Opening Ceremony

[Tal]

Low point for me was seeing Muhammad Ali so frail. His carer said "Wave, Muhammad" about a dozen times but he couldn't move.

Can't wish that on anyone.

[Woodsey]

Agree with pretty much everything being posted.
Lighting of the cauldron was excellent. Paul Mac-why oh why???
Well done to all involved.

Edit - low point - WTF was shami chakrabarti doing there.

LOL that occurred to be too! She is one of the few people that regularly tilts me on TV.

[MintTrav]

Lose the boring half-hour at the start, the NHS bit and McCartney. The rest was great.

[Tonji]

some highlights from Reuters

http://blogs.reuters.com/fullfocus/2012/07/27/olympic-best-at-london-2012/#a=1

wonderful, bonkers, emotional #london2012

[nirvana]

Was out all  night, just watched a recording. Really loved it and cried a lot - music always does it.

Brilliant to see iconic British Images like The Pistols, Prodigy, Trainspotting, Arctic Monkeys - pretty daring really and superbly done.

As others have said, only down was ending with the most pompous of pompouses

[smashedagain]

After being just awful at the Jubilee, why o why did they give Mcartney the gig again. What was the cock up with the timing. Was he not doing it live. As cringeworthy as the Diana Ross miss. Not so sure about having Ali there in his current state relying so much on his sister but it did make me think back to his sporting achievements and he is without doubt the greatest.

Other than that everything else was fantastic

[tikay]

some highlights from Reuters

http://blogs.reuters.com/fullfocus/2012/07/27/olympic-best-at-london-2012/#a=1

wonderful, bonkers, emotional #london2012

Great photos, good find, thank you.

[Simon Galloway]

Was out all  night,

Thin.

[taximan007]

Loved it

Awesome

Proud to be British

[TommyD]

Amazing stuff.  I was fearing the event would be kooky and really naff to be honest, it was far from it.  So many wow moments and interlaced just the right amount of comedy at the right times.  Bounced you between being happy, intense, thoughtful and damn proud throughout.  The cauldron was absolutely perfect.

Like many other people here Macca was the only thing I'd change, should have been Brixton boy Bowie to close IMO.

[tonytats]

Brilliant
Thought the queen needs to learn to smile a bit more
What's the connection between the London olympics n muhamed Ali ? Was he born near bow bells ?
Paul McCartney looked ridiculous a 65?year old man with brown hair n a look at me attitude
The smiles and obvious pleasure of being there on the athletes faces was brilliant to watch ,gl to all of them

[DaveShoelace]

Was out all  night, just watched a recording. Really loved it and cried a lot - music always does it.

Brilliant to see iconic British Images like The Pistols, Prodigy, Trainspotting, Arctic Monkeys - pretty daring really and superbly done.

As others have said, only down was ending with the most pompous of pompouses

I thought the brookside lesbian kiss was a nice surprise inclusion

[nirvana]

Was out all  night, just watched a recording. Really loved it and cried a lot - music always does it.

Brilliant to see iconic British Images like The Pistols, Prodigy, Trainspotting, Arctic Monkeys - pretty daring really and superbly done.

As others have said, only down was ending with the most pompous of pompouses

I thought the brookside lesbian kiss was a nice surprise inclusion

There were so many images that would have been seen as quite subversive a few years back - some of the CND references, many of the soundtrack choices, and quite a few other things that might come back to me sometime. I'll watch it again cause I have a feeling this will come to be recognised as something of a masterpiece by Danny Boyle

[Geo the Sarge]

Brilliant
Thought the queen needs to learn to smile a bit more
What's the connection between the London olympics n muhamed Ali ? Was he born near bow bells ?
Paul McCartney looked ridiculous a 65?year old man with brown hair n a look at me attitude
The smiles and obvious pleasure of being there on the athletes faces was brilliant to watch ,gl to all of them

I thought HM actually looked a bit frail, the toils of the last few weeks maybe taken their toll

Geo

[TightEnd]

One of the neat things is the ceremony was quite left of centre: CND badge, Jarrow marchers, Trade Union reps, NHS etc

One idiot MP tweeting last night aside, he was clearly left to produce his own ceremony, artistically, with no political interference at all


That honesty reflected very well on the country I thought