{"id":3549,"date":"2012-07-30T20:18:42","date_gmt":"2012-07-30T19:18:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/?p=3549"},"modified":"2012-07-30T20:18:42","modified_gmt":"2012-07-30T19:18:42","slug":"the-olympic-opening-ceremony-i-gain-an-exclusive-view","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/?p=3549","title":{"rendered":"The Olympic Opening Ceremony – I Gain an Exclusive View"},"content":{"rendered":"

Monday 30th July 2012<\/p>\n

Friday by boat with the Gay Mother and Aunt Lavinia to the Multis’. They can see the Olympic Stadium, more or less, from their wraparound.<\/p>\n

Never to be forgotten. Great day of days. Val, on brilliant form, texted throughout. The Multis provided a superbly concise, delicious dinner of antipasto, poulet au moutard and fine wines, then we were through to view on a vast drop-down screen.<\/p>\n

The definition and colour. Unsurpassed.<\/p>\n

Just loved the Opening Ceremony. Loved the vision of England’s green and pleasant. Don’t care if twee. The best bit was the fearsome boredom of\u00a0 the official speeches laboured forth by Lord Coe and Monsieur Rog (?) from that resurrected English meadow with the dear, darling wild flowers of England carrying on regardless in the background.<\/p>\n

Val, texting in, only lightly sauced, mildly refreshed, was mesmerised by the athletes’ parade;\u00a0 of course he knew all the obscure countries (‘only momentarily stumped by Guam’)\u00a0 but took exception to Monaco – ‘ That’s not a Nation State: a casino and a couple of streets of tawdry, knicker-pink hotels more like.’<\/p>\n

The Gay Mother and Aunt Lavinia couldn’t grasp the Queen’s hair. ‘What’s happened to her hair?’ they kept saying. ‘It’s adorned with a matching hair adornment,’ we kept saying, to no effect. ‘She looks awfully tired,’ said Aunt Lavinia. Prince Dmitri Hersov and the Photo Multi were in the back row, recognising all the songs. Prince Dmitri, as you know, spends hours, scouring for ‘vinyl’.<\/p>\n

‘Look, look,’ the Photo Multi called. Tower Bridge, in view out of the window, in real life not on the screen, was ablaze and fireworks were popping out of its top. We found out later it was for Becks, passing by in a high speed launch (his cuffs and collar look inspired by the Multis, now I think of it) with a kind of bowsprit in the form of a living maiden holding up the Olympic flame. This was shown on TV.<\/p>\n

‘I must get onto the IOC,’ Val texted. ‘I could do the Katie Boyle tri-lingual schtick.’\u00a0 He wanted, also, to get his hands on the maidens who, going before each team, bore the names of the countries on cruel-looking, S&M frames clamped to their bodies. ‘Why not proper showgirls’ headdresses, with stilettos and appropriate swimwear?’ he cried by text.<\/p>\n

Then, at last, at last – 200 and whatever countries, the Arctic Monkeys, never before seen by me, but excellent legs, the Gay Mother saying she could study the whole thing all over again and no she hadn’t seen Rattie and Mole and Aunt Lavinia saying ‘Where was Peter Pan?’ and Prince Dmitri saying, ‘Peter Pan was there’ – after all that, at last the fireworks.<\/p>\n

We dashed out onto the Multis’ wraparound, even the older ladies, to view exclusively the real thing. We all saw the Olympic rings in fireworks leap up from the stadium and rest, for a moment, in the air. Indescribable.<\/p>\n

\"Tower

Tower Bridge Lit Up for Becks, as He Passed with the Olympic Flame, on the Way to the Opening Ceremony<\/p><\/div>\n

\"The

The Olympic Stadium: Fireworks to Mark the End of the Opening Ceremony<\/p><\/div>\n

\"The

The Olympic Stadium: Fireworks to Mark the End of the Opening Ceremony<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Monday 30th July 2012 Friday by boat with the Gay Mother and Aunt Lavinia to the Multis’. They can see the Olympic Stadium, more or less, from their wraparound. Never to be forgotten. Great day of days. Val, on brilliant form, texted throughout. The Multis provided a superbly concise, delicious dinner of antipasto, poulet au […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adrain-edge"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3549"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3549\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3553,"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3549\/revisions\/3553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}