The opening ceremony set the historical backdrop to Britain for the world absorb. A contextual roadmap of Britain's socio-economic evolution: from the romantic idyl of an agricultural land, through the conquests of the industrial revolution, the horror of war, the development of 'care for all', the emergence of youth culture, the soundtrack of peoples lives, the birth of the internet, today's stream of media-connected social- consciousness and the age old story of love.
Two weeks of sporting competition saw Britain provide an unrivaled backdrop for the events, from Greenwich Park's equestrian events to Box Hill's snaking roads in cycling to the Serpentine Lake of Hyde Park to the final exhausting 'home stretch' of The Mall.
Amongst the joy of the triumphant and tears of the the vanquished were the far subtler human stories, such as the unveering self-knowledge of injustice that saw a Japanese contender sit hour after hour in protest.
The closing ceremony provided a contrasting spectacle to the former. It centered on a London with an oval perimeter road that exists in reality. Its streets represented the arms of the Union Flag, Westminster Bridge and Big Ben the core, those streets wrapped in a 'papier-mache' newsprint that gave torn snippets of famous quotations.
On those streets paraded all types of people and vehicles, from the cockney-cabbie to carnival parade floats to tractor towed fashion bill-boards to chauffeur driven convertible limousines to a swarm of scooters. Those vehicles transported celebrities whose songs and imagery transported the minds of the audience.
It set the stage to demonstrate that Britain will continue to play a vital global socio-economic role on the global stage well into the future. London itself a microcosm of the world, the world in many ways a macrocosm of London.
The words of those 2oth & 21st century populist songs by the likes of The WHO, Queen, George Micheal, Oasis, The Spice Girls, Take That and Tinie Tempa perhaps holding as much real-life resonance for people as the emphatically stirring music
of the 19th century.
Britain hosted with verve and aplomb.
