Madscouser

Easier just to put the whole '96 games in amnesia mode in my opinion.

Here are the bits I remember from Summer Ceremonies, prior to London LA 84 - bloke with a jetpack, lots of white pianos, lots of steps up to rings, fire going round rings to light torch Seoul 88 - err, nothing Barcelona 92 - para archer lighting the flame (and the flame lighting a fraction before the arrow got there) Atlanta 96 - err, nothing Sydney 2000 - Cathy Freeman waterfall torch lighting Athens 2004 - err, nothing Beijing 2008 - fake firework feet, fake singer, very co-ordinated mass people, gymnast running round stadium prior to torch lighting Although I did here recently that one of the buses carrying athletes in Atlanta has finally found its way to the venues recently after the bus driver finally asked for directions

That is a good analogy. But if you have paid for Chateaubriand steak - would you not be annoyed if they served up chuck steak instead ?

BUTTED in... a very interesting choice of phrase given your latter comments. It would seem that you wish to 'hold court' with your views and your views alone - and woe betide anyone who is willing to offer a different view - whilst peddling a book that is already out of date. A global audience will naturally have many opinions based on national identity, expectations etc and not every view will coalesce. BUT you seem to think that your an expert on ceremonies because you were 'involved' backstage at LA and a performer in Atlanta... Atlanta being widely regarded as one of the more inferior Olympics of recent years - and made a decision that you would rather view the 2012 edition via the prism of television, BUT turn down the volume as you the audio 'doesn't do it' for you BUT hey, I'm just a fan of the Olympics who shelled out money to actual be part of the experience - as opposed to someone trying to make money on the back of their opinion of the games

And yet you expect people to listen to your pontifications on the subject ? I obviously hit more than a few home truths on my post, which your fragile ego is unable to cope with

He's responded. Well allow me to retort I apologise on behalf of Danny Boyle for an assumed level of intelligence in the viewing audience. I mean, it must be so difficult without the audio to be able to distinguish between the dramatic representation of an historical figure, a dramatic representation of a fictional character and the recognition of a figure who has changed recent history - whose invention - be it solely or together with others allows us to communicate on this very medium. We really - as some bloke in US politics said 'misunderestimated' that one As to why the 3 names, maybe it represents a level of class and intelligence - as opposed to say the 3 names of Mary Decker-Slaney or Florence Griffith-Joyner which represents tears when you dont the medal you were 2promised", or the drugs you took to get them. Which reminds - why the IV - a reminder that de Coubertain was the fourth child of his parents ?, or that you missed out on the medal race of life, and use it to remind yourself that one really must do better. Maybe if you had watched the BBC coverage of ZO01 as I like to call it, you would have seen my fathers picture on that memorial wall - which NBC decided to not show it to its audience in the US but rather an interview of Michael Phelps - I guess one can never get tired of interviewing someone they will interview again multiple times during the games As for the childrens literature / NHS section - well, given the US contribution to childrens literature is a cat in a hat, I'll take Voldermort and the Queen of Hearts any day of the week - but then again, I guess if one does look at the literary output nations, it will always pale into significance versus Great Britain's Shakespeare, Blake, Chaucer on the adult side to modern day Julia Donaldson, JK Rowling et al on the childrens side. As for Beijing showing four things they gave to the world - you see, us Brits have given so much to the worldfor so long, we had to leave most of the stuff out. But on this point, some assistance please from a US perspective. I've got 3 things youve given us - Gun Culture, Obesity and Celebrity Obsession - can you help me with the fourth ? For those of us lucky to be in the stadium on Friday 27th July - the day after what would have been my fathers 64th birthday - we witnessed a ceremony that touched all five senses - the visual beauty of the stadia, the pulsating & varied soundtrack, the smell of cordite in Pandemonium, the touch of the pixels in our hand as we interacted en masse, and yes the taste of expectation that these were to be special games For those watching the ceremony on TV (oh yes, another British invention) - you only had access to two of those senses - the visual and the audio. I can only assume as I stated earlier, that you can only cope with 50% of what was available to you. One last thing on NBC coverage.. The day after the closing - which again I was in the stadium for - I flew to the US on business. The next day they showed an interview with David Boudia on breakfast TV - the 10m Platform diving Gold medallist. The strapline was that he had 'crushed' the opposition to win this. Now, this seemed a little strange - as you see, 3 days earlier, I was in the acquatics centre, sitting in AA seats for DV016 - which if you are unfamiliar with LOCOG ticket codes, was the best seats you could get for the 10m diving final. Now, Boudia had an incredible set of 6 dives. But he won for 2 other reasons - firstly, that Tom Daley (who was leading after 5 dives) had a lower tarriff dive compared to the others for dive 6 - and more importantly, Qui Bo - the best diver in the world - inexplicably, stuffed up an earlier dive. The winning margin was a mere 1.8 points - a mere fraction in the world of 10m platform diving - so he hardly crushed the opposition. That is just one illustration as to why the NBC coverage was so flawed. Yes they give big money to the IOC, but it doesnt mean that they deliver a quality product

Curiously the Baron has yet to add his 2 cent worth on my Sir Tim Berners Lee reference Maybe he is looking for a ZX Spectrum to access an internet search engine to find

@baron-pierreIV Havent got time to read all the posts. but re some of your comments about your lack of knowledge of the characters in the OC- I was wondering, have you manged to figure out yet who Sir Tim Berners-Lee is yet - as I seem to recall NBC (staggeringly) asking the US audience to google him ....