I would like to thank everyone for your kind sympathy in my last blog. It has been a difficult time the last few days, and your words did help. At the moment, I feel rather drained, but that is to be expected. I'm not entirely sure when I'll be returning to a regular schedule with blogging; as you can imagine, I'm not feeling particularly funny at the moment. You can, however, find me over at Shelly's blog, where there's an interview with two incorrigible dogs, and a short excerpt from Heaven & Hell. Fortunately I did that one before all of this happened...
Today though, since I did one of these before the Games started, I had been planning to do a post Games wrap up, and with the Games behind us, it's time to wrap things up....
The fortnight that is the Olympics is now at an end, and it's been a long two weeks. London has shown itself off to the world, starting with an extended opening ceremony by director Danny Boyle that ran through British history, featured appearances by Kenneth Branagh (with big sideburns), J.K. Rowling (no, she's not writing another Potter book, so stop asking), Rowan Atkinson channeling Mr. Bean to make fun of Chariots of Fire (which deserves to get heckled), and the current 007 Daniel Craig serving as wingman for the Queen in a much inspired prefilmed spot.
Over the last two weeks, three hundred events have been held. Records were broken. Hearts soared. Hearts were broken by a bad twist of fate. Fans cheered in the stands.
The world's media was in place. Some broadcasters did the job admirably. Some were so fawning over their own athletes that they weren't even paying attention to whoever else was actually competing (BBC, I'm talking to you). And still others (NBC, accept the Shackles of Shame when I hand them to you) thought it was a brilliant idea to keep tape delaying events for hours on end rather than, oh.... broadcasting them live as they were happening.
The Games have been a source of amusement for cartoonists through the last couple of weeks too...
Not to mention the occasional subject of some well targeted skewering and goofiness...
And as you can see, editorial cartoonists went wild with the theme, playing off of the commercialism, the sporting events, the fans, the sideshows, and in many other ways. Even in ways that were, well, off the planet...
In the end, the Games are supposed to be about the athletes. Emphasis on supposed to be. For two weeks, they've given it their all, performed on the world stage, touched those watching, and in the best cases, reminded us that we can, if we want, get past our petty bickering and differences.
One exception: an incompetent soccer referee who probably won't be welcome in the Great White North for the next twenty or thirty years.
Anyway, the closing ceremonies are done, with the Paralympics to follow. We don't have to think of Olympics for another couple of years, until the next Winter Olympics, or as Tsar Vladimir would like to call them, the Vladimir Putin Sochi Winter Olympics of 2014.
London 2012 has closed up with the usual final ceremonies, bizarre staging, a musical jam (and Timothy Spall channeling Winston Churchill for some reason).
Though strictly speaking... let's face it, George Michael hasn't been relevant in twenty years, the Spice Girls haven't recorded a thing in ten years (and Victoria Beckham looks angry at everyone every single second of her life), and are The Who really still alive?
And what idiot thought it was a brilliant idea to have the world's most annoying human being turn up on stage?
I am, of course, talking about Russell Brand, who unfortunately didn't get run over by a souped up bus. More's the pity, really. The world would be a better place without this guy- who looks like something the cat coughed up- in it.
