Olympic Opening Ceremony Shortend.

On Sunday (15/7/12) American rock legend Bruce Sprinsteen headlined the Hard Rock Calling festival in London"s Hyde Park. At the end of his set he was joined on stage by Paul McCartney of the Beatles for what must have been a once in a lifetime experience. Unfortunately the homourless people at Westminster Council's environmental health department didn't see it that way and abruptly shut the gig down after it over-ran it's allotted time over concerns over noise pollution. Yesterday (17/7/12) Madonna also held a big gig in London's Hyde Park. Again Westminster Council warned that the show would be stopped if it over-ran it's allotted time. As far as I know Madonna stuck to the rules and the gig ended on time without an intervention from Westminster Council.

Today (18/7/12) it has been announced that the opening ceremony for the Olympics is to be cut short by 30 minutes to make sure all those attending can make their public transport links home. Apart from making the idea of public transport look bad this is all very reminiscent of the weekend in July 2005 just before London won the right to host the 2012 games.

Then London's Hyde Park was playing host to the Live 8 concert which was trying to put pressure on that year's G8 Summit to cut the debt to developing nations and increase development spending. Such was the size of the Live 8 gig which included the reunion of Pink Floyd amongst other things that it over-ran badly. I managed to catch the very end by climbing over the fence impaling the palms of my hands on some spikes as I went. As a result the next couple of weeks doing the full Jesus impression.

By bringing up Live 8 Britain's new administration is trying to find out who shares it's world view as it still tries to work out if it was given the Olympics as a reward for helping the world's poor or as punishment? Of course the fact the two things might have nothing to do with each other probably hasn't even crossed their minds.
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