Published at 11:10, Thursday, 09 August 2012

SIR – I have had earache off people banging on about how great the Olympic-opening ceremony was. People who didn’t watch it, people who fell asleep half-way through, people who cannot think for themselves, who just believe the hype the TV coverage and other media opinions have fed their absent minds...

scene-setter: The Olympic rings on display at the opening ceremony of the London Games.

I watched all of it (apart from when I escaped the awful DIN that the Arctic Monkeys made and I nipped outside for a fag, but unfortunately I could still hear the racket they created through my dining room windows).

Although there were many positive aspects to the ceremony, there were many, many more negatives. Let’s start with the exclusions:

Not one speaker who addressed the audience acknowledged the children and youths who all played a massive part in it, during the NHS scenes and the actual lighting of the cauldron. Royalty, presidents and prime ministers, ladies and gentlemen were all acknowledged but that old Victorian attitude – “children should be seen and USED but not heard and respected” was downright ignorant.

If I had been a youngster there , I would have grabbed the microphone off one of them and given them a piece of my mind.

Surely a true reflection of Great Britain’s people, past and present, involves courage, competitiveness and comedy. There were no Armed Forces acknowledged, even though we saved he world from Hitler’s doom. Why couldn’t Danny Boyle have included Paralympians, many of who are ex-forces? For all the political sceptics out there, this would not have been insulting to any other nation. Without our courageous forefathers and mothers, I doubt the Olympics would even still be in existence today.

Although Mr Bean can bring a smile to one’s face, he is hardly belly-laugh material. The Carry On cast, Joanna Lumley or Jimmy Carr would have been far better.

Competitiveness is in our blood. We have fit 90-year-olds doing bungee jumps and all sorts these days, and with the Queen leading such a luxurious lifestyle she should have put the Great back into Great Britain and jumped out of that helicopter herself to send a message of True Grit/True Brit to the world that we will not be beaten.

As for the sports personality David Beckham, he is not even an Olympian. Where were the likes of Kelly Holmes or Fatima Whitbread? Why is it always male-dominated fore the best shots? As if David Beckham hasn't had enough fame and stardom.

The same again for that old crooner Paul McCartney. He picked one of his worst songs to sing Hey Jude. If you weren’t depressed at the beginning of the ceremony, you couldn’t fail to be by the end for his droning on and on.

The world must believe that Great Britain doesn’t have any other icons than the likes of these two characters. No-one else more deserving ever gets a look-in.

Let’s hoper the closing ceremony is less disappointing than the opening one, fingers crossed.

Carol BROADBENT

Ullswater Avenue

Richmond, Whitehaven

Published by http://www.whitehavennews.co.uk