Action Spectacular

I don't need to start on what's wrong with the Olympics (closures (canal, football pitches, towpath, Leyton marsh, roads), branding, bunting bans, missiles, idiots waving flags, security bullshit, Wenlock & Mandevil (malevolent sperm gone sentient), corporatisation of everything, the three ring circuses making the plebs forget their lack of white sliced, prioritising ridiculous events over the lives of le peuple). I generally feel that anything that removes civil liberties is a slippery slope and A Bad Idea. However, I was offered a ticket to watch the fireworks from a pub in Stratford and I'm a sucker for a pyrotechnic display. I hadn't quite pictured it correctly and thought Aline, who gave us the tickets, would be working in Old Stratford (i.e. the Broadway) and the ticket was just because the pub wanted to control entry. But the establishment was The Cow, right on the edge of Westfield, overlooking the stadium itself. Rupert Murdoch had hired the upstairs room, no-one was even allowed onto the stairs (my kingdom for a custard pie) until the end, after Murdoch had departed*, but before the staff had cleared the tables. I ate some left over bread and cheese - I have eaten crumbs from Murdoch's table! I felt just like David Cameron. I guess Murdoch already knew what was going to happen in the ceremony, he'll have listened in to Danny Boyle's voice messages.

We got the bus from Stoke Newington, which, apart from the BoJo announcements and having to wait at Bow Flyover for a VIP to pass, was relatively untroubled. Victoria Park village was rammed, people wandered down through Mile End and Stratford dressed as Batman or in toga costumes. I started to feel a buzz in the sweet, polluted, evening summer air. We watched the Red Arrows red white and blue flypast as we waited at the flyover.

We met in a rather nice old boozer, in which the their rather bizarre meal of whitebait, chicken, goujons and chips (£11.99) was, despite the branding police, called an "Olympic Platter", and then attempted to get through Westfield to Aline's pub. The security guards weren't even letting us cross the road. "No, no-one's going over there, mate." one said. A guy with a megaphone shouted: "Meridien Square is closed! Disperse to your left and right!". We waited for the lights to change, then rushed them. "We don't know who's got tickets and who hasn't!" one yelled to another. It felt like storming the Bastille. Rob handed out the magic bits of paper and the policemen changed from: "You aint going in there" to escorting us through, like a Glastonbury backstage pass. We got to the pub and nabbed a seat by the window, looking one way at the lit up stadium and the other at the telly. People in union jack deely boppers cheered at everything from Daniel Craig to nurses to the queen. I  complained about all the squaddies in the pub (just like being back in Doncaster) and about the "Cool Britannia" nonsense of British Things Americans Have Heard of - JK Rowling, James Bond, Mr fucking Bean; I was surprised that Hugh Grant didn't appear from behind a blue Notting Hill Door. I complained about the co-opting of the counter-culture for the establishment - Bowie and The Prodigy and Frankie GTH and The Jam and The Sex Pistols (the Daily Mail no doubt viewed it as liberal conspiracy). I felt very awkward when people starting chanting "Team GB Team GB Team GB", Nuremberg rally style and felt I was going to be lynched for not singing along to the National Anthem or Rule Britannia (I tried to rally a chorus of Jerusalem, but no-one was interested). I felt like Richard Dawkins at a Baptist church service.



But then an odd thing happened. I started to enjoy myself. I barely drink anymore, so it wasn't the effects of booze. I think it was the entrance of the nurses from the ceremony into the pub. In their 40s style uniforms, mingling with the squaddies made me feel that this was VE Day crossed with Millennium Eve crossed with the Jubilee crossed with the last night of a major music festival. A group of Brunels in their stove pipe hats and four of Mary Poppins' chimney sweeps joined them. I was pretty sure that Dizzee and Tim Berners Lee would soon be in for a quick snifter. It was very surreal to be hanging with volunteers whom a billion people around the world had just watched doing their thang. People screamed at Team GB and booed when Team USA did their round of the stadium. I shouted "Doncaster Represent!" when Sarah Stevenson came on telly and Aline very kindly brought us a bottle of Prosecco, with which I toasted Team GB. The fireworks went off, ooh whizz bang, criss-crossing around like the stadium itself and when Mohammed Ali appeared, I thought he would be the cauldron firestarter, then Steve Redgrave, then David Beckham, but the non-celeb young athletes mutually lighting and creating the orange bowl of fire was actually rather moving; Claire declared it a victory for the left. Even the 425 bus stopping even before Fab Macca Wacky Thumbs Aloft had taken to the stage and the 276 not being upgraded to a double decker, leaving swathes of outraged people stranded in Bow and Homerton at 2 in the morning didn't dampen my mood.

So here's some other Olympics stuff:





The Prince Gig Analogy

Bob Stanley on the Lea Valley regeneration, or lack thereof.

Vice's Guide to The 'Lympics

Critical mass arrests near the Olympic park.

* Mr Burns apparently asked the pub to provide a golf cart for him to get to the stadium; they suggested a wheelchair but he wouldn't accept that.