About my Para-Olympic Closing Ceremony Review.

Having got more then 4000 words in I have come to three distinct conclusions;

1. The Brits did make it as long, complicated and difficult to explain as possible in a deliberate effort to distract me for the whole of the last week while they go and smash up the middle east and Afghanistan (technically not part of the middle east).
2. My blog interface gets distinctly grumpy with posts over 2000 words so this is going to have to be posted up in several volumes.
3. When I'm finished I'm pretty sure that if I sent a copy to my old university this could well count as my dissertation. After all geographers can get away with studying pretty much anything just by putting the words; "The geographies of...." in front of any collections of words you might think of. A particular hero in the field was a guy who got a USD200,000 research grant to spend a year touring around Thai strip clubs in an effort to study the geographies of the bar area in a post-feminist context. Sadly he spoiled it all by returning home and actually writing a very long and dry paper on the subject.

So consider this my contents page;

• Act 1 - The entrance of the athletes.

• Act 2 - The video sequence.

• Act 3 - The protest against ATOS.

• Act 4 - The entrance of the representative of the British Royal Family/Luke Sinnott's massive erection.

• Act 5 - The parade of national flags.

• Act 6 - A parade of floats/big rigs acting as a massive advert for the west end stage show "Warhorse."

• Act 7 - The anointment of new members to the Council of the International Para-Olympic committee contrasted with a Chinese sponsored endowment for young disabled athletes in order to promote discussion about China's once in a decade political transition. The French athlete Arnaud Assoumani (prn Ah So Sue Me!) was anointed first to promote discussion about why Jay-Z didn't sue over a Francois Hollande campaign video that featured the his song "Niggers in Paris." The answer of course being because it was a viral rather then an official campaign video it wasn't clear who to tell to cease and desist.

• Act 8 - Coldplay mark the transition from summer to autumn by playing the song "Yellow" while the parade of floats/big rigs tell the history of rave and it's role in gay rights protests and trapeze artists rip-off the US pop-star P!nk's "Funhouse" tour in order to provoke discussion about two of my ex-girlfriends (one who looked a bit like P!nk) and the slim chances of the Olympic stadium being used as a concert venue in future.

• Act 9 - The transition from autumn to winter is demonstrated by figure skaters in order to reference the ITV1 show "Dancing on Ice" which used to be presented by Holly Willoughby who I'm linked to by another ex-girlfriend.

• Act 10 - The transition from winter to spring/summer is demonstrated by contrasting people heading to the beach with inner city kids spending their school summer holidays nicking hub caps off cars.

• Act 11 - The August (summer) 2011 riots that can only be demonstrated by Rihanna singing "Princess of China" with Coldplay.
  

• Act 12 - Chris Martin from Coldplay playing with the para-Orchestra of disabled musicians while big men in leather kilts 'Celts' wrestled in what resembled a Irish traveller fighting circle. This was done to contrast the difference between the modern 'artist' and 'warrior' tribes. The sitar player was a reference to a neighbour of mine who used "Don't Know Why" by Norah Jones as her sex song and funnily enough couldn't keep a man.

• Act 13 - Rihanna performing "We Found Love" followed by Coldplay performing "When I Ruled the World." because well that's their jobs.

• Act 14 - The lowering of the Olympic flags.

• Act 15 - 2016 Olympic hosts Brazil's bit which I'm provisionally titling "Welcome to the Neighbourhood."

• Act 16 - The extinguishing of the Olympic cauldron with the flame being handed to dancers/performers dressed like Mayans/Incas to carry around the stadium on multiple flaming torches.

• Act 17 - Rihanna and Jay-Z perform a bit of "Run This Town" in order to prompt me to used the title "Daddies Back!" I first used this title shortly before Hosni Mubarak stepped down as Egyptian President so Britain were hoping to 'rock the casbah' in a effort to discover if and how the two events were connected.

• Act 18 - Coldplay play the final song.

16:30 on 16/9/12.