Olympic Opening Ceremony, 2012

I am too tired to mount an exhaustive exploration of last night's Olympic opening ceremony. I enjoyed it tremendously. It was a self-aware exploration of the force of imagination and narrative in the face of social and economic transformation. The incorporation of 'Flower of Scotland' among the national anthems gained greater resonance as the ceremony progressed, suggesting not conflict between peoples, but resistance to whatever Westminster can throw at the people of Britain altogether. Escorted to Stratford by James Bond, the skydiving sovereign practically became a symbol of authority, political or sporting, as a game of hopscotch on the squares of fiction and reality. The rejection of historical national heroes, with an ambivalent portrayal of Brunel-as-Prospero by Sir Kenneth Branagh as presiding genius, emphasised that this was a pageant of social and cultural history, and Danny Boyle's overhauling (in both senses) of the national stereotypes many across the world no doubt expected to be rehearsed was exhilarating.

ETA: Not Brunel-as-Prospero, but Brunel-as-Caliban. Ambivalence upon ambivalence.