Layer 545 . . . The Paralympics Closing Ceremony, or Death By Coldplay

The final event of the 2012 Paralympic Games  - the closing ceremony - apparently had a worldwide television audience of over a billion people, so it was something very significant which was worthy of some attention. The problem for me is that the more I reflect on it the angrier I get. Maybe it's because I'm a patriot that I actually care about the quality of what Britain offers the world. This country is full of inventive and talented people who are too often stifled and sidelined by fuckwits who have somehow moved themselves into positions of power and influence. And so we ended up last night with a situation where the Paralympics Closing Ceremony was little more than a Coldplay concert.

It seems the guy who had the power to determine the content of the Olympics ceremonies was determined to have a band called Coldplay at the very centre of this 'ceremony' - just as he was determined to have the Spice Girls and Dead Freddy at the centre of the appalling closing event (which wasn't really a ceremony) of the Olympic Games. This guy is a national disgrace. Take a bow, Kim Gavin.

["Gavin, who made his name overseeing Take That's spectacular stage shows, said he had turned down other groups that had wanted to get involved because he was convinced Chris Martin's band were the only ones for the job." - The Guardian.]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/sep/09/paralympics-closing-ceremony-finale-coldplay

It may be the case that Coldplay are very popular with the sort of people who enjoy mawkish, sentimental ballady songs that are not too challenging and serve as adequate musical wallpaper in lonely suburban rooms where people sit updating their Facebook pages and making digital contact with their "friends". It may be the case that Coldplay give financial support to worthy causes. I don't really know, and I don't really care. All I know is that their music appeals to a few million people who apparently don't pay much attention to song lyrics because if they did they would surely realise they've been spending money on absolute bilge when they could be spending it on something of value.

Take away those few million Coldplay fans and what you have left is the best part of a billion people worldwide who are thinking, "Who the fuck are these boring idiots and what kind of dull, turgid shit are they playing?"

This would be in contrast to the billion people who appreciated the music in the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics that Danny Boyle had commissioned Mike Oldfield to write - original and appropriate music with soul, melody and rhythm; music to fill a stadium with magnificent and magical sound as a backdrop to fabulous visual stimulation.

It's possible to ignore the words of certain pop songs and still enjoy the music. If you ignore the words of Coldplay you're just left with some incredibly dull and unoriginal rubbish. So let's have a look at some of their lyrics. It seems a song called "Yellow" is one of their greatest hits.

http://www.metrolyrics.com/yellow-lyrics-coldplay.html

Look at the stars
Look how they shine for you
And everything you do
Yeah, they were all yellow

I came along
I wrote a song for you
And all the things you do
And it was called 'Yellow'

So then I took my time
Oh what a thing to've done
And it was all yellow

Your skin, oh yeah, your skin and bones
Turn into something beautiful
D'you know? You know I love you so
You know I love you so

FOR FUCK'S SAKE!!!!

Your BONES? Go ahead and read the rest of it. It gets worse.

OK - so maybe this song isn't typical. Let's try another greatest hit.

The Scientist

Come up to meet you, tell you I'm sorry
You don't know how lovely you are
I had to find you, tell you I need you
Tell you I set you apart

Tell me your secrets and ask me your questions
Oh, let's go back to the start
Running in circles, coming up tails
Heads on a science apart.
http://www.metrolyrics.com/the-scientist-lyrics-coldplay.html

Poetry it ain't.

Try again. Another greatest hit.

Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall (????)

I turn the music up, I got my records on
I shut the world outside until the lights come on
Maybe the streets alight, maybe the trees are gone
I feel my heart start beating to my favorite song

And all the kids they dance, all the kids all night
Until Monday morning feels another life
I turn the music up, I'm on a roll this time
And heaven is in sight

I turn the music up, I got my records on
From underneath the rubble sing a rebel song
Don't want to see another generation drop
I'd rather be a comma than a full stop

Maybe I'm in the black, maybe I'm on my knees
Maybe I'm in the gap between the two trapezes
But my heart is beating and my pulses start
Cathedrals in my heart

And we saw, oh, this light, I swear you, emerge blinking into
To tell me it's alright, as we soar walls, every siren is a symphony
And every tear's a waterfall, is a waterfall, oh, is a waterfall,
Oh, is a, is a waterfall, every tear is a waterfall

So you can hurt, hurt me bad
But still I'll raise the flag
It was a waaaterfall A waaaterfall

Every tear, every tear, every teardrop is a waterfall
Every tear, every tear, every teardrop is a waterfall

http://www.metrolyrics.com/every-teardrop-is-a-waterfall-lyrics-coldplay.html

This one is a laugh out loud job.

I think I rest my case.

...........................................

But for the record, here are some other descriptions of Coldplay I've picked up on the Internet:

You didn't have to be one of those people who thinks Coldplay are the cloven-hoofed musical emissaries of satan himself to have been slightly concerned about how appropriate a booking they were.

Thanks to their ubiquity on TV soundtracks – tinkling away as someone departs The X Factor or the DIY SOS tells their tragic back story – a lot of their songs have become musical shorthand for "oh, isn't it a pity", designed to elicit sympathy for whoever is on screen.

In the event that you felt bored by Coldplay, there was always something to distract your attention . . . There was interpretative dance, which was nowhere near as disheartening as interpretative dance to Coldplay looks on paper.

- Alexis Petridis in today's Guardian.

I loathe Coldplay for their pretentiousness and the level of self-pity that seeps into their songs.

- ZellHolland

Pyrotechnics are not enough to distract from the show's longueurs, those moments when Coldplay try to rock. Their rock gestures just don't convince, not even when Chris Martin hurls his guitar skyward at the end of God Put a Smile On Your Face. He's clearly more Manilow than Marilyn Manson, thanking us for waving our "beautiful arms", for giving him this "wonderful job", gushing showbiz gratitude that is probably genuine, but doesn't entirely feel like it.

Tonight's show works best when Coldplay lean upon their soppier, soft-rock instincts . . . As the soft-rock confections reach their crescendos, with the confetti cannons and fireworks at full blast, Emirates Stadium feels like the set of some twee, manipulative, "magical" mobile-phone ad – but then subtlety counts for little in venues like this.

- Stevie Chick reviewing Coldplay at the Emirates for the Guardian last June.

Layer 541 . . . Simply a Banana

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One of the more interesting comments I've come across in defence of the 2012 Olympics' closing ceremony is, "A banana is just a banana". In other words, we shouldn't expect such a thing to be anything more than a facile, shallow entertainment, or some kind of gaudy circus with sound and lights.

I disagree. In fact I strongly disagree.

This is like saying that movies and television programmes can only be shallow entertainments that aim for the lowest common denominator, by which we mean a level of entertainment or stimulation that is little more than visual stimulation which grabs and holds the attention of a mass audience. I find this thought deeply depressing, not least because it's driven by business and commerce, first and foremost.

What those of us watching a three hour programme on the BBC tend to forget is that in most countries the Olympics' opening and closing ceremonies will have been watched by people tuned in to commercial TV channels, whose main concern is to sell products and make money for themselves and for the big corporations that can afford to advertise on them.

The assumption of the commercial TV stations is that anything that's too 'challenging' for their audience is likely to cause them to switch off or to change channels, with potentially serious consequences for the revenues of the TV stations. Their ability to charge very high rates to advertisers is directly linked to the size of audiences.

Hence the decision by NBC television in the USA to not show certain segments of the 2012 Olympics' opening ceremony, on the grounds that those passages would cause their audience to switch off or switch over. Instead they showed some talking heads in their studio discussing what had just been shown! In other words, they attract an audience by saying they're going to show the opening ceremony, but they censor what they consider the dull bits because they patronisingly decide that the majority of their audience won't like those particular bits. I guess this is standard practice on commercial TV. In fact it's their entire ethos and their modus operandi - which of course has led to the general awfulness of television right around the world.

Seen from this perspective it's a miracle that we in Britain still have the BBC and a broadcasting system that's funded by subscription first and foremost, and driven by a desire for quality plus a mission to 'educate, inform and entertain'.

Danny Boyles' opening ceremony for the 2012 Olympics, and both the Beijing ceremonies, were informative, educational and entertaining. The London 2012 closing ceremony was none of these things.

It was just a banana.
.

Layer 540 . . . Yet More on the Olympics Closing Ceremony!

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Either the Olympics closing ceremony was a ceremony or it wasn't. What I'm saying, of course, is that it wasn't. In which case it shouldn't have been advertised as one. What it was, was an outrageous waste of time and money, which its organisers were finally reduced to calling "a big party". So we gave these people - these idiots - several million pounds to organise a fitting ceremony for an important and many would say very wonderful gathering of the world's finest athletes and they blew the money on a trashy "party". Who's going to take responsibility for that?

The dictionary defines a ceremony as
1. A formal occasion, typically one celebrating a particular event.
2. An act, or series of acts, performed according to a particular form.
3. The formal activities conducted on some solemn or important public or state occasion.

So what actually took place? Clearly the producers of this horrible event thought they should say something about London and about British society. Fair enough. And what did they do? They built  small-scale and rather pathetic versions of well-known London landmarks and set them up in the stadium - the London Eye, Tower Bridge, the Houses of Parliament, the 'Gherkin', etc. A totally unimaginative, unneccessary, lazy and clunking way of saying "This is London". It reminded me of the hilarious incident in the film This Is Spinal Tap! when the majesty of Stonehenge was represented on stage by a ludicrously small model of three stone blocks forming a  Stonehenge-type arch. There was nothing the heavy-metal band could do about it once it had been lowered on to the stage - they played on regardless, no matter how ridiculous the whole thing looked.

So what else happened in the Olympic stadium?
London traffic, which needs no depiction at all since it's something we put up with rather than celebrate, was represented by newspaper-covered cars, vans and lorries trundling around the arena. Round and round they drove, to no purpose whatsoever.

Somebody sang a song on the back of a lorry.

A band played on the back of a lorry.

Another band played on the back of a lorry.

A Robin Reliant car blew up and out staggered two people dressed as Batman and Robin. Apparently this was supposed to bring back hilarious memories of an episode in an ancient 'comedy' series about South London lowlife losers which most of us never ever watched anyway on account of it being very silly and completely unwatchable. Since the car blowing up was meaningless to most Brits watching, it would have been completely baffling to the rest of the world.

The top of Big Ben then opened up and an actor appeared declaiming a few lines of Shakespeare, which could barely be heard. Presumably this was the formal and solemn part of the ceremony.

Am I making too much of this fiasco - or does it actually matter what occured last Sunday?

I think it matters. Here's part of a letter that was sent to a newspaper in the USA this week:

Olympic Games closing ceremonies embarrassing
Posted: Wednesday, August 15, 2012 5:58 am

The closing ceremonies of the Games in London were an embarrassment to Western Civilization and showed how morally bankrupt the British have become.

In Beijing, China’s message in their closing ceremony was clearly the virtues of statism. They proudly showcased the merging of corporatism and communism. Flying, identically dressed humans creating a Tower of Babel represented the “cog in a machine” values of their culture and was done so artfully that most people never recognized the symbolism.  

The British showed they have no philosophy, no values except rock and roll, big-breasted chicks, rap stars riding in Rolls Royces, and no real clue that their expression of morally bankrupt worship of materialism is repugnant and why the rest of the world thinks Western colonialism needs to be overthrown, violently. Most Olympic hosts make some effort to show their cultural values in a positive light.

The British seemed completely unaware that their cavalcade of campy, garish and pompous frivolity made Beijing’s Kafkaesque showcasing of Big Brother look moral by comparison.

Very bad message. The games were great, they did a good job. But if that closing spectacle did not offend you and make you afraid for Western Civilization, you aren’t thinking clearly. Obviously the Brits weren’t.

Sonny Craig
Apache Junction

http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/opinion/article_4dda8d68-e66d-11e1-bc6b-0019bb2963f4.html
[See also Oxzen's comment on the website.]

Since it was Lord Seb Coe who claimed the credit for the good parts of the Olympics then presumably he's the man who appointed the men who were responsible for the closing ceremony. More on this anon.

Layer 539 . . . The Closing Ceremony - More Reviews

I'm still feeling baffled and unhappy about the Olympics closing ceremony, and how badly it reflected on Britain and on what had been a near-perfect two weeks of Olympic Games.

Michael Billington in the Guardian completely failed to get to grips with it in his review, and it may be that Michael is now past his sell-by date as a reviewer. Here's part of what he said:

How do you review an Olympics closing ceremony? I'm not sure you can, especially when it is a mix of pageant, pop-concert, street-party and presentation ceremony. Unlike Danny Boyle's opening ceremony, Kim Gavin's closing one had no hidden narrative but simply amounted to a kaleidoscopic spectacle based on what Gavin himself termed "a mashed-up symphony of British music".

I leave it others to judge whether the big musical section was a fair summary of British pop over the past 50 years. But it certainly produced some eye-catching moments including a reconstituted version of John Lennon singing Imagine, Kaiser Chiefs backed by an assembly of leather-clad bikers, Annie Lennox standing at the prow of a skeletal ship with Gothic attendants and the Spice Girls emerging from a fleet of London cabs. We even got a tribute to British fashion with Kate Moss, Naomi Campbell and other supermodels clad in symbolic gold.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/aug/13/london-2012-olympic-games-closing-ceremony-review

I'd almost forgotten that horrible interlude of British so-called supermodels strutting around the stadium after arriving on the backs of trucks. This was another pinnacle of flash and trash and celebrity-obsession.

Mr Billington might have been at a loss as to what to make of the whole debacle, but he was at least honest in saying he needed to leave it to others as he hadn't a clue himself about musical merit. Fortunately there were many Guardian commenters who were more than able to offer pithy comments 'below the line':

citizenx3
Three words: it was shit.

solocontrotutti

[Response to citizenx3]
Not sure it was that good to be honest.
I came away from the Olympics with the view that to be a modern Britain you have to either ride a bike really really fast or be in a pop band.

tony1012
leather clad bikers??? mods on scooters, surely - couldn't have got it more wrong.

jakka
Of course you can review it - it was shit. From the revelation of equality and achievement we sank back into sexism, mediocrity, and money. The first image of a passive woman concocted for the sole pleasure of men was a shock after the beautiful androgyny of strength. Instead - an image of a beautiful woman you can only long for, while into the stadium rolls a luxury car you can only envy. The values of the Olympic games fell away, and never have the values of capitalism looked so thin and tawdry and obvious.

NeilPartrick
How do you review a show like this, asks the Guardian's tired old theater critic. How about you get someone who knows about pop and dance, as this was only ever going to be theater in the pejorative sense. It was appallingly bad and returned the image of "GB" to that of sad old camp "theater" living off of fading memories. Even what was supposed to be current and "happening" looked more tired that the truly old . . . And why, if you can't persuade nearly-dead defenders of their brand to risk tarnishing it with an appearance, or to get the dead to dance, embarrass us all with virtual or tribute contributions? Bowie by virtue of a corporate fashion show and The Who's Pinball Wizard via the Kaiser Chiefs doing a west end show version of that scene from Quadrophenia....pointless...and sad..like the whole thing. Lennon, disinterred for the evening, was possibly the only poignant lyrical contribution of the night, "Imagine there's no country," after an inter-national contest between fiercely patriotic gladiators for the last 2 weeks...that was fun, but then ending it with him as a Stalinesque face or giant cream cake, that was high camp . . . but if you ask the guy who is famous for working with Take That to choreograph a farewell from London you can't expect much else really, can you?

AmateurScientist
It was everything we feared the opening ceremony was going to be: Naff music, excruciating faux 'celebrity' appearances, terrible lip-syncing (and some seriously off-key performances by the people not lip syncing). And the sound! Whoever was in charge of the mix for broadcast will hopefully never work in the industry again.

Reaf
Britain's justification for shite always seems to be 'weird and wonderful'. I have to say that I thought it was one of the biggest pieces of indulgent jingoism I've ever seen. A tacky pop concert with the occasional Shakespeare quote scrawled on the floor and performers riding scooters concealed in union jacks . . . The Olympics is something that belongs to the world and I just felt like Britain missed that and treated the entire thing as though it belonged to them. They hosted it, they didn't own it.

 StormInHeaven
A tepid, embarrassing, sobering celebration of everything shit about our country, and a total anticlimax to a blinding two weeks.

 Robbothedoc
1 plus though - no Macca!! No Cliff!!

Fosco
One Direction are like dementors given musical form. In 3 excruciating minutes they almost managed to sap my olympic spirit, together with my soul.

queequeg7
The closing ceremony reduced popular culture to its lowest common denominator - a shiny soulless vamp with neither context nor meaning - the athletes corralled into place as the compliant appendices of an exercise in corporate-sponsored gurning.

 ECON123
The Rio presentation was the best thing about the whole evening !

Magnusson
George Michael. Why did he get to sing his latest shit single????

 sovereigndrive
What a disappointment after the wonderful opening ceremony and the uplifting games. It wasn't fun, it wasn't clever. Those who had talent were overwhelmed by noise and confusion - and the choir matching actions to John Lennon's Imagine! Who thought that was a good idea?? Too many celebs and lightweights - this surely cannot represent the best of Britain's music past and present. Where are the Rolling Stones when you need them?

Jurach
Eric Idle had come up with a new verse that actually added some context to Always Look on the Bright Side and it was great to see that he was still allowed to go with "Life's a piece of shit" - I was a bit worried that that might have been cut.

Why reprise the opening acts whilst the athletes came in? It was like listening to musak in the supermarket - missed opportunity to employ a bit more of what is after all, probably the best back catalogue of any country in the world.

 shinsei
After two weeks of exceptional athleticism and hard work from the female competitors, rewarding physical skill over looks, was it really appropriate to feature supermodels ?

- Is an Olympic closing ceremony really the best place to allow George Michael to plug his new single ?

- Yes, we all like the Pet Shop Boys but after they've done their bit do we need to have to listen to a recording of it again ? I thought the producers were upset they had to leave out so much British music, so why repeat bits ?

 sunshinestate
Half these acts weren't fit to appear on the same stage as the athletes, let alone lord it over them for the evening. A really awkward meeting of Sport and Entertainment.

Presumably someone at the Guardian was aware of the general reaction to this mess - if not Michael Billington himself - so why publish this ludicrously rose-tinted review-that's-not-a-review?

Fosco
I think people are disappointed because Danny Boyle showed with the opening ceremony that Britain could be creative, fresh, entertaining and modern. The closing ceremony seemed like such a wasted opportunity. A symphony of British music? Fine if that is your plan - go for it, but at least do it properly. You have tens of millions of pounds and you hire ed sheeran to sing pink floyd and the kaiser chiefs to sing the who. How good would the ceremony have been had the director actually got pink floyd and got other British greats like led zep, the rolling stones, radiohead and the smiths? Instead we had some smash hit poll winners party style event which was mostly rubbish.

queequeg7
The closing ceremony reclaimed the last two weeks for the dead-eyed corporate lackeys who aim to make a killing on the back on sporting achievement and spectacle. It put everyone back in their place. Some say the athletes were having a ball. They didn't even have toilets.

 catdog
Boris' stage managed 'spontaneous and wacky' dancing was pitiful, especially given the fact he warned us that might 'do something crazy' a few days ago, just in case we needed a reminder that he intended to go on the PR offensive again. Even more pitiful is the BBC obliging this man's egocentric whims and allowing this shite to appear on our TV screens. Depressing stuff.

 subsub
Opening ceremony: genius
Closing ceremony: shite

So, so disappointing.
Flat, uninspiring, and as someone else said, like an extended Brit Awards.

Pity, as the past two weeks have been amazing.

Benjine
I got pissed so thought it was great

petestrong
It was dreadful. Everything I thought the opening ceremony would be (and wasn't). Corporate, celebrity-driven, tacky, ITV Saturday night, legacy trodding rubbish.

It was the CD collection of a certain type of man in his mid 40s. Why were Kaiser Chiefs there covering the Who? Where were the Stones? Why did George Michael plug his new single? That disgusted me - the man tried to sell his new song to us ugh. Jessie J endlessly hollering, and Annie Lennox braying.
In Hyde Park they had Blur, the Specials, New Order - why weren't they at the closing ceremony? And no it's not a matter of taste it's a matter of playing Great British Artists, of which Jessie J and Ed Sheeran and Taio Cruz are not.

When Freddie Mercury showed up on video it sent shivers down the spine, he would have torn the roof off that place. Instead we got a barely coherent guitar solo that went on too long and then Jessie J doing an awful Queen cover.

And did anyone else think that a lot of the artists were singing very flat?

shinsei
Yes, I know it was a tribute to the British fashion industry (and why highlight fashion, we do have other industries), but the Olympics surely should be an inspiration for young girls to want to be Jessica Ennis and not Kate Moss.

One moment we are watching the montage of Jess's years of dedicated training reach its climax in the 800m and see her crying with her gold medal, and then, boom, it's right back to normal with our stupid celebrity culture that hugely rewards the likes of Kate Moss for merely looking good and making smoking and a poor diet look cool.

Hugemanatee
If they'd just put the athletes in the stadium and had a bit of a Brazilian disco that would have been totally fine. Instead we were treated to a recycled (they played loads of the tracks twice!) necrotic display of British pop history that then extinguished the brilliant feeling of the last weeks and all the hard work of athletes worldwide by letting coke sniffers like Brand, Moss and bless him George Michael take centre stage.
At least Cameron's image was permanently damaged by being caught dancing to the Spice Girls.

 ndixon1
I didn't watch it all as it met my expectations of having to listen to ghastly pop music sung off key with appalling sound. Embarrassing to watch with some truly awful performances (yes George Michael I'm talking about you) that seemed to go on for ever. Absolute tripe for kids. I had no idea who Ed Sheeran was/is but he had me hiding behind the sofa in shame.

Reaf
I also hate the way people are making others feel obliged to praise it so as not to run the risk of sounding cynical. Let’s be honest, if what we all witnessed last night was completely unconnected to our 'national pride' and just a show on after Eastenders, we'd all call it shite.

stevetheweave2
I saw it as our chance to get revenge for all those years of Eurovision humiliation. You think you can do pop pap? THIS is how it's done!

jakka
...oh, and meanwhile the ATHLETES themselves are relegated to standing room only, suddenly irrelevant, with only their medals to bite to remind them of their moment

nedr
Embarrassing, aimless crap. Brillant, eccentric opening ceremony, wonderful fortnight of sport, world-leading broadcasting with long-to-linger images...and then this! Like a giant provincial dad-dancing wedding reception presided over by superannuated DJ. I am no spring chicken, and I have lived through many decades of exceptional British music: none of which was showcased last night.To inflict that turgid, zombified, down-beat medley on all those young athletes, full of life and up for a party (as were most of the audience) was little short of criminal. And to end with Eric Idle singing "Bright Side of Life" surrounded by Roman Legionnaires: I've heard edgier stuff at the sing-songs at my 93 year old mother's care home! If Danny Boyle deserves a knighthood for the opening ceremony, then whoever put this mess together derserves to have his head spiked up on Traitors' Gate!

EmbarrassmentUnited
Four stars? Are you mad?
Opening ceremony was breathtaking. Closing ceremony made me pine for the glories of the Jubilee concert.
I have loved every minute of the Olympics. The Athletes, Volunteers and even LOCOG deserve every plaudit. But last night has left me feeling depressed. It was like a reorientation programme deliberately engineered to help us get back mundane reality. "Like, ah, I forgot we are shite after all!"

George Michael was shocking. Why did they think it a good idea for him to shamelessly plug his new single? What right gives him that? A man who hasn't done anything good for twenty years? No other act got that opportunity.
Annie Lennox = awful.

As previously mentioned, the organisers completely underestimated the time it took to get the athletes in, hence 'replaying' the soundtrack to the first part. Crap.
Ed Sheeran's cover was terrible. Why cover Wish You Were Here with no lead guitarist? Mike Rutherford? Purleeese!
What was telling was that truly iconic acts (bar The Who) were absent - and only used via muzak and dance sections (or from beyond the grave).

If they'd actually got Bowie or Bush to do something that would have been a coup. As it was, we were left with the tired (and overdone) Queen remnant - who have been marketing Freddie's legacy for 20 years.

shhush
Gold. Silver. Bronze. Lead.
 

Paulhalsall
It should have had Vera Lynn, Lulu, Sandie Shaw, and Cilla Black.

tranquilsaint
I thought Children in Need was in November, not August.
For the most part, it was uninspiring, messy, and lacked class. The opposite of everything that had preceded it.
Still, hopefully we built up enough credit over the last couple of weeks that we'll be forgiven.

thephilbean
Someone above summed it up brilliantly. It was everything I feared the opening ceremony was going to be like.
Bits were good. Eric Idle, The Who and the PSB. But most was poor to dire and didn't make any sense (why was everything wrapped in newspaper?????). Fitting that the three biggest stars of the night (Lennon, Bowie & Freddie) are either dead or retired.

Duderonomy
If we're lucky, that closing ceremony won't have undone everything that has been good about the last two weeks.
If Boyle gave us a vision of Britain that we should aspire to, the closing ceremony was a sharp reality check.
If I was made to guess, I would've named Simon Cowell as the bright spark responsible for last night.
Turgid, self-aggrandising toss.

 bryanschmyan82
I was sat with my brazilian girlfriend and she came away from it completely baffled and not a little bored - surely it's not about appropriating the Olympics into whatever country is hosting it, but including the rest of the world too. We already had an utter shite Jubilee concert with the usual offenders, why do another one?

Greenshoots
Democratic? Was it bollocks. It was carefully choreographed. Sure the athletes came in feeling cheerful and ready to party. They were then herded into pens and remained invisible for almost the entire remainder of the following celebrity fest (oops, sorry, "ceremony"). What should have been a celebration of the athletes was instead handed over to a set fo largely naff celebrities.
Eric Idle did his best but should have been visibly surrounded by athletes.

 thephilbean
Hopefully thats killed off George Michaels career for good now. Used to be a fan too.
Why did they build a white pyramid in the middle and then just take it down again?? Why??
The fashion bit. WTF? Who on earth thought that actually fitted in with anything? It was almost as if they'd thought they would get Bowie until the very last minute and had to fill in.
COMPLETELY cocking up the timing estimates on the athletes entrance. By about 40mins. Shocking - especially as the only contingency plan was to repeat the first 40mins soundtrack.

On a positive note the set design and lighting were superb. Whoever thought up the seatback pixel LED things is a genius.

whufc23
I wanted to vomit when Take That were playing as the Olympic flame was being lowered. It felt like the symbolic rape of everything that the flame stood for. Does anyone really think their music has anything resembling the required poignancy, dignity and class for such a moment? Kinda like trying to trim a bonsai tree with a gaudy lawnmower.
I am deeply embarrassed that this is how we signed off to the world after the sheer wonderment of the past two weeks and opening ceremony.

PhilMcCrevice
It turned into the usual cult of celebrity which seems to take over everything these days.
It would have been lovely to have some kind of story or theme written through this or at least seen the athletes that have given us so much enjoyment celebrated more. Instead we were assailed with that rubbish.

blackbroom
Disappointing. It just felt like they'd got the leftovers from the Queen's Jubilee concert out of the freezer and bunged them in the microwave. Soulless, corporate, predictable, bland, safe. None of the jaw-dropping "This can't be really happening" moments or genuine emotion of the opening ceremony. When they did try to create emotions, e.g. by projected footage of dead people (btw, they do know Bowie is still alive, don't they? Only they gave him the same treatment as Lennon and Mercury), it just felt manipulative and manufactured. Where Boyle gave us a jug of lovingly crafted, homemade organic lemonade, they gave us a bottle of Coke.
I thought Take That was an unbelievably crass choice for just after the extinguishing of the torch. Really, they might as well have got Mr Blobby or Black Lace, as it couldn't have murdered the dignity of the moment any more than it did. And I say that not because I dislike Take That - I do, but I would have found any cheesy manufactured pop acts that I really love equally inappropriate at that particular moment.

 SoundsLikeAcidReflux
Things not so good: Emeli bloody Sande starting things with a whimper, montage of people crying (very sad), Stomp on twice (much clanging), Jessie J singing four - yes four - times in tacky look-at-me bodysuit, Taio bleeding Cruz, John Lennon's face boxes, repetition of the music whilst athletes arriving, Emeli Sande again, flag companions dressed as hookers. It was very Brit Awards but I suspect the great acts like Bowie and Rolling Stones wouldn't have gone near it, the latter mostly as they'd not be paid.

ireadnaught
Olympic ceremonies are always naff. Are people really reviewing it as if they expected to see some sort of cutting edge music festival? It was shit but then it's not really aimed at people who like Billy Bragg.

[Wrong about Olympic ceremonies always being naff. Zhang Yimou and Zhang Jigang showed us how to do them four years ago in Beijing, as did our own Danny Boyle a couple of weeks ago. - Oxzen]

 mumNdadsboxroom
Closing ceremonies aren't generally remembered.. but this one just might be....
..for the shameless commercial promotion of British fashion, for the embarrasing use of Rolls Royces now produced by a German company, for presenting to the world how we seem to want to dwell in the past, how our culture can be whittled down to pop which we gave to the world back in the 1960s (and not much of merit ever since), how we insist on plastering the Union Jack over everything as if that alone gives it some kind of kudos, how somehow we see relevance in a plastic inflatable octopus with an aging DJ as its "brain".

The Olympic Games were organised very well. We got everything ready on time, but end up showing how Britain is slowly going down the plughole with really nothing new to say. The opening ceremony showed we were once the workshop of the world, the closing ceremony showed we don't know where on earth we are going any more.
Quite sad really.

 wonderblog
I personally thought it was was deeply disappointed climax to a thoroughly inspiring two weeks. There was no central concept or over-riding vision.
The fashion segment was unforgivable (Victoria Beckham included in the same list as Vivienne Westwood and Paul Smith? Really?). George Michael outstayed his welcome, the whole box-building thing seemed pointless. And if you insist on pursuing the questionable idea of turning a closing ceremony into a pop concert the very least you can do is sort out the sound and make sure most of your acts can actually sing.

And those acts should be paying tribute to the wonderful participants of the last fortnight, not stroking their own egos from on high. The self-satisfied sneer on Liam Gallagher's face was sickening.

I've no doubt the likes of Kate Bush and David Bowie were approached but quickly bailed when they discovered what a mess it was going to be. Well done them.

Prince Harry seemed a rather junior choice to represent the Queen at such a high-profile international event. Firstly, why couldn't she have turned up herself or, failing that, sent Charles? They've had seven years to clear a space in their diary. And really, would it have been impossible for William to get one night off work?

The entire country was on display to the world and the two senior royals buggered off on holiday. Their absence looked highly disrespectful. And it makes you wonder what we pay them for. If it had been a fucking horse show you can bet they'd have been knifing each other to get the best seats.

 pintooo
"I leave it others to judge whether the big musical section was a fair summary of British pop over the past 50 years."

OK, then. It was shit. Top to bottom and all the way around, shit. I will happily forget the Closing Ceremony ever happened and cherish all the other memories I have of the London 2012 games, from the torch procession through the magnificent Opening Ceremony through to the incredible athletes and the fantastic BBC coverage.
The Closing was a shower of shite and has no business being associated with all that preceded it.

keeshond8
Last night was just bland and vacuous, with the spectre of money rather than medals - as personified by the unworthy appearances of Kate Moss and George Michael - providing a terminal click to the artistry and effort seen over the past fortnight.

 wellkissmyneck
Originally I was very cynical about the corporate Olympics. But I was softened by Danny Boyle's inspired opening ceremony that dreamed an inclusive vision of modern Britain. Then I was seduced, firstly by the achievements of Jessica Ennis, and became progressively excited, awed and moved by the brilliance of so many great Olympians pushing the boundaries of human possibility. It felt like, for once, all the dross and crap of the world had been pushed aside to allow genuine magic a chance to rule our imaginations. I was truly inspired. Then last night's closing ceremony, an OK magazine view of Britain, reminded me what living here is really like, and I came back to earth with a jarring bump...

gracepanda
Well, I guess after the amazing last two weeks we needed something to gently lower the tone and ease us back into the lameness that is day to day life in Cameron's Britain.

The key word here is 'gently'; Kim Gavin and David Arnold slammed both feet on the brakes and sent everything achieved in the past fortnight hurtling through the windscreen.............

well done chaps!

blackbroom
You get served up a diet of slick, airbrushed, perfect professional culture every day. What Boyle did was give us something different - flawed, utterly genuine and human. The gulf between rich celebrity and ordinary person on the street was bridged for once.

I understand that not everyone will have liked it, but the amateurism was not an embarrassing, unintended mistake - it was an artistic choice which carried a totally intended message (we are not like Beijing - we wouldn't airbursh an unphotogenic six-year-old out of the ceremony for not looking slick enough).
Because Boyle put his own emotions into the show, it moved me. I just felt there was no emotion in the closing ceremony - it was entirely cynical, corporate construction.

ndixon1
I am sure the Queen very wisely stayed well away! Why on earth would she have wanted to witness this witless cringe making crap?

ZeroBeard
Four stars? ...Seriously?
It almost single-handedly undid all the optimism and euphoria of the previous two weeks.

DrLongshanks
Was really looking forward to this but it was lacklustre and ill conceived for such a big occasion.
To have the entire library of British music available to pick from and build an epic finale too, I dont think its unfair to have expected more than two songs from Emelie Sande (some agent she has) and then One Direction, Pet Shop Boys and Our House by Madness played on repeat for the first 90 minutes.
It then began to resemble a shambolic X Factor final style cheesy mess.
I enjoyed the elderly Norman Cook in an octopus but after all the fireworks, bells and whistles I couldn't help thinking what a wasted opportunity.

Conejito
In case no-one has posted this already - an acerbic take on the closing ceremony that clearly articulates why I hated the closing ceremony more than I could ever have imagined possible.

It was like all the awfulness that was extracted from the opening ceremony - the fact that no X-Factor, manufactured rubbish was allowed to taint its artistry - was concentrated into 3 hours of Oxford Circus, souvenir-shop rubbish. Check the link here:
http://pastebin.com/4xm2NqJY
http://christt.com/words/closingceremony/

OwenF
I think that most of us here are just trying to deal with how incredibly shit the closing ceremony was, so that we never have to think about it ever again. Even though I tried in vain to get at ticket to any event possible and failed, I thought the opening ceremony was brilliant, and the games superb. It's the (c)losing ceremony that needs to be banished as quickly and as absolutely from our memories, so we can remember how bloody good the rest was.

queequeg7
Someone asked why George Michael got to sing his latest single - and it's an important question. The choice of acts and the worldwide exposure was worth millions. The money involved would be worth looking at - especially the links between the record companies and sponsors. Blur get an off-camera gig in Hyde Park, while Beady Eye get a prime location. And how come Ed Sheeran always gets to play at these things?
On a more serious note - Leonard Cohen would have been brilliant. Hallelujah as the final song.

avidfan
That closing ceremony was what I was afraid the opening ceremony was going to be like. Thankfully, Danny Boyle came up trumps.

The worst part about the whole thing last night was that it teased us into remembering the great great musicians we’ve produced, only to then dump on us with something completely different. Case in point – the big intro showcasing David Bowie…only to give a soundtrack highlighting british fashion (models) – including a plug for Victoria Beckham :(
There were quite a few individual lowpoints –
George Michael seriously outstayed his welcome. Freedom I could take, but that naff second song took the life out of the stadium and dragged and dragged and dragged…

Reaf
"I still despise the smug smooth-jowled politicians cashing in on "feel good factors", and recoil from the horrible adman slogan, "Team GB". And I still hate the nationalistic jingoism of the modern Olympics, compared to the original games of classical times, which focused on individuals not nations." This is what Richard Dawkin's said and I agree - these elements are what I have hated about the 2012 Olympics. I've adored the sport - particularly seeing Andy take victory over Federer. The British seem to lose sight of the human sport and turn it into romanticised rhetoric of royal glee and lasting legacy. The amount of commentators I've seen interview medal winners and thrust a romantic vista upon them - 'What must you think when you cross the finish? I'd imagine you consider all the points leading up to it..being coached by your uncle as a child, losing at sport's day, getting beaten by school bullies', to which their response is an unpretentious and brilliantly honest 'Sorry to disappoint you but, no, I'm just thinking about where the f*cking line is.'

Layer 537 . . . A Summer of Sport, and a New Beginning

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After four years of regular blogging Oxzen has needed a sabbatical and some time off to refresh, reflect and take stock. It's been an interesting few months. 2012 has been an interesting year.

So what's been occurring?

As far as Oxzen is concerned, since the beginning of April - a great deal of watching television. March was glorious, warm and sunny, but the rain began at the start of April. It rained almost daily throughout April, May, June and July. The wettest spring and summer on record in Britain.

Not that I'm complaining. I'd had some vague idea that the summer of 2012 was going to be glorious and I'd spend day after day sitting and walking in endless sunshine. However, in many ways it was fortunate there was little possibility of spending a lot of time outside. It's been an amazing television summer.

From the beginning of April, and even before that, it was necessary to watch the many hours of live televised coverage of the Leveson Enquiry.

http://www.levesoninquiry.org.uk/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leveson_Inquiry

"The first part will examine the culture, practices and ethics of the media. In particular, Lord Justice Leveson will examine the relationship of the press with the public, police and politicians."

This enquiry turned out to be a fascinating carnival of scumbags and professional liars, all rehearsed to the nth degree by their highly paid advisors and spin doctors to find every possible way of avoiding giving truthful answers to the Enquiry's questions, and if all else failed, to simply say, "I can't remember" and "I don't recall".

Leveson was supposed to examine the culture and the ethics of our media, but the use of  words like "culture" and "ethics" in relation to the majority of our predominantly nasty, supine and obsequious media is quite amusing. For "culture" read "the habitual practice of distorting the truth and whenever possible distracting the nation from anything that really matters in our national life". For "ethics" read "willingness to lie, distort, trivialise and smear; tendency to spread alarm, confusion, mystification and fear".

Throughout this spring and summer the government of Great Britain has stuck doggedly to Plan A, with all the obvious and predictable consequences. The 'rolling back' of the State and the trashing of public services has made an appalling and unnecessary economic depression even worse than it already was. The Labour party is not wrong to say that the Tories have been cutting "too far and too fast", but they are very wrong and very guilty in their collusion with the very notion that our public services should have been cut AT ALL.

Any economist with half a brain (ie those who resisted the nonsense of the neo-conservatives and the Friedmanite Chicago School) understands that in a time of recession and a failure of the private sector to invest in the British economy you need to spend MORE on public services and not LESS if you wish to avoid deflating the economy and prevent a recession from turning into a depression. For fuck's sake - we learned that lesson back in the 1930s, thanks to Keynes and Roosevelt.

For some months now we've even had the International Monetary Fund - never a hotbed of progressive liberalism - gently nudging Cameron, Osborne and Clegg towards a Plan B, and the engagement of some common sense in their economic policies. For 'common sense' read 'lack of willful stupidity and ignorance'. Even the IMF, which runs the whole globalised economy hand in glove with the World Bank, recognises that the last thing the world needs is for one its important engines of finance and potential economic growth (ie GB PLC) to crash even further into depression at a time when the worldwide economy needs reflation and growth.

What the IMF may not recognise, however, is that Cameron and Osborne, and their little chum Clegg, are acting out of an ideological conviction that cares little for world stability and economic growth. The limits of their ambitions are to ensure the prosperity of the City of London's financial institutions, and therefore of themselves and all their fat cat chums -  protected, supported and even further enriched in the face of the shitstorm that's already happening.

Contrast this with the more sensible and honest conservative leaders of Europe and the USA (i.e. Merkel and Obama) who have a real concern with the proper long-term functioning of the international capitalist system. For fuck's sake - these European conservatives are even implementing a Tobin Tax on financial transactions. Obviously our Tories will have nothing to do with this tax since it's something their pals in the City have told them they must never do.

Meanwhile the banking scandals have continued, with Barclays being busted for their criminal manipulation of Libor, RBS busted for helping drugs cartels to launder money, and now Standard Chartered busted for their well-paid assistance to Iran to avoid financial restrictions and sanctions. Ethics? In Britain? In Westminster and the City of London? Don't make us laugh.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jul/25/brand-osborne-is-over-recession

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Now where was I? Oh yes - the summer of television.

Euro 2012 took place between June 8th and July 1st. England, as expected, were pathetic, and were knocked out as soon as they came up against a decent team. Spain, as expected, were the winners, beating Italy 4-0 in the final.

http://www.uefa.com/uefaeuro/index.html


Wimbledon took place between 25th June and July 8th, and ended with Roger Federer's record-breaking win over Andy Murray. Roger's a phenomenon, and almost an honorary Brit. We love his decency, self-control, thoughtfulness, modesty, and of course his brilliance.

http://www.wimbledon.com/en_GB/about_aeltc/index.html


The Tour de France took place between June 30th and July 22nd. Bradley Wiggins and Chris Frome rode brilliantly, and finished in first and second places. Mark Cavendish, the other star member of the first British team to win the Tour, was also phenomenal - even though his team's support for sprint finishes was necessarily minimal, since winning the General Classification was the stated aim of the team. However, Cavendish was strong enough and fit anough by the end of the tour to win a sprint finish immediately before the final Time Trial (won by Wiggins by a mile) and also able to win for a record 4 times in a row on the final sprint-finish stage on the Champs Elysees.

http://www.letour.fr/indexTDF_us.html


And finally - the Olympics. The games took place between 27th July and 12th August. Having been drawn into compulsive watching of the Olympics four years ago by the Beijing opening ceremony, it was anticipated that these 2012 Games in London would also be addictive and compulsive. And so it turned out.

http://www.london2012.com/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/08/london-2012-beautiful-utopian-collective-dream

Bearing in mind that Oxzen is not a sports fanatic, usually watching very little in the way of live football, cricket, athletics, etc, and doesn't subscribe to any premium sports TV channels - it's been a very odd and very enjoyable summer. And there's still 10 days of the paralympics to come. In short, it's been distracting, fascinating, refreshing, relaxing, often exciting, and a lot of fun.

I was about to write something about last night's abysmal and embarrassing Olympics closing ceremony, but on reflection I won't. No point in ending this particular piece on a negative and sour note.

Laters.

...................................

Random tracks of the day, thanks to Media Player:

Papa's Got A Brand New Bag - James Brown
Turn, Turn, Turn - The Byrds
Happiness is a Warm Gun - John Lennon/Beatles
Blues to Elvin -  John Coltrane
Work  -  Bob Marley

Layer 526 . . . Welcome to the East End - the Lea Valley and the Olympic Park

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I was talking to a friend of a friend last week who told me he's feeling very excited about moving to the East End. It turns out he was born in Bethnal Green and lived there till the age of five, at which point he and his family moved back 'home' to southern Nigeria. Having gone through school and university in Nigeria he eventually found his way back to London, via several other countries, and then found work and a place to live in the suburbs - somewhere near the bottom of the M1. Brent Cross?

By chance last autumn he was invited to a party in Bethnal Green - the very first time he'd been back there since the age of five. He described emerging from the tube station, walking down Bethnal Green Road, feeling the 'buzz' on the street - the strollers, the pubs, cafes and bars - and thinking "Wow! - this place feels like home! I need to live here!"

He's right - there's so much to appreciate about the East End in 2012 - so much diversity, energy, creativity - the whole vibe. It's not heaven on earth, but it sure as hell beats living in the suburbs. One small example - two brilliant little live bands playing on different street corners at Columbia Road market a couple of weekends ago. It was worth getting an open air coffee and hanging out in the cold air just to enjoy the music. The same thing also happens at Broadway Market on Saturdays.

Another friend recalled driving through ShoreDitch (!) last weekend - well gone midnight and the streets and bars still crowded to overflowing, traffic slowing down to avoid the throng, including, inevitably, various people staggering around drunk, behaving pretty badly.

Apparently the different tribes tend to descend on Shoreditch, Hoxton and Hackney at weekends - the West London crew, the Essex mob, the Kent crowd, etc. Apparently experienced spotters can differentiate them by their clothes and their taste in footwear. East End folk do NOT go elsewhere at weekends. How time's changed the old manor.

And now, of course, the Olympic thing is coming to its climax. Today the Guardian website features this excellent page:

Olympic Park: an alternative tour around the London 2012 games site

The Olympic Games are just around the corner, and thousands of curious visitors are coming to the site to see where all the London 2012 action will take place. Join Alexandra Topping on an alternative walking tour with Simon Cole, of Hackney Tours, to discover the area's greenest spaces and most interesting historical facts, as well as the top views and the best hot chocolate

Click below to go on the virtual video tour:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/london-2012-olympics-blog/interactive/2012/feb/20/olympic-park-alternative-tour
.

Layer 499 . . . The Protestor, The Bank of Ideas, Occupy, Secrets, The European Union and Dave

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The first real frost of the season last night - a perfect winter's day today: blue sky, bright sunshine and no wind.

Where does time go? Christmas is only a week away, yet autumn's hardly over. So what's been occurin'?

It seems Time magazine has chosen "The Protestor" as its "Person of the Year" -

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2101745_2102134_2102355,00.html


http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2101745_2102132,00.html

Once upon a time . . . protesters were prime makers of history. Back then, when citizen multitudes took to the streets without weapons to declare themselves opposed, it was the very definition of news — vivid, important, often consequential. In the 1960s in America they marched for civil rights and against the Vietnam War; in the '70s, they rose up in Iran and Portugal; in the '80s, they spoke out against nuclear weapons in the U.S. and Europe, against Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, against communist tyranny in Tiananmen Square and Eastern Europe. Protest was the natural continuation of politics by other means.

And then came the End of History . . . globally triumphant "Western liberalism." The two decades beginning in 1991 witnessed the greatest rise in living standards that the world has ever known. Credit was easy, complacency and apathy were rife, and street protests looked like pointless emotional sideshows — obsolete, quaint, the equivalent of cavalry to mid-20th-century war. The rare large demonstrations in the rich world seemed ineffectual and irrelevant. (See the Battle of Seattle, 1999.)

"Massive and effective street protest" was a global oxymoron until — suddenly, shockingly — starting exactly a year ago, it became the defining trope of our times. And the protester once again became a maker of history.

Prelude to the Revolutions

It began in Tunisia, where the dictator's power grabbing and high living crossed a line of shamelessness, and a commonplace bit of government callousness against an ordinary citizen — a 26-year-old street vendor named Mohamed Bouazizi — became the final straw.

The protesters in the Middle East and North Africa are literally dying to get political systems that roughly resemble the ones that seem intolerably undemocratic to protesters in Madrid, Athens, London and New York City. "I think other parts of the world," says Frank Castro, 53, a Teamster who drives a cement mixer for a living and helped occupy Oakland, Calif., "have more balls than we do."

In Egypt and Tunisia, I talked with revolutionaries who were M.B.A.s, physicians and filmmakers as well as the young daughters of a provincial olive picker and a supergeeky 29-year-old Muslim Brotherhood member carrying a Tigger notebook. 

The Occupy movement in the U.S. was set in motion by a couple of magazine editors — a 69-year-old Canadian, a 29-year-old African American — and a 50-year-old anthropologist, but airline pilots and grandmas and shop clerks and dishwashers have been part of the throngs.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2101745_2102132_2102373,00.html

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It's been interesting spending some time in and around the camp at St Paul's and also the occupied Bank of Ideas.

http://www.bankofideas.org.uk/welcome/

The Bank of Ideas is situated on Sun Street, Hackney in an abandoned office block purchased several years ago by the bank UBS. It is an enormous space complete with a 500-seater lecture hall. We’re open to visitors and guests from 12 noon to 11 pm from Tuesday to Friday an from 10 am to 11 pm on Saturday and Sunday.

It has been opened to the public for the non-monetary trade of ideas to help solve the pressing economic, social and environmental problems of our time.

There is also room for community groups and other public services that have lost their space due to Government spending cuts to come and adopt a space for free.

Artists, performers and creatives are welcome to come entertain and to help transform the space. We also encourage games, workshops and skillshares on anything from yoga to yahtzee.
The only prerequisite is that this space is not for financial transactions. Trade in ideas or skills, but no one should need to pay to take part in the Bank’s activities.

Room 101 at the Bank of Ideas contains just three tents. And within those three tents . . .

Meanwhile down stairs in the main meeting room Caroline Lucas MP addressed an audience that eventually grew to about 60 mainly young people who sat together on the carpet. Like all good politicians she's impressively confident and articulate . . . And like all bad politicians she underestimates her audience, who nevertheless sit and listen patiently & politely to the usual stuff - standard critiques of the government and its policies.

What's odd is that there's no mention in her 20 minute spiel specifically about banks, bankers and financiers. Yet there we all were - sitting and squatting in an abandoned building owned by UBS bank, for the specific purpose of discussing ideas about the financial crisis brought about by reckless and irresponsible banks. Caroline's answer to a question about the role of banks was so bland and uninspiring I can't even remember what she said. So much for fhe Bank of Ideas. Caroline may be the leader of the Green Party but I don't see her leading this movement for a counterculture and a better way of running societies.

................................................


Occupy movement plays it smart


The London protesters' wholesome, inclusive approach is sensible because it leaves little room for ranters – who are waiting in the wings on both left and right

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/blog/2011/nov/21/occupy-movement-plays-it-smart

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Secret Shopping and Profit Sharing

Tell no-one. Keep this to yourself. There's now a way to shop with ease in London. No hassle and no queueing to get in . . . and no queueing to get out. As long as not too many people know about it.

We all need to shop occasionally - even those of us who hate the whole business. The commute to a major shopping centre is usually a nightmare on its own. What happens when you get there is often even worse.

So now . . . you simply drive to Car Park B at Westfield Stratford. You park for free for two hours. You leave your car right next to the entrance to John Lewis. You buy stuff and you go home. Excellent!

http://uk.westfield.com/stratfordcity/

Other shops are available, obviously. But I really like the whole operating principle of the John Lewis Partnership.

The John Lewis Partnership's 76,500 Partners own the leading UK retail businesses - John Lewis and Waitrose. Our founder's vision of a successful business powered by its people and its principles defines our unique company today. The profits and benefits created by our success are shared by all our Partners.

What's more, they sell good stuff.

http://www.johnlewispartnership.co.uk/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lewis_Partnership

The business was founded in 1864 when John Lewis set up a draper's shop in Oxford Street, London, which developed into a department store. In 1905 he bought the Peter Jones store in Sloane Square. In 1920 his son, John Spedan Lewis, expanded earlier power-sharing policies by sharing the profits the business made among the employees. The democratic nature and profit-sharing basis of the business were developed into a formal partnership structure and Spedan Lewis bequeathed the company to his employees. As of 2011, there are 76,500 partners – the majority full-time – working for the John Lewis Partnership.

Warning - do not go to Westfield East when groups of noisy teenagers are on the loose. Do not go at weekends or on school holidays. Otherwise - it's very good. Lots of natural light, wide walkways, decent toilets, 300 shops and plenty of places to hang out for coffee and free wi-fi.

For a brilliant view of the Olympics site go to the 2012 shop in John Lewis and walk through to the special observation room. Sunset is a good time to go, as the room faces west.

...................................................

Secret Cinema

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10362662

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2011/dec/08/secret-cinema

http://www.timeout.com/london/alternative-nightlife/event/16498/1135328/secret-cinema

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/jun/23/secret-cinema-review


This is a very interesting phenomenon. More to follow.


.................................................

The European Union

It's showtime! Finally . . . . positions are clear, and our Conservative-led government is exposed. The Europeans want to regulate the financial sector, and the Cameroons don't. Ergo - we're not really European and the rest of the EU will move forward on that basis. Europeans (including right-wingers like Sarkozy and Merkel) want to introduce better regulation of capitalism, plus a Tobin tax, and Cameron doesn't. Probably, in due course, the USA will want to introduce better regulation of capitalism. Probably the rest of the entire sane world will want to introduce better regulation of capitalism. If they have any sense they'll then treat the UK like the stinking, putrid bankers' toerags that we appear to be. That will be interesting. Well done Dave. What a true statesman our forty-something PM is turning out to be, now that he's showing his true colours, and the true colours of his entire government, including the toerags' toerags - the LibDems.

.....................................................


Christopher Hitchens has died at the age of 62.

http://entertainment.time.com/2011/12/16/christopher-hitchens-rip/
"A pugnacious, eloquent, brilliant asshole."

And still unforgiven for his support for Bush and the invasion of Iraq, as far as Oxzen is concerned.

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Layer 484 . . . The Olympic Family, Fuckwits, Gridlock, Protests, St Paul's, Fundamental Change and Putting Down Roots

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The Olympic Family

What an unfortunate expression. What can it possibly mean? At last night's meeting/briefing for 'the Hackney community' (ugh) presenter after presenter kept talking about The Olympic Family. What they actually mean is - all of those entitled to drive or be driven along the "Olympics Only" vehicle lanes leading to and from the various Olympic sites: competitors, officials, bureaucrats, etc. It'll be interesting to see whether people like the Royal Family will become honorary members of The Olympic Family. These road appropriations will be in force from 6.00am to midnight every single day for more than three weeks. And if millions of regular road users can't be persuaded to either a) go away or b) just stay put at home during those weeks, then gridlock is guaranteed. And that's not speculation - that's official.

The highlight of the meeting was a woman in the audience who stood up to make the following contribution:

"A few years ago I was in Australia with my son at the time of the Olympics, and I went to spit on the floor. My son said, 'Don't do that - you'll get a £1,000 fine - and you can also get fined £1,000 for dropping litter'. And now I think this is a REALLY GOOD IDEA and we should DO IT HERE. This could really make the Olympics better for EVERYBODY."

..............................................

It turned out there was gridlock in the car park of the community centre where the meeting was taking place. There was a classic moment when it was announced that a car was blocking the entrance to the car park - and a description of the car and its registration number was duly read out. Nobody moved. We all know what happens in this situation - out of sheer embarrassment for being humiliated and for being shown up as a fuckwit you let the meeting move on, and after a decent interval you quietly get up and move your car, or whatever. "Don't worry", said the oragniser, "We'll all look to the front so nobody's going to turn round and look at you!" And then a guy stood up on the front row - and went out to move his car.

Doesn't bode well for the London Olympics.


...................................................


Will the anti-capitalist movement have grown stronger by the time the Olympics begin, and if so - with what consequences? Or will the protesters simply get hoovered up from the streets and detained for the duration?

I've just heard an item on the radio saying that the Bishop of London has said it's time for the anti-capitalist protesters camped outside St Paul's Cathedral to leave. In response to this, the Canon of St Paul's, Dr Giles Fraser, has apparently threatened to resign if the protest camp is forcibly closed down. Previously he said this -

"I remain firmly supportive of the right of people peacefully to protest. But given the strong advice that we have received that the camp is making the cathedral and its occupants unsafe then this right has to be balanced against other rights and responsibilities too. The Christian gospel is profoundly committed to the needs of the poor and the dispossessed. Financial justice is a gospel imperative. Those who are claiming the decision to close the cathedral has been made for commercial reasons are talking complete nonsense."

......................................................


This is from last Wednesday's Guardian:

The Occupy movement has lit a fire for real change


Establishment praise for the Occupy protests reflects anxiety at public anger – which needs to be turned into political pressure


by Seumas Milne


http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/oct/19/occupy-movement-fire-for-change


It's not hard to see why the Occupy Wall Street protests have gone global. What kicked off a month ago in relative obscurity – drawing inspiration from this year's Spanish indignados occupations and the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia – has now spawned protests in more than 900 cities around the world. The only surprise is it didn't happen sooner.


Three years after the banks that brought the west's economies to their knees were bailed out with vast public funds, nothing has fundamentally changed. Profits and bonuses are booming for financial oligarchs and corporate giants, while most people are paying the price of their reckless speculation with falling living standards, cuts in public services and mounting unemployment.


Coming as this crisis has done – at the end of an era of rampant deregulation that has created huge disparities of income and wealth, concentrated in the hands of the top 1% and secured by politicians bought by corporate interests – a backlash against those actually responsible was well overdue.


While the protesters were originally ridiculed as unfocused, or denounced by leading Republicans as "mobs", they are now championed by the media establishment – including the New York Times and Financial Times – on both sides of the Atlantic. Obama has made friendly noises, while his officials say they now plan to "run against Wall Street" in next year's presidential campaign.


In a climate where plutocrats like Warren Buffett are meanwhile begging to pay higher taxes, it's a clear sign of elite anxiety at the extent of popular anger and an attempt to co-opt the movement before demands for more fundamental change get traction.


Something similar seems to be going on in Britain where – against a steady drumbeat of lobbying scandal and escalating unemployment – police and the conservative Daily Mail have so far both given the City occupation outside St Paul's Cathedral a notably easy ride.


There's no doubt that these occupations echo both the spirit and organisation of the anti-corporate movement that erupted in Seattle in 1999. The tactic of occupying a symbolic public space (as opposed to strikes, sit-ins and marches) can be traced back to Greenham Common in the 1980s through a string of often dubious "colour revolutions" over the past decade.


But it's this year's drama in Tahrir Square (acknowledged with an Egyptian flag at the London camp) that has given it such evocative power. And while the 1990s anti-capitalist globalisation protests took place at a time of boom and speculative frenzy, today's occupations are targeting a global capitalism in the deepest crisis.


Which is why they have such a clear sense of reflecting the common sense of the age. What both movements now and then also share is an intense commitment to direct democracy and the influence of an "autonomist" opposition to engagement with mainstream politics – seen as a central part of the problem, rather than any solution.


In that, of course, they're in tune with millions. But when it gets to the point of resisting making direct political demands at all – an issue of controversy this week among US protesters, with some arguing "the process is the message" – that would surely limit the protests' impact.


The Occupy movement has already changed the political climate in the US. Some commentators argue that's enough – and it's up to politicians and wonks to turn the theme of economic justice into policy. But that would be to hand the initiative to the very system the protesters reject – and limit the scope for making common cause with others resisting austerity and corporate greed.


Not only that, but any demands need to be a good deal more radical than "independent regulation" if they're to make sense of the call for fundamental change and action to tackle the crisis: democratic ownership and control of banks and utilities, say, and wealth and transactions taxes for a start.


And as Naomi Klein argued to protesters in New York, the movement will also need democratic structures and institutions if it's to put down roots rather than fizzle and burn out. 


The form and focus of these protests already varies widely from country to country: in Chile, they originally concentrated on free education, but now the target has expanded to include banks and GM crops. Across Latin America, where the revolt against neoliberalism first began more than a decade ago, it has been alliances of social movements and political organisations that have proved most successful in turning protest into economic and social change.


But there is of course no automatic link between large-scale protest and any radical political breakthrough: Spain has been convulsed with occupations and strikes – and is expected to elect a rightwing neoliberal government in reaction to the socialist government's austerity. The populist right can take advantage of mass disaffection as well as the left.


But in just a few weeks the Occupy movement has helped bust open the political class veto on the scale of change demanded by the crisis – and now that opportunity needs to be seized.

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Major meetings are taking place today concerning the Euro crisis.

Seumas Milne wrote this excellent piece a couple of weeks ago:

The class interests at the heart of David Cameron's plan


The Conservative party is effectively the political wing of the City of London. No wonder it can't lead Britain out of this crisis


http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/oct/05/david-cameron-conservative-party-city-of-london


"Our plan will work", was all the prime minister offered by way of reassurance yesterday. But that judgment already looks flaky. And most people in Britain aren't reassured. Nor are Cameron and Osborne's old friends at the IMF, which yesterday called on countries able to borrow at low interest rates, such as Britain and Germany, to "consider delaying" their cuts programmes.


The IMF has argued Britain could afford to raise its debt by 50% of GDP without triggering a crisis. But the Tory leaders show no signs of budging. Osborne's "credit-easing" plan to boost bank lending to businesses simply reflects the failure of his Project Merlin to achieve the same thing.


Not even its most enthusiastic advocates imagine such an intervention will turn round the collapse in investment or demand. But still the government shrinks from using its control of two of the biggest banks to boost investment and lending directly.


Osborne instead came up with a new growth plan: make it easier to sack workers, while requiring them to pay £1,000 for an unfair dismissal hearing in an employment tribunal – refundable only if they win the case. There's no serious evidence that extending the qualifying period to claim unfair dismissal from one to two years will create jobs. 


Signed off by Vince Cable, it also reveals the limits of Liberal Democrat restraints on Thatcherite recidivism. But more than that, it casts some light on the class interests at the heart of this government's response to the crisis.


Cameron and Osborne's refusal to change course is partly driven by ideology, of course, and a determination not to weaken in any way the private grip on the major levers of economic life. But there's something else, more quintessentially Tory, about it.


"If this party is anything, it's the party of small business and enterprise", Osborne told the Conservative faithful in Manchester this week. But that's not the whole picture. As the figures published at the weekend by the Guardian underline, the Tories are first and foremost the party of the City of London and financial engineering. More than half the party's £12m donations in the last year came from the City and banking. Its most lavish donors were hedge funds, financiers and private equity firms: the very interests which drove the financial sector over a cliff in 2007-8.


Now, the Tories' intimate links to banking are hardly new – even if the funding grip has tightened. But a government in the hands of what is effectively the political wing of the City of London takes on a more dangerous significance when bankers and financiers are almost universally recognised to have both played the central role in creating this crisis – and in perpetuating it.


It's not just slashing the rate of corporation tax for banks, or delaying the milk-and-water Vickers bank ringfencing proposals till 2019, or refusing to clamp down on bank bonuses in the teeth of public hostility or vetoing a financial transactions Tobin tax. It's the refusal to intervene directly in banking and finance to drive recovery that most starkly reveals whose interests the government puts first.


None of this, of course, has stopped Cameron talking earnestly about being "completely dissatisfied with the banking industry's behaviour", or the need to "encourage good business practices", or his determination to "crack down on tax evasion". In fact, despite the Tory leaders' withering dismissal of Ed Miliband's call last week for a new "economic system", it's striking how much they have echoed some of his language.


No doubt they've registered the polling that shows most people agree Britain is dominated by "fast-buck capitalists" and "predators, not producers". The problem for the Tories is that those are also their most enthusiastic supporters and paymasters.


If Miliband really intends to break with the 30-year-old "Thatcher settlement", one Conservative cabinet minister told me this week, it would be a highly significant political shift. "But I don't think that's where the British people are," he added, "they just want us to sort out the mess of the last five years". As the crisis deepens, however, it's becoming ever clearer you can't do one without the other.

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