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How to enjoy the opening ceremony

Opening ceremony - two words to strike cold fear into the heart of every true sports fan.

What could be achieved by a simple ribbon cutting, has grown into a multi-million pound, three-and-a-half hour television marathon.

Indeed, the tradition of the host cities competing to stage ever glitzier, jaw-dropping extravangazas has become as much a part of the Games as the marathon itself.

Nine out of 10 adult Australians sat through a showpiece in Sydney that included giant jellyfish, tin men, a mass army of lawnmowers and enough fireworks to light the Great Barrier Reef.

So, seeing there's no avoiding it, here's a simple way of making those dead hours on Friday just fly by.

Simply award yourself a point every time you spot one of the opening ceremony staples listed below.

For anything up to five spots, award yourself a bronze. Five to nine gives you a silver, and 10 out of 10 the gold.

TO THE BEAT OF THE DRUM

Not since the heady days and crazy nights of Phil Collins' last world tour will drumming have played such a central part in an sub-standard evening of entertainment.

Expect drum roll after flashy roll to reverberate around the stadium, possibly while a single searchlight plays across the night time sky and portentous operatic wailing floats through the still air.

SUFFER LITTLE CHILDREN

While polite society long ago turned against the use of child labour in the chimney-sweeping and mining industries, it is still considered socially acceptable to send hordes of terrified nippers out into the arena to dance like monkeys for the delectation of a world-wide television audience.

These goggle-eyed youngsters will have been drilled daily for months so that their limbs can respond even while their brains shut down with fear.

Do not be fooled by those fixed smiles - every second that goes by is scarring them mentally still further.

WORD UP

Look! Those people are forming themselves into giant letters! I think! But because we are seated in the grandstands rather then crewing a passing airship, we have no idea at all what they're attempting to spell out!

What a great idea!

BURNING DESIRE

So, there's an enormous cauldron of Olympic flame at one end of the stadium.

What's that you say? You want to release a flock of white doves, right over the biggest Bunsen burner in science history?

Consider this first: is the sight of a fried bird crashing into the lap of a horrified spectator really that effective as a symbol of peace?

NO 'I' IN TEAM

Marching out onto the track comes the team from Montserrat, hereon known as "plucky Montserrat".

Or indeed "Gavin", if you wanted to be both more personal and accurate.

TAP ON THE BACK

Except by members of a small underground scene based around the deification of Wayne Sleep, tap-dancing has not been considered entertaining since Gene Kelly's hamstrings first began to tighten up on him.

Yet at each Olympic ceremony, this antiquated form of hoofing is revived on a massive scale and given new life by crazed choreographers desperate to recreate the lost days of Fred and Ginger.

Devotees of rag-time have never quite recovered from the snub.

MYSTICAL MAGIC

No opener is complete without a baffling semi-mystical element, one which ideally brings together elements of happy-clappy religion and bad poetry.

Jean Dussourd, president of the Paris 2003 organising committee, opened last summer's World Championships with the unforgettable words:

'The Earth is blue like an orange - never an error, words never lie."

Of course, you might think that, of all the fruits in the world, the orange is one of the least blue - not least because it is called 'orange' and is so orange that is gave its name to a colour - orange.

You ignorant fool.

TUNE TERROR

Despite some evidence to the contrary - Busted, Avril Lavigne - it is still possible in this day and age to write music that is both tuneful and uplifting.

Why then do the ceremony bigwigs insist on commissioning tunes so pretentious that Rick Wakeman could consider them a touch proggy and so turgid that, by comparison, the Bulgarian national anthem sounds like the theme to the Tweenies?

COSTUME CRAZY

Performer to ceremony director:

"What is my character's motivation in this scene? I envisage a smouldering anger, a complex matrix of passion, hate and psychological confusion."

Ceremony director to performer:

"Whatever - stick this giant teddy-bear costume on and get dancing."

UP IN SMOKE

Attention flagging? Audience shifting in their seats?

KABOOM! SLA-BLAM! POW-POW-POW-POW!

Half a million quid's worth of fireworks should sort that one out...

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By Tom Fordyce

[original article]

Posted by thinkum at August 13, 2004 03:12 PM