So many of the Olympic Opening Ceremony’s visuals created a string of hilariously symbolic views the French never wanted nor expected.
That ‘white flag’ of the Olympics, raised by the Eiffel Tower, richly echoed the surrender tendency that has so dogged its military history.
Faced with the threat of bombing by the Germans in 1940, Paris quickly declared itself an ‘open city’ – unlike Warsaw and London which fought back and bore the scars.
Our London Stratford stadium was built on the rubble of the East End. Oh, and lots of people did run away, if only from the rain.
The Allies delayed D-Day by one day to avoid the rain; something France could have easily done given dire warnings by weathermen of a super-cell arriving over the capital.
Few competing athletes in the first week attend the opening ceremony. D-Day veterans must have laughed.
A nation that cannot stop 90,000 migrants from reaching the UK had no trouble escorting 84 ships and just 6,500 athletes down the Seine.
So France finally got the Games it so desperately wanted in 2012. This time there wasn’t a piece of ‘fromage and pain’ in sight – just lots of ‘pain’, and rain. After an hour the cameramen couldn’t be bothered to wipe the rain off their lens, and who could blame them?
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The guests were nearly all US celebrities, and a haunted-looking Rafael Nadal – all symbolic of the fact France has virtually no international profile these days.
French attempts to ape modernity always fail, not least because France has a Net Zero impact on world culture: its attempt at modern dance with peculiar costumes convinced no one.
The failure of large TV screens exemplified France’s near-zero ability to create any IT or internet companies of note.
The witless BBC commentators staggered through the show with epic periods of silence – not a geography GCSE to rub between them, unable to grasp the moment.
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