Olympics closing ceremony: if God really is an Englishman, is this what heaven is like?

In some ways it was appropriate that London 2012 ended as it began, with a characteristically British celebration of sporting endeavour.
We had Timothy Spall as Churchill; ironic, given he got panned for his contribution to the King’s Speech. Spall that is, not Churchill.
We had the Pet Shop Boys being escorted around the Olympic arena by what looked like multi-coloured Klansman. Which I presume defeats the whole idea of being a Klansman. And we had Michael Caine “blowing the bloody doors off” Del Boy Trotter's van, and Annie Lennox and her Viking long-ship, which must have had them wondering in North Korea.
At one moment it occurred to me that if the world thought the opening ceremony was nuts the UN security must have been convening in emergency session to consider ordering in the men in white coats. Then a more chilling thought struck: if God really is an Englishman then this might be what heaven is like.
But anyone viewing the closing ceremony in isolation would have been hoodwinked. In fact, they would have been short-changed. Because London 2012 has not been a quintessentially British experience. It has been a gloriously un-British one.
At least to an outsider. Think of all the old-British stereotypes. The stiff upper lip. Our suspicion of outsiders. That whiff of faded grandeur.
They were rubbish of course. We knew the truth. But in our own way we clung to them and perpetrated them as much as those who viewed us from afar. Subconsciously, we found them strangely comforting.
Until 16 days ago. Some people have talked of the last fortnight in terms of a national rebirth. But that’s wrong. What we’ve experienced is more of a national coming out. We’re Brits, and we’re proud, and we don’t give a damn who knows it.
Nothing has essentially changed. We are the same nation we were last month, even last year. But now we don’t mind admitting it; to ourselves as much as anyone else.
We actually don’t like losing gallantly, we like winning. We don’t take pleasure in talking ourselves down, we actually enjoy having something to brag about. And there are things that seize our attention more than the test match score and the weather.
Not that everyone’s joined the party. If you spent the opening ceremony railing against the evils of multiculturalism, or raging against the elitist corporatism of the Olympic machine, then the past couple of weeks have been a nightmare for you. But tough. You had an invite, and if you chose to sit it out and sulk, the loss is yours.
Of course from tomorrow the slow, grinding business of Olympic revisionism will begin in earnest. And over time it will have its adherents. The legacy will prove too intangible for many. The ‘Olympic spirit’ – mercifully destined to replace the Blitz spirit in the national psyche – will prove too transient. Commercialism and greed will make their Faustian pacts with some of our chaste Olympians.
So what. Screw the legacy. The magic of the London 2012 wasn’t that it was a moment when we looked to the past, or even the future. It was an instant when we seized the day and lived for the here and the now.
Mo Farah grabbed the day by the short and curlies, becoming our man of the games. Usain Bolt became our superman. Bradley Wiggins was crowned the people’s champion, and Andy Murray – finally – a Wimbledon one. Title of character of the fortnight went, unexpectedly, to Bert le Clos – father of gold medal swimmer Chad – whose entreaty to “look at my beautiful boy” managed to challenge a few of our own stereotypes of white South Africa. We had a moment of surreal, artistic magic as Charlotte Dujardin and Valegro danced in perfect harmony to the Great Escape. We felt that frisson of domination as Dave Brailsford’s cyclists turned the Velodrome into a fortress. And we witnessed the supreme achievement of Team GB’s games, as golden girl Jessica Ennis carried the weight of national expectation triumphantly over the line.
But for me there was one true Olympic moment. That moment Emma Gibbons punched the air, slumped tearfully over the prostrate body of her judo opponent Audrey Tcheumeo, and then mouthed “I love you mum” as all around her the Excel Arena descended into pandemonium. To those who regarded the Olympic ideal as trite – and before the games started I was one of them – Gibbons produced the sublime riposte.
And now it’s over. Reality elbows its way back amongst us. Mo, Usain, Bradley, Andy, Bert, Charlotte, Dave, Jessica and Emma take their place alongside the Dam Busters and the veterans of Suez and the Beatles and the striking grave diggers and Margaret Thatcher and Princess Diana in that weird Sgt. Pepper style collage that is British history. We will meet many of them again, of course. But neither we nor they, will be quite the same.
Fortunately, it doesn’t matter. Because over the past 16 days we’ve learnt to run and jump and ride and cycle and swim and throw and shoot. But we’ve learnt not to stand still.
Though we knew that all along. It’s why our Olympics have proved to be such a crazy, all consuming, triumph.
Once we would have been scared to embrace these games in such an uninhibited fashion. Well, we’re not scared any more.
We were British, in London, in 2012. The moment a nation came out.PLEASE SHARE