What a night

... raising the Flag (2) ...

It was the first time I have been able to sit through an opening ceremony. Whether that is a sign of ill health and age or there really was something special about the shenanigans I'll leave to others to decide.

As expected, the 'spontaneous' roar as Yao Ming entered with the flag was spectacular; less expected and possibly more spontaneous, was the one for Roger Federer - whose birthday it was - when the camera focused on him and the crowd realised he was carrying the flag ...

Maybe the second proudest man in the Stadium.

There was a lot of focus on the tennis stars by the cameras..

Nadal was one of the first individuals to be picked out by the Chinese director (we got what the Chinese got, no choose your own in this event) and later, when the athletes were finally free to move, there was an interesting


sequence of Federer, Nadal, Murray (proving he needs a wash and shave) - then a flash to various other athletes, including Britain's youngest, Tom Daley, who attracted several shots. For someone who isn't really expected to get too far (realistically) he is attracting a lot of media attention.

But then, children seemed to be a major theme of the ceremony - notice Yao Ming's partner (Lin Hao) with the flag.

Whether the child was there to remind the world of the Earthquake, or to reduce the chance of the Yao Ming cult growing at the expense of the communist leaders I wouldn't dare to say, but despite the roar and despite the attention given to other flags and flag carriers the director didn't spend too long on Mr Ming and did spend a lot of time flitting between various communist leaders.

One flag that did get it's fair share of attention was the Union flag. It is only at times like this and in parades like this one that you actually notice just how many countries have it as part of their own.

Not only the obvious ones - like New Zealand, but several others too ... all very emotion stirring and all very told you we ruled the world!

One of the nice things about the parade of athletes was to see so many women carrying the flag ... difficult to find an image though - maybe it is time for the media to catch up with the athletes.

I'll have things to say about the ceremony itself latter today ... when I might just mention Georgia.

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