The 2014 Winter Para-Olympic Opening Ceremony: Part 2

http://watchitdie.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/the-2014-winter-para-olympic-opening.html

This should be read as a direct continuation of part 1 which can be found at the above link.

With all the flags raised, anthems sung and the oaths taken the arena was given over to performers dressed just as if they were attending an opulent, Tsarist-era wedding feast. In fact they were acting out a scene from the Chekhov play "The Wedding." Anton Chekhov is of course a very famous and globally respected Russian novelist and playwright. However the decision to sum up his entire body of work through The Wedding seemed to a be reference to the wedding I attended on the day of the Final of the 2013 Eurovision Song Contest. That of course marked the start of a week which saw British soldier Lee Rigby murdered in London and the start of those criminal damage allegations against me that lasted all the way until November.

Although it is arguable that the US' Rihanna operation had failed before it had even got off the drawing board this week in May certainly marked a turning point. Put simply after that no-one in political/espionage circles had the slightest interest in what Rihanna was doing because there were far more interesting things going on. Bizarrely this made the situation worse for Russia because politics/espionage is a world based entirely on deception and concealment. As a result the worst thing that can happen is that it looks like nothing is happening because the immediate assumption is that something really important is happening but it is being really well hidden. Trying to find something that doesn't in-fact exist is a extremely frustrating undertaking not dissimilar to trying to capture a Firebird.

The wedding guests were accompanied by Alexey Levchuk playing a Cossack folk song/polka on the accordion. As both a blind man and an accomplished musician Levchuk  obviously personifies the para-Olympic theme of achieving against adversity. The use of light Russian polka music though was sending a message far beyond highlighting Russian cultural heritage. As anyone who has listened to the lightly polka infused song "Baba Riley" by "The Who" knows polka is one of those types of music that can really knock you off balance and make your head spin. As a result if the Russians had relied heavily on polka throughout their Olympic ceremonies I think that some of those attending would probably have left in ambulances. Therefore this light polka reference appeared to be Russia sending the message that while the UK had thrown everything it had at the 2012 para-Olympic ceremonies Russia was in fact holding back in a spirit of good will.

The wedding sequence ended with white fireworks falling from the ceiling. As this a winter games they could have been a reference to snowflakes or they could have been a reference to falling stars. Either way they gave the impression that the sky was falling. For more military minded people though these could easily have been mistaken for white phosphorous shells. An incendiary weapon white phosphorous was basically invented by people who looked at Napalm and thought; "That's just not horrific enough." Therefore this seemed like a reference to the aggressive way that the US has been behaving throughout 2013 and in particular during the winter Olympics through their involvement in Ukraine. It also made the point that by contrast Russia's involvement in Ukraine has been positively calming and peaceful.

As the smoke cleared a giant ship - suspended from the ceiling - started to slowly make its way across the arena with an Operatic Soprano standing on its deck. Believe it or not this wasn't primarily a reference to Rihanna. In fact the Soprano - Maria Guleghina - also performed at the 2010 Winter Para-Olympic closing ceremony in Vancouver, Canada. As such Guleghina provided another reminder that Sochi was actually picking up the Olympic baton from Vancouver not London.

The ship itself was clearly an ice-breaker. In case you didn't pick up on this performers holding glass/perspex panels moved to indicate the breaking ice-sheet as the ship passed by. This was a reference to the Akademik Shokalskiy - the Russian ice-breaker that curiously got itself stuck in Antarctic ice in December 2013/January 2014. Amongst other things one objective of the US' 2013 Rihanna operation was to get everybody at each other's throats so the COP19/CMP9 would fail miserably. As it turns out this didn't not happen and the COP19/CMP9 was a resounding if deeply technical success. A significant part of that success came from a change in the Russian position on climate change. Previously Russia had fully believed in man-made climate change but were actually trying to speed it up in an effort to melt arctic ice in order to opening up new shipping routes and oil fields. At COP19/CMP9 they reversed that position and the Akademik Shokalskiy incident was intended to confirm that change.

The first big test of Russia's new position will come this week as delegates meet in Bonn, Germany to continue work on a replacement to the Kyoto Protocol that is scheduled to be signed in Paris, France in 2015. That replacement is known as the Durban Platform because it was conceived of in Durban, South Africa. That means that South Africa is likely to be the centre of the political universe over this coming week. As a result their decision to hold the Oscar Pistorious trial during the para-Olympics seems a bit desperate and frankly more then a little greedy.

The song that Guleghina was singing was inspired by Mikhail Lermontov poem "A Cossack Lullaby." This strikes me as an extremely odd song to sing to put a child to sleep because it begins talk about how the Tatar/Turkic (Uighur in China - long story, involves Stalin) are coming to kill the Cossack child. It then goes on to explain that the child should not worry because their father is a great warrior who will easily defeat the invader before teaching the child to be a great warrior themselves.

Therefore the song was included in the ceremony to highlight that despite their furry hats and funny dancing the Cossacks are a tribe of warriors. As anyone who saw their treatment of a protest by two former members of the band "Pussy Riot" during the Olympics knows Cossacks can be brutal. As such if groups such as the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UIA) and Right Sector that make up the Kiev government were to try to impose their will on the Crimean Cossacks it would result in one hell of a bloodbath. So rather then criticising Russia for providing a deterrent to stop this from happening the international community should actually be congratulating Russia and offering to help pay for the operation. In fact as western pressure has forced Russia to stay in the background in recent days there has been a noticeable increase in violence in Crimea with warning shots being fired, journalists being attack and people being beaten up in the street.

In rather the climax of the sequence the 'ice' on the ship's hull fell away to reveal the Russian word "Mir" which roughly translates as "World Peace." Apart from highlighting that Russia's objective in Ukraine is peace not domination this also seemed to highlight Russia's close - geographically at least - links with Asian cultures that use languages based on symbols rather then letters and words. The Russian language of course sort of blends the two schools together.

As the ship left the arena the dancers quickly turned their 'ice-sheets' upwards and there was a quick blast of green lighting. This was of course intended to give the impression of green fields highlighting the environmental theme and in a little nod to Rihanna's marijuana habit. In what was largely an effort to provide a distraction while the flame lighting sequence was set up the Firebirds returned and the dancers created some non-specific shapes on the arena floor.

As the flame lighting sequence began the lights in the arena took on the gold and blue colours of the Ukrainian flag because the situation in Ukraine has been hard to ignore. The dancers then formed up to spell the Russian word "Vmeste" which roughly translates as "Together" before rearranging themselves in the shape of the para-Olympic Agitos logo. This was both another appeal for unity within Ukraine and a reference to the Olympic spirit of togetherness - particularly the UK's attempts to use the para-Olympics to link themselves together with all future Olympic hosts.

Attention was then briefly pulled to small version of the 'bonfire' style Olympic cauldron that was used at the 2012 Summer games before a short British made video was shown. This video included a brief history of the para-Olympic movement with particular attention being paid to its origins at the British Stoke Manderville hospital. This was interspersed with footage from the 2012 Summer para-Olympics and the inaugural heritage flame lighting ceremony. The video was narrated by Ian McKellen who played Prospero in the 2012 Summer para-Olympic opening ceremony. In this narration McKellen basically just re-capped the Olympic/para-Olympic values that include the infamous Principle 1.2.6 that opposes all forms of discrimination.

The UK obviously wanted this video included to draw attention to the success they made of the 2012 Summer para-Olympics, their status as the inventors of the para-Olympics and their commitment to gay-rights. Ian McKellen is of course gay. The Russians must have wanted the video included to highlight that while the UK's efforts to promote the para-Olympics deserve recognition the UK is danger of over doing it. They also wanted to highlight that the UK's position on gay-rights in Russia has been a disaster from start for finish.

When the video had finished a relay of torch bearers carried the flame out to the penis shaped cauldron which was then lit. Again I didn't catch the names of the torch bearers so I may revisit this section if new information comes to light. However I think the only political message was that they had all achieved despite adversity. The way that the torch bearers were forced to run all the way across the arena and outside to the cauldron whilst surrounded by cheering members of the ceremony cast was a reference to the torch relay. Specifically it was a reference to the fact that in the almost two weeks between the end of the Olympics and the start of the para-Olympics whilst the heritage flame lighting ceremony and the situation in Ukraine was going on Russia has been holding a torch rely - not that you would have heard anything about it. 

The cauldron itself was lit by Sergey Shilov and Olesya Vladykina who are both accomplished Russian para-Olympians. The fact that it was a man and a women lighting the cauldron together was supposed to symbolise the Olympic movement's commitment to gender equality.

With the flame lit is was then time for the traditional fireworks. I didn't catch the name of the music being played during the firework display but I like to think that it was a special composition that included elements of classical music, nationalist music such as the Russian national anthem and pop-music. That of course would have been a perfect way to promote discussion about Russia's apparent lack of soft-power despite it clearly being cultural and artistic power house.

18:30 on 9/3/14 (UK date). 

Edited at around 22:50 on 9/3/14 (UK date)  to add;

Obviously I couldn't fit any of this into the auteur's nightmare above. However during the opening ceremony I detected on my Twitter time line quite a lot of what can only be described as "Attention Whoring." 

For example the UK have been making quite a thing about the "Stephen Lawrence Case." Baroness Rosalind Howells of course made her status on the back of this case and it was that New Labour Peer who telephoned my father to suggest that I sue the police over those criminal damage allegations. I, personally, feel quite a lot of respect for the Lords who refused to sit while the newly minted Baroness Lawrence gave her tearful response.

During the Parade of Nations though the leader in these efforts was clearly Samantha Power- the current US Ambassador to the United Nations (UN). While I don't want to get current incumbents in trouble the UN certainly has a reputation for taking nations with questionable records and placing them on committees that involve a lot of use of variants of the phrase; "Using an example from your own country try and tell us what is wrong with this picture?" For example on Friday (7/3/14) the UN was campaigning vigorously against the use of child soldiers. Ms Power obviously wanted me to point the finger at Mark Lyall-Grant - the current UK Ambassador to the United Nations. I feel that I dispatched of Ms Power with such style that later I felt I had earned my cocaine. So I'm not sure about you but I certainly know what my para-Olympic week is going to be dominated by.

Then there was Kim Kardashian. Now I think we can argue for forever and day about who crashed whose timeline. However Ms Kardashian's twin Tweets promoting some sort of baby wear thing she is now endorsing did collide with my twin Tweets first highlighting the above ice-breaker and then if that is how Cossacks sing their children to sleep I dread to think what they are like in battle. This of course triggered me to point out that Kim Kardashian is of vaguely Armenian heritage and one of her fathers was definitely a Team USA figure skater.

Mainly though I was motivated by the fact that the most recent episode of "The Mentalist" (FBI years) featured a Roma Gypsy character called "Defiance" who bore more then a passing resemblance to the above. Although I'm still waiting to watch that particular episode I remember it because I used an approximation of the "Visiting Hours" featured to describe the hours that Rihanna should be kept locked inside her Mandarin Oriental, Paris hotel during the following (5/3/14) day. I hope Rihanna got this email because I was trying to make the point that things would be a lot easier if hotels, stadiums, restaurants, pubs, bars, strip-clubs and generally streets just accepted that if they have welcomed Rihanna as a customer then she is simply my possession.

Rihanna of course has now arrived in London as part what I believe is now known as Drake's "Stayed There" tour.

So I apologise if this sounds like stating the obvious but clearly the Monarchy (South-East Asian division) chose to crash Boeing 777 flight "MH370" into the sea in order to make it look like a vital discussion about the US' 2013 Rihanna operation is going on. The intention being that this would draw attention to Rihanna as she made her way through the Monarchy's western-Europe division. This would combine to collapse the ADP2014 making the Monarchy (Arabian division) very happy.

Personally I'm just trying to debate whether to Tweet Rihanna or simply email her.