Since I cannot be there I decided I may as well get as close as I can by watching it with my 3D TV.
The ceremony started off quite well, the 'condensed history of Britain' was interesting but an hour in, the performance lost its enthusiasm and the BBC commentators begun to sound like they'd had a little too much Gin and had forgotten there were people in the room. The segment about death, always a downer after watching 15 minutes of 90s hedonism represented through a sanitised and politically correct media machine, gave me time to reflect on what it is that I expected from this Olympic Opening Ceremony.
What I expected were Mockneys, Routemasters, and a quarter mile cycle park for all the Olympic athletes to park their Boris bikes when they rode into the stadium during the parade of nations.
Ok. So I went into this on the cynical side but given how crap we can be as a nation I felt my cynicism was justified. However, I was in fact quite impressed with what Danny Boyle has choreographed. Sure the Atkinson skit was crudely nostalgic, I thought they would have included the Spice Girls in the music segment (since they are a British institution) and I am half expecting Noel Edmunds in a Mr Blobby suit to light the Olympic flame, but it's not bad. However it isn't A-MAZING, it's getting late, and I have to get up for work in the morning so I am going to call this a night and head off to bed. I'll catch the rest in the morning.
I am excited about the Olympics, honest, I am quite keen to see the cycling, the rowing, the sailing - you know the sitting down sports (we're good at them) but the parade of nations music has morphed into a person with annoying loud and tinny music bleeding through their headphones sitting next to me on the bus and I have decided to push the red button and walk the rest of the way.
The BBC HD 3D coverage itself is ok. Sometimes it feels like they have not thought about their 3D audience and your senses are assaulted by a large blurry flapping thing and there were a few audio/video glitches that made BBC 3D feel like the BBC 2 of the eighties and nineties - a poorer neglected cousin. Which is a shame if it is true because some of the sports WILL look amazing in 3D if their properly camer'ered.
Oh.
It turns out it is a good job I was wrong about the Mockneys and the Boris bikes since the Police were busy kettling a Critical Mass bike thingy (ride/demonstration - I don't want to take sides) on Stratford High Street while the ceremony was going on and no doubt, a couple of thousand foreigners who may not speak the best English on Boris bikes, at 10pm on a Friday night in East London may have also found themselves kettled.