Olympic opening ceremony

[MacV2]

Puzzled as to why French preceded English in the announcements - like who speaks French apart from the French and the odd Canadian

Apparently French is the official language of the Olympics, only because the president of the Olympic committee is a surrender monkey.

Makes me sick

The Olympic President at the moment is Belgian not French. I believe he was an Olympic rower.....The President is elected by the member states of the IOC. Expect to see Lord Coe hold the position one day.

French is the official Olympic language as the modern Olympics is a French idea, being created & started in the late 1800's, hence the speaking of French. IOC is based in Paris.

The Greek team always come in first as a mark of respect/tradition.....

History lesson over I hope that makes you feel better.....

[VTRDark]

the inventor of WWW

That will be Tim Berners Lee then. I met him once a few years back.

It started at CERN where Tim Berners worked, as way of many scientists from different countries that spoke different languages being able to communicate with each other in one language across the computer internal network. An Intranet networks which is internal. When you don't see the www in the url, you know you are on an internally hosted network and not the www.

This was then combined with ARPANET which was a military network originally and grew into what we know today as the world wide web, Internet.

(:-})

[VTRDark]

Well I just got back to Fulham and it a bloody nightmare, road closures all over the place cause of the Cycling

(:-})

[MacV2]

Well I just got back to Fulham and it a bloody nightmare, road closures all over the place cause of the Cycling

(:-})

I've just got back to the PC with no worries & no nightmares, been watching the cycling & it's bloody exciting...Cav for gold....

[VTRDark]

It's not on your doorstep

(:-})

[pariah]

Sorry but I feel at this time there are more important things to spend vast amounts of money that our counrty dont have , like keep open the leciester heart unit for one. The list is endless.

[BigVeeGrin]

To clarify a couple of things - the net gains from the Games far outweigh any costs, which is good for the long- term, and Locog is not taxpayer funded, it's privately done, not a lot of people know that. Add in the feel good factor and the whole shebang is bloody brilliant for us in this global age.

[lumpyv]

i thought the ceremony was good, i knew i would fall asleep at some point though. thought the torch bit with the 7 young atheltes was good and the big torch itself was clever.
i know it was late for an old bird but i wish the queen could have raised a bit of a smile when all those kids sung the national anthem. not sure the the royals really reflect the olympic spirit .
now we have the national pastime of watching our plucky boys and girls getting turned over by the opposition.

[BigVeeGrin]

i thought the ceremony was good, i knew i would fall asleep at some point though. thought the torch bit with the 7 young atheltes was good and the big torch itself was clever.
i know it was late for an old bird but i wish the queen could have raised a bit of a smile when all those kids sung the national anthem. not sure the the royals really reflect the olympic spirit .
now we have the national pastime of watching our plucky boys and girls getting turned over by the opposition.

Yeah, the old baggage even seemed to be picking her nails at one point. She should have had a daytime sleep I reckon.

[MacV2]

It's not on your doorstep

(:-})

No Carl the PC is upstairs in the box room, be silly to have it on the doorstep it would get wet in the rain.....

[BigVeeGrin]

It's not on your doorstep

(:-})

No Carl the PC is upstairs in the box room, be silly to have it on the doorstep it would get wet in the rain.....

[VTRDark]

Very good Mac I shall have to think more carefully how I wright my posts.

net gains from the Games far outweigh any costs

Yeh and £180 pound fines from us every time we go in an Olympic lanes which we paid for.

It will probably turn into another millennium dome after it all.

(:-})

[MacV2]

Very good Mac I shall have to think more carefully how I wright my posts.

net gains from the Games far outweigh any costs

Yeh and £180 pound fines from us every time we go in an Olympic lanes which we paid for.

It will probably turn into another millennium dome after it all.

(:-})

Your right Carl you will have to think more carefully how you write your posts.....

[geodude]

Loved it. Made me proud to be british. As a huge floyd fan, they should have finished it after Eclipse. Oh well.

Oh and as for the "why the french...." and to expand on what Mac said.

".......The ancient Olympic Games grew and continued to be played every four years for nearly 1200 years. In 393 CE, the Roman emperor Theodosius I, a Christian, abolished the Games because of their pagan influences.

Approximately 1500 years later, a young Frenchmen named Pierre de Coubertin began their revival. Coubertin is now known as le Rénovateur. Coubertin was a French aristocrat born on January 1, 1863. He was only seven years old when France was overrun by the Germans during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. Some believe that Coubertin attributed the defeat of France not to its military skills but rather to the French soldiers' lack of vigor.* After examining the education of the German, British, and American children, Coubertin decided that it was exercise, more specifically sports, that made a well-rounded and vigorous person.

Coubertin's attempt to get France interested in sports was not met with enthusiasm. Still, Coubertin persisted. In 1890, he organized and founded a sports organization, Union des Sociétés Francaises de Sports Athlétiques (USFSA). Two years later, Coubertin first pitched his idea to revive the Olympic Games. At a meeting of the Union des Sports Athlétiques in Paris on November 25, 1892, Coubertin stated,

Let us export our oarsmen, our runners, our fencers into other lands. That is the true Free Trade of the future; and the day it is introduced into Europe the cause of Peace will have received a new and strong ally. It inspires me to touch upon another step I now propose and in it I shall ask that the help you have given me hitherto you will extend again, so that together we may attempt to realise [sic], upon a basis suitable to the conditions of our modern life, the splendid and beneficent task of reviving the Olympic Games."

[boz]

Here comes the grumpy b'stards view. Never watched the opening ceremony, nor will I watch the games....bunch of cheating drug taking up themselves endorsement seeking crapheads. How many life saving operations would this whole debacle pay for?
I mean WTF - give Steve Redgrave a knighthood because he can row, big deal!!!! That'll bring world peace eh?
I always thought the true Olympian spirit was amateur sports people with day jobs doing their thang. Nope, overpaid prima donas who only give a sh1t about the next million.
Oh, congratualtions to Cavandish for being the biggest sore loser thus far...."it was all the Australians fault, they didn't want to race and help me win", boo hoo. Meanwhile a convicted drugs cheat walks/rides away with it. Superb.
Andy Murray and his useless Bro' get knocked out in the 1st round by some dudes with no arms using their buttocks to swing their rackets. Not enough dosh in it Murray, never mind fella.
My prediction....Team GB will win fek all of value unless they all get a Monopoly scratchcard from the worlds largest McDonalds..."win a free bag of fries". Just as well because chips are banned everywhere else!!!! Free enterprise eh?
Nuff said cos I could go on all week then start on football.