What the heck was that?
The closing ceremony at Beijing had all the clout and pomp that it should have, except for 8 minutes of total and utter madness put on by the next host city, London.
Whilst I have no idea, I'm guessing that what London tried to convey with its red London bus, umbrellas, lollipop lady, graffiti and Jimmy Page is that visitors to London will wait ages for a bus and then along will come... Rain!
(In fact, if you see a lollipop lady during your trip, you will have come at the wrong time and missed the Games, because all of the kiddies will be on holiday).
Maybe, of course, the whole eight minutes was an exercise in self-parody. The red bus and zebra crossing is what the world expects of Britain's capital city and that is all they are going to give you. Talking of self-parody, enter Boris. Love him or laugh at him, he is not easy to ignore. Again, two interpretations:
1. Was he, with his untied suit jacket, hands in pockets and extravagant waving, mocking the self importance of the passing-over-of-the-Olympic-flag ceremony?
2. Was he insulting China and the IOC with his excessive informality?
Whatever the answer is, I thought him rather a refreshing change from the pompousity that walks with the Olympic movement wherever it goes. Anything with a Boris in charge be it Johnson, Yeltsin or even Badenov is guaranteed to not work quite properly and to be somewhat amusing.
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