Act 6
After the parade of nations finished without incident the wounded soldier was back on his platform to give another short speech that I didn’t catch to introduce the start of my dreams parade of lovers. This would be another recurring theme of the ceremony and I suppose if you were being coarse you could also describe it as the long line of women in my life who’ve pulled their knickers up and stormed off thinking they can do better only to discover that they can’t. The ceremony’s director decided that this procession should begin with men carrying what looked like flamethrowers advancing across the stadium scorching the earth. In a further effort to prove what close friends and allies Britain and Germany now are this looked a lot like that footage of Nazi troops during World War 2 (WW2) that you’ve seen in all those documentaries. The idea was to get everybody to say that it represented the “Blitzkrieg” or “lightning war” used by Nazi troops in an effort to make those English Football fans/hooligans who are still obsessed with WW2 look and feel foolish because the Blitzkrieg tactic was used to attack Western Europe and Guernica in Spain. The ‘scorched earth’ tactic was used by the Nazi’s as they retreated from Russian troops on the eastern front and the tactic is hardly unique to them having being used by everyone since the Roman’s salted the earth at Carthage right up to Saddam Hussein’s retreat from Kuwait. I have also been known to rant about how my father uses the same tactic to mow the lawn to the point where he’s churning up mud. Apart from studying it at school the reason I know more than most is because I briefly had a German girlfriend and let’s just say that the differences between English and German mean that sometimes things get lost in translation.
The flamethrowers weren’t even actual flamethrowers but the type of heat gun (basically a blow torch with a backpack) that highway maintenance workers use to burn painted road markings off tarmac. This of course was a reference to the fact that now the games are over the hated games lanes (indicated with Olympic rings painted onto the tarmac) would be removed and London’s traffic can return to its normal levels of gridlock and chaos. However the reason I know so much about painted road markings is because they were a big part of my life when I was working as a traffic warden. Apart from working with a German guy who got so sick of being called a Nazi he turned up to work one day in jackboots and then spent the day goose-stepping through the streets of Brighton giving passers-by Hitler salutes I also worked with a heavily tattooed Canadian with a penchant for violent men. While believe it or not I’m not actually happy posting people’s personal business up on the Internet let’s just say that this woman was such a nightmare that she once asked me if her bum looked big in her uniform. I answered wrong and that strop went on for about a month. Seriously though rather than just needing to grow up a bit this woman was seriously crazy to the point where I think she was only in Britain to escape from the men in white coats who were waiting for her back in Canada. The last I heard she got sacked from that job for being crazy before going on to work in a care home before getting sacked from that job for being crazy. On the plus side though she did cause me to have the most awkward international telephone call I’ve ever had. One morning at around 2AM I was woken up – still a bit drunk – and answered my cell phone to this Canadian voice asking to speak to this woman. I told them she was still asleep so the voice asked if I was her husband. I said no and asked who was calling. The voice replied; “Her father.”
The men with flame guns were followed into the arena by what was described in the official program as the “Truck Invasion.” This involved a long parade of very odd vehicles making their way into and around the arena in what was basically a very long advert for the west end show “Warhorse” that helped build many of the vehicles. Some of these vehicles such as the scaffold sailing ship, the one that looked like the cogs and springs you get inside a clock/watch (representing time and that Dolly Parton song “Bargain Store”) and the giant blue lobster/fish thing served a specific purpose and would feature again later on in the ceremony. Others though were clearly there just to make up the numbers in a deliberate effort to annoying foreign intelligence agencies looked for any secret coded symbol such as those featured in Portugal’s 1974 Eurovision Song Contest Entry that triggered the coup that overthrew the country’s fascist dictatorship. Apart from being a distraction this was Britain showing off about how clever they are at espionage work because the ceremony did include many carefully planned symbols/triggers that were designed to have a political/espionage effect but they were much more subtle and sophisticated then getting everybody to take to the streets in protest when the guy holding a rifle with a flower in the barrel appeared on screen. One of the vehicles that was particularly interesting was the one that looked like the nose section of an F-18 Sabre/MiG-15 fighter jet. Based on shared WW2 technology these were basically the same plane with the US using the F-18 and the Soviet bloc countries using the MiG-15. These aircraft were used extensively against each other during the Korean war and because that war is technically still going on any reference to it could have raised tensions across south-east Asia where North Korea, South Korea, Japan and China are all tangled up with each other in various disputes over the ownership of various islands. I think that was just a bit of mis-direction though and the F-18/MiG-15 was a reference to the type of home ‘care’ my grandmother received leading up to her breakdown. Rather than helping her wash, get dressed or feed herself this ‘care’ was focused almost entirely around sitting down with her to go through her old photographs and tell the stories behind them. As my grandmother has photographs that show her and her husband doing things like having dinner with the family of the ex-Governor General of Grenada shortly after they’d fled the 1979 coup a lot of the stories behind my grandmother’s photographs are actually official state secrets making it incredibly stressful for her to talk about without official permission. One of the more infamous of these photographs shows my father as a young boy standing in front of the nose of a Soviet MiG-15. My grandfather who took the photograph hoped that it would look like it was just a bored father taking a photograph of his war obsessed little boy rather than a spy taking pictures of the aircraft’s weapons system. And to think people still wonder why I have no talent for peace.
Accompanying the parade of wacky vehicles were a group of dancers/performers dressed in white face make-up, black capes and black top hats in the classic Goth style. In Britain this look is synonymous with surreal comedian Noel Fielding who unfortunately shares his initials with the British fascist group the National Front (NF) – remember this detail it will come in useful later. It was when I saw the tank/armoured car that had been painted blue and fitted with giant butterfly wings I decided that in order to put on this almost pornographically long parade of vehicles the organisers had clearly put out an open casting call to anyone in the UK who owned a large, unusual vehicle that actually ran. This of course is what the British government did with boats in order to evacuate British troops from Dunkirk in 1940 which was another little WW2 reference. It also contributes to the debate about funding for Sinnott’s tall ships charity because while the government might be overpaying for the rehabilitation of wounded troops they also get to preserve parts of Britain’s maritime heritage into the bargain. Mainly though I think the more amateur vehicles that made up the end of the procession were there to trigger me into making the post title; “Run What You Brung!” Recognised by all car enthusiasts this phrase has particular resonance amongst the predominately young men who spend thousands modifying and customising their cars to show them off in illegal meets/races in car parks in a phenomenon that has really taken off since the 1994 Criminal Justice Act (CJA) effectively killed off the British rave scene. As these men are almost exclusively white, young and working class (at the risk of giving them ideas) is the perfect recruiting ground for fascist groups like the NF and the English Defence League (EDL). The phrase; “Run what you brung” may also be familiar with people used to attending events like the ceremony who know that they function a lot like those ink-blot tests psychologists use. Although there are certain set themes and references to pick out most of these types of events can be interpreted any which way you like. Therefore in the conversations during and after the show people will project their own meanings on to it and you can tell a lot about who a person by what meaning they project provided of course they’re not lying. In fact so much fire was used during the ceremony it made me think of the Sun Tzu quote about not knowing a man until you’ve held their feet over the mouth of a volcano. As a result you could prepare for these sort of things by scouring the Internet for every little rumour and spending ages researching things like the history of Norse mythology but ultimately it just comes down to how good at talking you are because you can only run what you brung. While Rihanna was clearly the target I was being aimed at that evening I reckon bringing that phrase out at that point would have caused a fair few in attendance a fair few problems.
Once all the vehicles were in the arena the lights dimmed and the stadium took on the atmosphere of a good old fashioned 1980’s rave. Obviously asking what a rave is like is a bit like asking what a para-Olympic closing ceremony is like – it depends which one you’re talking about. However the really good one featured absolutely massive (30k+) sound systems (big rigs), fairground rides like Wurlitzer’s and roller coasters along with stilt walkers, jugglers and other circus performers. As the vehicles kept moving throughout this sequence I suppose they could have been mistaken for carnival floats and the one featuring male dancers wearing only very small and very tight hot pants could only be a reference to a float at a Gay Pride parade. As the spirit of the rave scene was that everybody was equal and everybody was brilliant (at least until the drugs wore off) a lot of the people involved in the rave scene also got involved in the gay rights protests that were also going on in 1980’s. In fact the famous Berlin Love Parade started out as a political protest long before it became famous as a music event. The sequence ended with a very loud vocal repeatedly singing; “holding out your hand” while those famous loud repetitive beats mentioned in the CJA played out. This was a bit of a swipe at the New Age Travellers many of whom were claiming unemployment benefits (handouts) while throwing these massive raves instead of looking for jobs that didn’t exist. Apart from that little dig this celebration of rave was another recurring theme of the ceremony intended to promote discussion about whether the CJA had gone too far and it might be time to loosen the rules on raves as a way to keep the population occupied during the recession.
Act 7
Annoyingly and deliberately the first part of this act was not broadcast in the UK because Channel 4 (C4) though that this little segment of official IPC business would be a perfect opportunity for an advert break. However I gather it began with the awarding of a Chinese sponsored endowment/scholarship for young disabled athletes. Obviously this was the part of the ceremony that the Chinese government most wanted their people to see – a point emphasised by the Chinese sign-language translator that was shown on the big screens within the stadium. However in an effort to irritate the Chinese during their once a decade political transition this was immediately followed by the anointing of the new athletes representatives to the IPC council. The idea was that this would cause a lot of discussion in China about whether the new representatives had been democratically elected or appointed and which alternative was better. Apparently this cause Chinese leader in waiting Xi Jinping so much worry he put his back out. The mention of councils also promotes discussion about Britain’s system of local government including my own troublesome Croydon council but mainly it was an attempt to promote discussion about the role of local government in killing off Britain’s rave scene. In order to save time the only new representative I shall name is France’s Arnaud Assoumani because his comedy name can be pronounced to sound like; “Oh so sue me!” in an attempt to promote discussion about why Jay-Z who would appear later didn’t sue French President Francois Hollande over the unauthorised use of the song “Niggers in Paris” in a campaign video and whether that failure to sue constitutes support for Hollande. Sadly though the real reason is far more mundane. Rather than being an official video it was an anonymous Internet viral video so to this day Jay –Z probably doesn’t have a clue who to sue and in fact the video could have been circulated by the Sarkozy campaign in order to mock Hollande.
After the new representatives had been anointed they each invited their favourite Olympic volunteer/games maker up on to the stage to thank them by giving them flowers and a big hug. Apart from prompting some smutty suggestions about what exactly these volunteers had done to make themselves so popular this was just a genuine attempt to thank all the volunteers and point out that the majority of the 80,000 people in the stadium were there as guests of the athletes including many of the volunteers. The slightly too over-familar embraces were supposed to promote discussion about the way that celebrities (the athletes) relate to their fans (the volunteers) especially in the Internet age. This was probably entirely Russell Brand’s fault with his Tweets about wanting to hug Olympic troll victim Tom Daley a little bit too hard. It was also a specific stab at Rihanna because as one of the three most followed people on Twitter there are a lot of people who want to know how she relates to her 21 million or so followers not least some no-mark British charity that has just been set up to help people deal with Internet trolls and is no doubt frantically taking notes.
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