The 2016 Sultan Mehmed Games: Closing Ceremony Pt.6

This should be read as a direct continuation of Part 5; http://watchitdie.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/the-2016-sultan-mehmed-games-closing_26.html

Gaby Amarantos: Next up to perform was Gaby Amarantos who appeared at the start of the ceremony and led the crowd in the countdown.

Gaby Amarantos is originally from Pará state. This is one of Brazil's most northern states bordering Suriname and French Guyana. The equator actually runs through Pará state so while Rio was celebrating the Summer games in the depths of their winter it was actually the height of summer in Pará. However the weather doesn't change much in Pará because largely being tropical rainforest it is always hot, it is always humid and there's always a strong possibility of heavy rain.

The capital of Pará state is Belém which is literally Portuguese for "Bethlehem." This is also where IPC President Phillip Craven was banished to at the start of the Opening Ceremony.

However in terms of a political analysis there is not much else I can offer about Gabby Amarantos' performance.

It is here though that I have to raise a bit of a problem.

The UK broadcaster Channel 4 began their coverage of the Closing Ceremony at 21:00 (GMT) - some two hours before the ceremony actually began. The Opening Ceremony began at the very strange time of 21:10 while the Closing Ceremony actually began at 23:00. With Channel 4 only providing a four hour window of when the ceremony would begin this made it quite hard to organise my time around it. Or at least a lot more difficult than it should have been.

To make matters worse having started their coverage two hours early Channel 4 then didn't leave enough time in their schedules for the Closing Ceremony. Rather than cutting off the ceremony before it ended Channel 4 instead cancelled the shows they had scheduled afterwards. However this meant that the recording stopped. Being up and watching I was able to start recording the show that was scheduled afterwards. However for some reason this failed.

As a result what I am about to write is based on notes which at that time in the morning had started getting distinctly sketchy.

Calum Scott: This next performer is from Kingston-Upon-Hull in Yorkshire. As some of you may have noticed Yorkshire is not in Brazil. It is in the north of England in the UK.

The only British singer to perform during the ceremony Calum Scott has teamed up with Brazilian singer Ivete Sangalo to record; "Transformar" - the official song of these games. This obviously highlights the link between the 2012 London games and the 2016 Rio games.

It also touches on the language barrier theme. After all having been reasonably successful in Brazil with his debut single; "Dancing on my Own" Calum Scott demonstrates that Brazilians are happy to listen to songs in English. If only English people were prepared to listen to songs in Portuguese.

The problem is that Calum Scott is not even remotely famous here in the UK. Although he was famous for about a week following a performance on the "Britain's Got Talent" talent show like so many before him he rapidly disappeared from the public eye. The 10th anniversary of the Westwood Cross shopping centre concert is no more a respected music festival than "BBC Look North" and "BFBS Radio" are chart topping music broadcasters.

So while I was able to recognise Andreas Kisser from the Brazilian band Sepultura who appeared earlier in the ceremony as a British person I still have very little idea of who Calum Scott is. I suppose you could turn that into a talking point about the way that British record companies try and dump failed acts on what are viewed as less sophisticated markets. The phrase; "Big in Japan" is still considered a major insult within the British music industry.

If you really want to stretch it I suppose you could turn that into a talking point about the way rich nations keep trying to dump failed policies and technologies on poorer nations.

For example having destroyed any possibility of a market based mechanism this Paris Agreement is demanding that developing nations rely on Private Finance Initiatives (PFI) to fill the massive gap in funding to combat climate change. Meanwhile the US - one of the main advocates of the Paris Agreement - is announcing the end to PFI's in its prison system because they simply don't work.

A particularly nasty offender in this area is Monsanto. They're constantly trying to force Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO's) that they're banned from selling in rich countries onto developing nations as a solution to climate change. Mind you Obama's decision to use taxpayer's money to buy up Monsanto's otherwise unsellable stockpiles of Naled to combat Zika certainly seems to have helped Bayer increase its offer to Monsanto shareholders to USD66bn.

The first song that Calum Scott performed was "Diamonds." This Sia penned song was the first that Rihanna released following her performance at the 2012 Closing Ceremony. It is also the title track of her now infamous 2013 Diamond's World Tour. Needless to say it is not my most favourite song in the whole wide world.

Earlier in the day Rihanna rather helpfully popped up to show us just how much like hard work she can be.

On Saturday (17/9/16) night there was a terrorist bombing in the Chelsea district of New York City. This is less than a kilometre/mile from when Rihanna lives in the SoHo district of New York. It is also about two city blocks away from the 40/40 club owned by Rihanna's mentor Jay Z. In November Jay Z will play his first concert in India as part of the of the Global Citizen Festival. Hours after the New York bombing 17 Indian soldiers were killed in an attack on their base in Kashmir.

So after months and months of silence on top of years of just completely ignoring my advice Rihanna suddenly popped up on Twitter asking for my help. I told her to "P*ss Off." In Morse code.

Because there are some days when only swearing at someone in Morse code will do.

Key to helping keep Rihanna alive during the Diamond's World Tour was a fansite called RihannaDaily who are now surely about to get a verified blue tick on Twitter. One of that sites editors is a Brazilian. I think he may actually be from Rio but I can't be sure.

After all if the 2012 Closing Ceremony was mine and Rihanna's wedding then clear these are our children.

Unlike some people I could mention when I'm under fire I try and keep my children as far away as possible.

The Dying of the Light: It is a matter of IPC protocol that every Closing Ceremony features the Para-Olympic cauldron being extinguished. This Closing Ceremony was no exception although it did rather try and hide what for some can be a sad moment.

Calum Scott was almost seamlessly followed on stage by Ivete Sangalo. She was accompanied by dancers wearing the cloud costumes that featured in the Opening Ceremony. Some of these were carrying giant silver Pinwheels - like the children's toy. These were similar to the kinetic statue that adorned the cauldron.

Almost off camera the wind from these Pinwheels blew out the flame. In the initial Closing Ceremony the cauldron was extinguished by another force of nature - rain. Ironically that was probably the only moment of that ceremony where it didn't rain. So they had to use a rain machine.

Ivete Sangalo: The final performance of the concert went to Ivete Sangalo.

Ivete Sangalo is probably the most famous female singer in Brazil at the moment and is also hugely successful in Portugal. She is sometimes referred to as; "The Brazilian Beyonce." This is a reference both to her style of music and just how famous she is. Ivete Sangalo currently has 15 million Twitter followers while Beyonce can only manage 14.6 million.

At one point during her performance Ivete Sangalo was joined on stage by formation dancers who seemed heavily influenced by Beyonce's "Single Ladies" video. This was obviously a reference to Sangalo's superstar status. However unlike in the Beyonce video these dancers were dressed in white rather than black leotards. This very attractive long white line was another reference to illegal drugs - specifically Cocaine.

Obviously Ivete Sangalo did invite Calum Scott back on stage to perform Transformar. The official song of these games

At one point during the performance the word; "Love" in almost all the languages of the World were shown on the giant TV screen. Then performers made their way amongst the aisles waving giant flags also bearing the word; "Love" in numerous languages. This obviously fitted in with the language barrier theme of the ceremony.

Then "Tom" - the games mascot made an appearance. Rather than just being the guy in the costume little Tom dolls were handed out to the medal winners with his hair either being Gold, Silver or Bronze depending on the medal.

Tom's party trick is that he can pull any item he needs from his mass of tree leaf like hair. No doubt a useful skill given the vast array of seemingly random topics being discussed during any games.

Obviously members of the public could buy lower quality replica Tom dolls as souvenirs. This created something of an awkward moment for Channel 4 anchor Clare Balding.

During a live piece to camera she was showing off her Tom doll to a Brazilian child. Suddenly realising that this child couldn't understand a single word that she was saying Clare Balding decided she had to give this child the toy to stop him bursting into tears. Whether Clare Balding would ever get her hands on another Tom became a running joke of Channel 4's coverage.

With sex tourism and one of my ex-girlfriends being such issues in the run-up to the games I should point out that "Tom" is a British slang term for; "Prostitute." "On the game" is also a slang term for prostitution.

As a result conversations about people being prepared to pay anything to get their hands on a Tom - particularly for well known lesbians like Clare Balding - had a certain subtext to them.

The ceremony then ended with a traditional - rather than quantum - firework display and the 'Siri' computer voice wishing us all goodbye.

17:10 on 27/9/16 (UK date).

Edited at around 20:00 on 27/9/16 (UK date) to add;

Having detailed everything that was included in this Closing Ceremony it is now time for me to complain loudly about something that wasn't.

As I've said this type of ceremony is often used to introduce the host nation to the World. A common way to do this is to feature a person from the host nation who is famous globally.

The Closing Ceremony 2010 Vancouver games did this particularly well. This featured a succession of famous people - such as William Shatner - who you would assume are American but are actually Canadian.

Their role in the ceremony was to say; "Hello. I am {first name} and I am a Canadian." This so much resembled the introduction speech from Alcoholics Anonymous you then expected them to go on and detail all the ways in which being a Canadian has ruined their life.

The Rio 2016 games of course picked up the baton from the 2012 London games. These games were utterly obsessed with the short-lived US TV Show; "Firefly." So much so that they even named the specially chartered jet that brought the Olympic flame to London the; "Firefly." Prompting fans of the TV show to tut and go; "The spaceship was named Serenity."

Amongst the crew of Serenity there was a prostitute played by an actress by the name of Morena Bacarin.  Christened Morena Silva de Vaz Setta Baccarin she was born Rio de Janerio, Brazil. Following Firefly she went on to find fame playing the wife of "Sgt Nicholas Brody" in the show "Homeland." She is currently starring in the show "Gotham" which ties into the DC Comics universe.

As such you would've thought it would have been a pretty safe bet that Morena Baccarin would have featured in at least one of the ceremonies. After all she's got to be the most famous Brazilian on TV at the moment.  

I don't know if the organisers even invited her to appear. After all there seems to be a bit of an issue involving childbirth, divorce and an affair with a Gotham co-star. However because I've now just lost a bet to myself I'm going to describe Morena Baccarin's absence as;

"She's a bitch. Now she's gone all Hollywood she's forgotten all about the old country."  

20:40 on 27/9/16 (UK date).