The 2016 Heritage Flame Lighting Ceremony.

Yes. I am fully aware that I have not yet finished writing up the Closing Ceremony of the 2016 ISIL games.

However even by last Friday (2/9/16) the UK had decided to add to everybody's workload with a ceremony marking of the heritage flame. Rather than being a tradition this is something the UK started in 2012 and is desperately hoping will catch on.

The main feature of the ISIL games Opening Ceremony was of course the Parade of Nations. As part of this competitors were asked to plant a single seed in seedbanks which would then be used to plant an Olympic forest. This obviously carried with it an air of sexual innuendo. The seedbanks then burst open to reveal the Olympic rings in the form of what resembled Marijuana plants.

The heritage flame ceremony took this idea and ran with it. The ceremony being entitled "Seeds of Diversity."

Ward X: The ceremony began where the Para-Olympic movement itself began - in 1944 in Stoke Mandeville military hospital in Buckinghamshire, UK.

Here Jewish-German Doctor Ludwig Guttmann was treating 26 British combat veterans for spinal injuries in a special ward designated as "Ward X." He chanced upon the idea of using an archery competition to get these men out of their beds and into wheelchairs to show them that they could still achieve despite their newly inflicted disabilities. From that seed of an idea the Paralympic movement was born.

The action focused on a small wooden hut that initially represented Ward X which was just a small wooden hut with 26 beds in it. From that hut emerged two below the knee amputees in World War 2 British military uniforms being pushed on hospital beds by performers who were wearing strangely very modern medical uniforms.

After they had strapped on their prosthetics and risen from their beds the 'soldiers' were joined by two wheelchair dancers. One of these was Laura Dajao a professional dancer who suffers from Multiple Sclerosis (MS). She was the first wheelchair dancer to join the prestigious Saddlers Wells dance company.

The male dancer who accompanied her whose name I did not catch appeared to be suffering from Downs Syndrome. This is unusual because normally people with that type of severe developmental disability do not compete in the Para-Olympics. Instead they compete in the Special Olympics.

The fact that the Para-Olympics are often mistaken for the Special Olympics is a longrunning source of irritation. After all you can see how telling a brain surgeon who happened to lose their lower leg in a motorcycle accident in their mid-thirties that they're suddenly mentally retarded would be offensive.

During the dance number performers appeared on top on what are called "Sleigh Poles." The way that these elasticated metal poles flex under tension obviously reflects an archers bow. However with the medical staff these performers that seemed to fly in the air invoked memories of the sequence in the 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony that referenced Britain's National Health Service (NHS).

This sequence proved rather controversial because during the 2014 Sochi Olympic ceremonies Britain chastised the Russia organisers claiming the use of video projection made it hard to understand. The Russians snapped back that at least their ceremonies didn't include tedious sections of healthcare funding and policy.

During the ceremonies so far the Brazilians made extensive use of video of projection this seemed to be a sign of support for Russia over the UK. However the Brazilian ceremonies also dealt with extremely technical topics. I think to understand the Opening Ceremony in particular you actually did need to hold a Geography degree.

That could be interpreted as a sign of support for the UK over Russia as Brazil tried to be a good host and keep all sides happy. However everyone knows that Brazil can throw a good party. What everyone's less sure about is whether Brazil can manage serious and tedious topics. Therefore making the ceremonies very technical helps to dispel Brazil's image as; "Not a serious country."

In the 2012 ceremony London's Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) was used to tell the story of the creation of the NHS. To this day GOSH really exists as a private hospital that occasionally treats NHS patients. As a result it also served as an example of the reforms to the NHS the government of the day wanted to introduce which would effectively scrap the NHS and replace it with GOSH style private hospitals.

About a year after the ceremony that government of the day scrapped the economic policy that it claimed made the NHS reforms essential. Back in June of 2016 the Finance Minister George Osborne behind that policy was forced to resign. As was the Prime Minister. Curiously the Health Minister Jeremy Hunt kept his job despite mounting strike action by NHS doctors opposed to the policy.

Those NHS doctors had scheduled an unprecedented five day long strike during the games next week. As such I'm getting the distinct impression that those NHS reforms are about to join the changes to housing policy and education policy that were discussed during the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest and be completely withdrawn as a threat to the British way of life.

Sadly the NHS seem to have lose their nerve and cancelled next week's strike. I guess they're much better at healthcare than they are at politics.

One thing that did catch my eye is that along with the white coats the performers playing the role of medical professionals were wearing very crisp, new pink medical scrubs.

Yesterday the Turkish based propaganda group Syria Civil Defence (The White Helmets) claimed that the Syrian government had carried out a Chlorine gas attack in Aleppo City. The video released to back up their claim showed the 'victims' all dressed in those same crisp, new pink medical scrubs.

Like all the other rumours going around this could be a complete coincidence. However I think its clear that the hospitals in Aleppo City are under nowhere near as much pressure as they like to claim. After all they clearly have no problem obtaining fresh supplies.

The Allotted Time: The scene then changed to resemble what in the UK is known as an "Allotment." This is an allotted patch of government owned land that that people use to grow vegetables. This is a very British pastime. Allotments also played a critical role in feeding Britain during the Second World War.

Allotments can also be used as a form of therapy for people with disabilities. By getting people out into the fresh air and sunshine and providing them with structure and purpose they can be a particularly good way of treating the type of depression and other mental health problems associated with a life changing injury such as an amputation or a spinal injury.

My mothers are very into their allotment. On the site that they use there are actually a number of plots fitted with raised soil beds specifically for use by wheelchair users.

Along with their dungarees, spades, potted plants and other gardening supplies performers then started parading placards featuring the faces on significant people in the Para-Olympic movement such as Ludwig Guttmann. It was claimed that these were "Seed Packets" and some were adorned with pictures of Orchids. However others were adorned with pictures of Poppies.

The Poppy of course is used in Britain to mourn the war dead particular the dead of the First World War. The poem "In Flanders Field" by John McCrae is particularly resonant. As a result the 'seed packets' bearing Poppies alongside black & white photographs resembled with World War One recruiting posters or the memorial photographs giving to the relatives of those killed in battle.

Those battles of Flanders are particularly important to the creation of Northern Ireland and therefore the Northern Irish Troubles. It was due to the way that Irish Protestants fought during the battles of Flanders that led to them being allowed to establish Northern Ireland in the 1920's rather than becoming part of a united Irish Republic under majority Catholic rule.

With it being 2016 we are mid-way through the 100 year anniversary of the First World War that raged from 1914 to 1918. Back in March we had events marking the anniversary of the Gallipoli campaign. In June we had the very strange ceremony marking the Battle of Verdun. The commemorations of the Battle of the Somme began in July but like the battle itself won't end until November.

Sadly with trench warfare, chemical weapons and claykickers all back on display in Syria in many ways we seem to be closer to 1916 now than we were just 10 years ago.

Danger Naked Flame: During the allotment sequence the Ward X hut had rotated to show a side resembling the type of Greenhouse you find on many allotments. Climate Change and Greenhouse Gas (ghg) emissions have of course been big themes of the Brazilian ceremonies.

From the Greenhouse emerged Kelly Gallagher the Northern Irish skier who won the UK's first ever Winter Para-Olympic gold medal in Sochi. Appropriately enough she was carrying the Heritage flame in a wheelbarrow in front of her.

Kelly Gallagher was wearing a very elaborate gold dress that made her resemble the Danenerys Targaryen character from "Game of Thrones." However being an Albino that mass of very blond hair was all  Kelly Gallagher's own.

I must confess that I am very behind in my watching of Game of Thrones. I've still got the DVD's of Season 4 sitting on a coffee table to still wrapped in cellophane. However from what I've heard the most recent Season features the Danenerys Targaryen character in a very big nude scene. I think it involves her emerging from fire and then walking towards the camera fully nude with everything on display.

Throughout much of 2015 & 2016 what can be shown in terms of sex and nudity has been a big discussion point amongst British TV broadcasters. During the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest this got elevated into a discussion about how to integrate large numbers of refugees from conservative Muslim societies into much more liberal European societies. In turn this seems to have morphed in to France's current debate over the Burkini and swimwear.

Part of the discussion about why there seems to be less nudity on British TV centred on the role of the Internet. This discourages actresses from appearing nude because those scenes will be immediately uploaded to pornographic sites where they're taken out of all artistic context. I gather that the producers of Game of Thrones are engaged in a big battle with those pornographic sites to stop this from happening.

At this point I have to say that I find that extremely frustrating. After all if I'm being forced to write an analysis of this particular Game of Thrones nude scene it would really help if I could see it. As I'm sure you understand I am particularly interested in the state of her brazilian.

Without too much work I'm sure you could turn that it into a discussion about how little coverage the Para-Olympic games receives compared to the Olympic games.

The Heritage flame lighting ceremony was broadcast live in the UK as part of Channel 4 News.

Britain's Channel 4 is I think the only network globally that will be broadcasting tonight's Opening Ceremony and parts of the games themselves live. However not even they could be bothered to broadcast all of the heritage flame ceremony live. Instead they cut away to a panel discussion followed by a weather forecast.

I gather though it ended with a performance of a specially written Operatic song.

16:00 on 7/9/16 (UK date).

Edited at around 01:15 on 8/9/16 (UK date) to add;

The Opening Ceremony of the parallel games has now ended. I will try and make a proper start on it later on in the morning. Or possibly the afternoon. In the meantime I like to think that I've left some thwacking great clues on Twitter. Amid the usual stream of casual racism.

Anyway. While all that was going on I suddenly remembered something.  The Danenerys Targaryen character in Game of Thrones is played by British actress Emilia Clarke. In an effort to move away from that very blond character this brunette actress has recently appeared in a number of movies including "Terminator Genisys" in which she played Sarah Conner

However it was in the movie "Me Before You" in which she plays a care worker to a man who'd recently become a quadriplegic following a motorcycle accident. The main message of this film seems to be that disabled people deserve to be euthanized.

So while she may be the Mother of Dragons I doubt she's going to be particularly popular amongst this crowd.

01:25 on 8/9/16 (UK date).