After years of planning and months of the Olympic Torch passing through as much of France as possible, and people trying to get enthused about it all, last week it started! Opinions are divided over the opening ceremony, ranging from censorship, through moans about it being boring and taking too long, being bitty and strange, to out and out adoration. It seems to depend on how well you know French history and culture and whether you can be bothered to dredge your memory for interminable teams with flags parading into tight capacity Olympic stadia in previous iterations.
I can see both sides - from my academic and intellectual perspective, it was an interesting take on how to parade sportspeople from over 200 nations into a holding area where they can observe the Olympic oath being taken by representatives. The logistics are always challenging, so to take to the water adds another dimension and a different way of doing it. I suspect Los Angeles won't try to imitate that! On the detail of some of the tableau, well, if you don't know French history or popular culture, many things will go over your head and the always quirky Philippe Katerine may well be a long way outside your comfort zone.
Some have said it was too inclusive - but working to the French moto of Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité, I don't think you can overdo the inclusiveness, including a 100 year old Olympic Gold medal holder being the third last link in the torch relay. There were moments that had me teared up (French boat going under the bridge), or held in wonder (the horse charging up the Seine), or just downright proud to live in France (the light show around the Tour Eiffel), but people will never agree. I liked it, you may not have done, but as always I found something else to do while the teams were on the move.
I've not included a picture - there are many in the public domain.
In the run up to Friday, all the discussion was about the weather - would it stay dry? Would the front pass through beforehand? Would it just be a bit of cloud and the odd drop of rain? At no time did the forecasters say, "It will pee it down like you haven't seen in Paris in July without thunder for years". O well! The week was so mixed with hot sun on Wednesday and Thursday, and now again on Sunday. It just goes to show you can't rely on the weather behaving itself. But today things are looking lovely.
The sky last evening did actually presage a change in weather, with a wonderful, luminous pink effect across high clouds heading away to the east. Today is the transition from something akin to October to high summer, which is due to last three or four days I gather!
Yesterday I dug up a load of potatoes for the week - they are looking good, but aren't really interesting to photograph. While I worked I was whistled at a lot by a golden oriole, so I replied, imitating its call. We kept up our conversation for a good quarter of an hour - I wonder what we said!
A final item from yesterday, was that the usual Saturday market in Baugé was augmented by the monthly display of classic, vintage and collectable cars and vans. Some are quite magnificent, while others make me feel old as they were normal when I was growing up. To add to the display this month, they brought along entertainment - a clarinettist playing jazz standards to a backing track. He was very good and it was a delight. I hope he comes back again soon!
Anyway, for a Sunday, we have a very busy end of the day (annoying as I would quite like to vegetate in front of the TV watching the cross country bit of the Olympic 3 day event from Versailles, but they keep cutting away to basketball or table tennis, so I guess I'm not missing much). I had better go and do "stuff", and wish you a good week!
Comments