

Here are some pictures I took yesterday:

Games makers (volunteers) on the steps at Trafalgar Square, during the parade for Olympians and Paralympians yesterday. These are the ones that didn't win the lottery for VIP tickets/being part of the parade as people to cheer.


A crew on the Greenway (major route into the Olympic Park) packing up the fences.


The last games lane to be in operation, right outside the park. I don't think London will miss these temporary VMS and the Games lanes.


Various routes to the park (in this case the A118 into Stratford) were decorated with logo/national flag hybrids. Don't know what this flag is, but my picture was really of the masses of signs. The warning sign for traffic lights is funny, given the 'no stopping' sign underneath and the fact that it's pointless as the lights are obvious. You can't read the (temporary) signs behind.


The stadium, the velodrome, the Orbit tower, all seen from the massive bridge (over A118) to the now-closed Greenway entrance. Just the evening before, this would have been full of life.


Another closed entrance to the Olympic Park, in this case, the Stratford entrance.


Even the Americans got their flag put on Lisa sucking Bart off.


Paralympian Ellie Simmonds' face overlooks the park from the giant new Westfield mall, and has done for months. She's as much of a household name as Mo Farah, Sir Chris Hoy, Jess Ennis, Victoria Pendleton and our other Olympic heroes.* A 17 year old who is double Paralympic champion in the S6 400m freestyle, has two other Gold medals (one each at Beijing and London), plus a Silver and Bronze from this year. But the same isn't true of Victoria Arlen - Ellie's rival: same age, shared the podium with her several times (beating her twice, losing to her twice), plus podiumed in the relay - sure the USA has lots of multiple medal winners that drown it out (but so does GB), but there's no exposure to these heroes, who competed 2 weeks later than the 5-ringed circus. NBC has a lot to ask for (our Paralympic coverage was less than our Olympic coverage - but we still could watch about 50% of it live, plus had large amounts of highlights programming in prime time).


This here sums today up - the chair is on its side like a Christmas tree in January waiting to be removed.

*Watching the coverage of the GB parade on the big screen, the presenters (admittedly from the network who covered the Paralympics, not the ones who had covered the Olympics) were saying that they had forgotten a lot of these Olympic Gold Medallists, despite being able to recognise all the Paralympians. They also interviewed more Paralympians - partially as it was their first outing, whereas the Olympians have had a few weeks to be interviewed.

[formulanone]

Well, at least you had Stephen Hawking and Orbital for the opening ceremonies of the Paralympics.