Weird! London's Olympics Opening Ceremony

Invasion of the Mary Poppins

Last night I watched the opening ceremony in London for the Summer Olympics.  It was utterly bizarre.  Thee were large crowds of actors/participants doing weird things and it all seemed chaotic and pointless.

First a bunch of people dressed like farmers pick up their wooden fences and depart the huge stage area, while another bunch of people dressed like 19th Century workers file into the stage area on the other side.  They busily turn ratchets and levers while smoke stacks rise from the ground to belch smoke.  Meanwhile, a squad of about ten men dressed in top hats and dark suits wander about, making strange motions with their hands and arms.  They looked like something out of "Oliver Twist."  The man in the middle has an unlit cigar in his mouth, and looks about with a very satisfied smile on his face, signifying absolutely nothing (maybe he just likes cigars).

There is a whole scene of music and lights and costumed people celebrating Britain's National Health Service, to the satisfied clucking of the liberal American media hosts, supporting (by implication) Obamacare in their not so subtle way. After all, if it were not for Britain's National Health Service, moms might be giving birth in alleyways rather than the public restrooms of the NHS (because socialized medicine can't produce enough hospital beds).

After much fireworks, reenactments of Peter Pan, Mary Poppins and Harry Potter, Paul McCartney warbles "Hey Jude" (he was not in his finest voice by any means) while the huge crowd sings along, swaying to the rhythm in unison. Following this, there was an interminable succession of scenes with eclectic crowds of disparately-dressed people singing passé and hackneyed modern pop songs, as if the whole world had suddenly decided to play dress-up and congeal into one giant cliché.

Boring! To say the least. Great Britain, with its long and magnificent history, its Lord Nelson, Spitfires, Magna Carta, Oliver Cromwell, William Shakespeare, Winston Churchill, etc, deserved much better.