2012 Olympic Closing Ceremony Shite Spotting

[Cavcraft]

I suspect the opening and closing ceremonies will have undone all the good work done by the athletes and the organisers of the bit that actually involved sport.

[eddyramrod]

I managed to dodge both the opening and closing ceremonies, and reading about them on the internet I'm very happy about that.

Who the fuck let BMW anywhere near the Olympics?

Couldn't Ford or Vauxhall have provided a fleet of people-carriers? Yes, I know both are American-owned and German-built, but at least we generally regard them as British cars. Blatant case of brown envelopes changing hands up at the top....

[ashmicro]

The fact that the IOC is corrupt surprises you Eddy?? FIFA, the UN, The FA, Brussels, local Government.....

[Louise2cv]

Accepting the highest bid for a sponsership deal is corruption?

[Mr_Bo11ox]

What a shower of miserable moaning shites you lot are sometimes, the opening ceremony was one of the best things I have seen full stop. A proper celebration of the UK without a hint of the usual BNP-tainted Dam busters/Winston Churchill/London bus/Yellow Submarine/cheeky-cockney-chimeney-sweep wank. If you didn’t see it you should watch it on Iplayer, its a total joy to watch. Anyone who actually has any interest in the UK’s industrial history can't fail to shed a tear at the sight of a massive foundry in the middle of the stadium with hundreds of workers banging out a set of glowing red-hot Olympic rings under the watch of IK Brunel and thousands and thousands of spectators. Just the fact that that image has been chosen as a key one to showcase to the world ought to stop you grumbling for a few minutes at least.

[Vin]

Couldn't put it better myself Mr B. It was superb.

 

After that the closing ceremony was a bit of a let down though...but it had a hard act to follow.

 

A brilliantly accurate summing up of the closing ceremony http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/arts ... 2081337959

[Wilko220]

A proper celebration of the UK without a hint of the usual BNP-tainted Dam busters/Winston Churchill/London bus/Yellow Submarine/cheeky-cockney-chimeney-sweep wank.

 

Yes, but that's exactly what the closing ceremony was though. Did you see that fucking dreadful Churchill impression by Timothy Spall?!

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Must admit, I havent seen that.

[RichardMoss]

Pretty sure I spotted a couple of old MGs in there, a B and a TD-type thing.

 

Thought the Who were fantastic!

also a REAL Mini, Crayford Corsair, Healey 3000, Frogeye Sprite etc.

 

The Who were great - and so were the Kaiser Chiefs. Most of the rest were mediocre at best.

[Shep Shepherd]

I didn't watch much of the opening ceremony, as I was in Bradford having a curry when it started, but what I did see of it (from the middle of the team procession on) was pretty good. I saw nothing of the closing ceremony, as I was driving back from Bristol when it was on.

[Louise2cv]

Fair dos, not everyone is going to agree on the opening/closing ceremonies, but if it was supposed to be a celebration/reflection of Britain/London then there was going to be the odd beemer/VW/etc. How many of those complaining about the choice of vehicles have a British car?

 

Anyway, I thought it (the closing one) was thoroughly confusing and crap but that Daily Mash article has made it all make more sense, sounds quite accurate!

 

As per someones facebook account: "Irony, the Olympics where athletes are routinely screened for drugs vs the notoriously famous druggies in the closing ceremony".

 

Also liked that the BBC failed to spot that a quote from one of the papers had a hint of sarcasm in it, something along the lines of "Blur, the Specials and New Order played a gig in Hyde Park while the "Best of British" were at closing ceremony including Jessie J and the Spice Girls".

 

I'm sure it could have been a whole lot worse though! And judging by Brazil's little preview it fits the bill for whats expected of this kind of thing.

[michiel]

I got distracted by Jessie J and Emile Sande... they can sing live! and mega grumpy by the fact that the Queen 'drummer' managed to get up to 'play' the timpani and the drums just went on, still sounding exactly the same... never liked Queen anyway - Brian True-May is much better as a scriptwriter than as a guitarplayer.

[Spiny Norman]

...and did I dream it or was there a Del-Boy Regal van in there at one point as well?

 

For all those bitching about the lack of 'British' cars on display (if there is such a thing as a British car anymore), what about the Rolls Royce Phantoms that the three ©rappers turned up in?

Blingy, yes. Arguably German, yes, but at least they represent the pinnacle of what's left of the British motor industry, and nobody laughed at them, which wouldn't have been the case with these hopeless YingTong/MG things.

 

I didn't think the closing ceremony was a patch on the opening one though, quite a few booboos and a general air of crapness/people milling about not quite knowing what they were supposed to be doing.

How very British!

[michiel]

...and did I dream it or was there a Del-Boy Regal van in there at one point as well?

 

Driven by J Clarkson, judging by the explosion.

[Wilko220]

...and did I dream it or was there a Del-Boy Regal van in there at one point as well?

 

Driven by J Clarkson, judging by the explosion.

 

Yes, that was another cringe-inducingly bad part of the closing ceremony.

[Conrad D. Conelrad]

I managed to dodge both the opening and closing ceremonies, and reading about them on the internet I'm very happy about that.

Who the fuck let BMW anywhere near the Olympics?

Couldn't Ford or Vauxhall have provided a fleet of people-carriers? Yes, I know both are American-owned and German-built, but at least we generally regard them as British cars. Blatant case of brown envelopes changing hands up at the top....

 

Sounds like BMW are the better option. "Sponsored by some German cars which are popular" is at least more honest than "Sponsored by the Cologne based European subsidiary of an American conglomerate whose ever shrinking British operation fools a lot of people into thinking their Belgian built Galaxy is as British as their grandfather's Anglia".

[willswitchengage]

Let's get some facts straight...

 

Britain now exports more cars than it imports.

BMW not only operates Britain's second (I think it's above Honda) largest car plant, it also exports lots of four pot petrol engines from Hams Hall back to Germany.

2/3 of engines Toyota makes in Wales are exported, half again of which back to Japan - the rest mainly to Turkey.

There's some mad figure that I can't precisely remember that 1/2 of all Ford engines sold worldwide are made in this country - diesels in Dagenham and pezs in Walez.

Ford also employs 3000 people, the size of an average car factory, engineering them in Essex.

 

You really need to think beyond the badge. British Triumph bikes? After a the first year production is moved to Thailand. There're probably more "made in the UK" stamps on a BMW. Triumph is a bad example as it's privately owned, but the BP spill of the other year really highlighted the problem of globalisation when "British Petroleum" was bashed despite most of its employees and shareholders being American. HSBC reports its annual figures in dollars, not pounds. We all know large corporations pay little taxes in their home countries too. Only 20% of PSA's shareholders, the ones that receive the profits, may be French, and the company employs nearly as many in Iberia as France. Globalisation has happened and a "British" or "German" car is little more than a novelty these days.

 

Although our auto sector is doing very well, we've just slipped behind Brazil, S Korea and France in world manufacturing output, so lots of bad news elsewhere.

[eddyramrod]

How many of those complaining about the choice of vehicles have a British car?

 

Not speaking for anyone else, obviously, but my entire fleet at the moment:

Austin A40 (Longbridge); sold and awaiting collection...

Ford Granada (Dagenham); daily-driver at 40 years old, still for sale but no takers, so probably coming back to UK with me...

Morris Metro van (Longbridge, I think); not for sale and not likely to be for some years to come, and definitely coming back to UK, this is my pet!

 

Last time I looked, both Dagenham and Longbridge were not only in Britain but in fact in England. I know Granadas were also built in Germany but I've checked my VIN and anyway it has the Essex engine.

 

Globalisation has happened

 

Yes it certainly, and I don't generally consider it a good thing these days, but that's just my opinion, others may vary, and usually do.

[Justin Case]

I've no real objection to them using BMWs, even though JLR would have been a better choice. Obviously a ratty e38 7 series would have been the shiter's choice for athlete transport, but why on earth miserable 320ds for the greatest sporting event in the world? The fastest man on earth should at least had an M5 to transport him to the stadium.

 

As for the closing ceremony, it was the musical equivalent of a Chevrolet Matiz Why didn't they do the same as the sporting side and send home anyone who would have failed a drug test. They were rubbish anyway, and it would have left room for the likes of Katherine Jenkins, Lesley Garrett, Jules Holland and the finalists for the role of Jesus, not to mention the Band of the Royal Marines and a couple of songs from the musical 'Oliver' which was set a gnat's cock away from the Olympic Park.

[Wilko220]

Not sure Katherine Jenkins would have done so well on the drugs test...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7705652.stm

[Justin Case]

Not sure Katherine Jenkins would have done so well on the drugs test...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7705652.stm

 

Oh well, fair enough then. Three songs from Oliver?

[trigger]

Spotted these Olympic show stars today at a show near Sa'fend, Basically the newspaper is just a canvas car cover that comes on and off.

 

 

 

[rml2345]

Speaking as the current owner of a Swedish car made in Belgium using loads of German made components, I'd say that it's hard to determine exactly what nationality cars are these days...

Those covers look like a bit of fun though, like a mobile CPT challenge.

[willswitchengage]

I do hope they avoided using the Mail and Express for making those covers as I'm not sure things like "ALL FOREIGNERS MUST BE DEPORTED" and "PAEDOGEDDON" would have gone down all that well really