Forum:The Official London Olympics 2012 thread

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Enjoy. - π 06:18, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

London Olympic opening ceremony

If you saw it, objectively, what did you think? NBC fucked up its live screening, so when it was rebroadcasted 3 hours later social networking was the equivalent of US tourists in the Louvre.

I thought it was fine. Nothing beats China's in 2008, but what does these days? Osaka Sun (talk) 07:52, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

A combination of pony friends wanting me to watch MLP with them and a game of Civ 5 kept me from watching it, but i heard it was nice. --il'Dictator Mikal 08:20, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

It was awesome. Really, it was. I was expecting it to be pretentious, awful tripe, with a lethal drinking game to be had for every time the words "celebrating diversity" were used. But no, we got the motherfucking Queen parachuting into the venue with motherfucking James Bond. ^gnostic 08:23, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

Arseholes. Couldn't even have the Welsh kids sing in Welsh. And I'm not sure "look! we turned our countryside into a stinking, smokey hell" is the best advert for your country either. Not only that, I doubt 1 in 10 Brits could tell you who Isambard Brunel was, never mind the rest of the world. And all that hype about the bell and we get "Dong." WTF? Then again, I'm the kind of person who thinks opening and closing ceremonies are a complete waste of time and money. --Psygremlin (talk) 08:56, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

Booo! Hisss!! Go comment on the Daily Mail! ^sshole 09:50, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

Bloody foreigners coming over here, making our athletes look bad... --Psygremlin (talk) 10:10, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

I thought it was great, really good fun and spectacular. Good on yer, Mr Boyle! Ajkgordon (talk) 11:27, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

IKB was one of the top finalists for "Great Britons" so that's probably several million people who not only know who he was but thought he was more important to Britain than Winston instantly-recognisable Churchill. I attended a party which was designed so that if the ceremony was awful people could eat barbecue and drink cocktails, and if it wasn't they could cluster around a big TV and point at stuff. Almost everyone spent the entire time watching the TV. Several fun moments when people's cherished guesses for what would feature were mistaken. Some people expected the Titanic, slavery (or abolition) and the World Wars, but they got the Windrush, suffragettes and a nation in mourning. Sir Tim got a big cheer (many of those present including myself have worked with him) and people seemed to enjoy the surprise twist in the Bond mini-film. 82.69.171.94 (talk) 11:40, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

Best part was Mr Bean. --Psygremlin (talk) 11:47, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

It was definitely better than I expected. The industrialization bit looked very impressive and Isambard Kingdom Brunel seemed damn healthy for someone who's over 200 years old. The kids were boring, but fortunately Rowan Atkinson arrived at the right moment and saved me from falling asleep. Of course nothing could top the barrel-rolling corgi in the Bond bit, but I'm sure they were aware of the risks of having that so early in the show. Oh, and some of the CGI looked incredibly unconvincing. What was up with that? Vulpius (talk) 12:35, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

It's David Icke! Balaam (talk) 11:13, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

I fully expected it to be a gigantic embarrassing flop, but my God, it was fucking incredible. The cricketers, the mary poppinses, the Bond, the Mr Bean, the body-popping industrialists, the voldemort, the motherfucking NHS... I think they knew the only way to beat Beijing was to go completely balls-to-the-wall bonkers. Beijing was a technical, choreographic marvel, but it was soulless. I thought this beat Beijing hands down! ^{ONE / TALK} 13:12, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

Absolutely agree. Nice sum up. Ajkgordon (talk) 13:45, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

Not enough David Tennant. 173.177.150.209 (talk) 14:54, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

Props to the British for having an army of Mary Poppins defeat a 100-foot Voldemort. I thought it was an impressive way to open the Olympics. Sam ^Tally-ho! 19:28, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm trying my best to ignore the fact that the olympics are even happening, but this description makes me kind of sorry I didn't watch it. I suppose I could torrent that shit if I really wanted to. --JeevesMkII ^{The gentleman's gentleman at the other site} 21:11, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

Twas effin' good (apart from the strange inclusion of some "athletes"). Channel hopping to avoid it from now though. Oh & Macca's past his "sell by" date. Loved the NHS, loved the "cauldron". Scream!! (talk) 21:21, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

Don't worry, Tennant took a torch at the last minute. Only problem was he was surrounded by Silents. Blue (is useful) 08:39, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Celebrating multiculturalism, the NHS, the industrial revolution - it's all too much for the Daily Mail. ₩€₳$€£ΘĪÐ^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 13:31, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

The Mail is hardly consistent, it ran a ton of articles in the run up to the games about how the opening ceremony would be shit and how dare they forget England's green and pleasant land and put chimneys and mines on it (that's sooo working class!) and then trumped it up as being awesome on their front page after it actually happened. ^narchist

They get to have their cake & eat it, using the enthusiastic front page coverage to trumpet about how great Britain is, while their columnists bitch about how the ceremony represents everything they hate about modern Britain. Anyhoo, the Rick Dewsbury piece I linked above has now been pulled offline after getting nothing but negative comments & complaints. Cached copy here. Speaking of the Mail, I can't help but laugh when I see the phrase "Leftie multicultural c***". It makes it sound like Aidan Burley said something a lot ruder than he actually did (he said "crap"). Wēāŝēīōīď^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 16:54, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

That may be intentional, or people are just excessively shy of rude words. Peter Hitchens is being especially curmudgeonly about it. In fact, I'd go as far as to say I can't read any of this without thinking "oh shut the fuck up you pathetic little cuntball, you're not even a minor fraction of the man your brother was". ^theist 23:56, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Mmmm, Nazi & Soviet comparisons, that's what we need here. Щєазєюіδ^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 06:57, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Just putting this here Balaam (talk) 11:39, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner

That I wish Paris had won the games. rpeh •T•C•E• 07:26, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

I remember in 2000 a store in sydney made good money selling tshirts that said "Fuck the olympics". Pi 3:14 (talk) 08:33, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Okay, to be fair, I have to say it's not been too bad after all. My commute takes me from south east London to a spot roughly halfway between London and Tower bridges, just north of the river, and the journey has been better than normal in terms of congestion. Coming back from a holiday in Scotland led me to the full horror of London Bridge station, though. I really don't know what the flying fuck they've done there. It took at least three times as long to get from the underground to my platform as it usually would, although much of that was me wandering randomly and saying "For fuck's sake" a lot. TL;DR: It's not been as bad as I thought it would be. rpeh •T•C•E• 20:28, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Medal count by population

all hail Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (whose national anthem includes the line "As your song I will stream, my country"). Sophie^Wilder 06:47, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

I've gotta say, watching one of the trainers during their second gold (weightlifting in this case) getting in front of the camera and saying "Kazakhstan number 1!" was hilarious. Q0 (talk) 17:57, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Oh man, the same guy just went apeshit after they won their third weightlifting gold. There's gotta be a video of this somewhere. Q0 (talk) 16:04, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Alternative expectations

Some academics have looked at various factors and predicted how various nations should do. It's interesting for explaining why countries like India 'under-perform' compared to 'over-performers' such as South Korea. Генгис^marauding 07:23, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Medal projections

Browsing around the BBC website I came across a projection by Sheffield Hallam University in April that GB would get 27 golds and 56 medals in total. This currently looks a plausible target; in stark contrast to the Australian prediction that GB would slip to eighth and that the Aussies would finish above us with 17 gold.  Lily ^{Inspirate me.} 22:03, 7 August 2012 (UTC)