So that's that

Saw some of the Olympic closing ceremony. Insanely spectacular in a fairly repetitive way, but:

1. What's the deal with on the UK bus with the gold lame for Leona Lewis, the artfully mixed race violinist-cellist combo in sports kit and David Beckham in his uttelry dull track suit? Bonkers.
2. Nothing staged about the crowds out in the Mall in front of picturesque Buckingham Palace. Nothing at all.
3. What was Placido Domingo doing there?
4. How many toilets do you need to have for 91,000 people in that stadium?
5. Is it not actually possible for Boris Johnson to do up his jacket? And how badly was he longing to shove his hands in his pockets, only to quickly remember that, in front of several billion people, maybe he really shouldn't?
6. Jacques Rogge seemed best able to handle the flag waving bit, though presumably he's had more pratice than most.
7. The Memory Tower - freakily beautiful. Since one of the artistic directors is on record as saying that he doesn't think such things are achievable in the West because of the different work ethic and human rights, does this mean that only totalitarian regimes can do proper spectacle?
8. Were any of the fireworks seeming in and around the stadium actually real?

Ah well. I hardly watched any of it. Slightly scary to think that it's over and now over to London. Saints preserve us.

PS This article by Anthony Lane in the New Yorker from Beijing is great. "And thus the attempt to keep politics out of sport, which is as futile as trying to keep the sweat out of sex, began to falter once more."