So your Canadian correspondent is sitting here with a gin and tonic and a roaring fire watching the opening ceremony for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver and Whistler.
There has been a slight problem with the concept recently, most due to the positively balmy temperatures in Vancouver which has means there is no snow on Cypress Mountain where the ski acrobatics and snowboarding is due to take place - they were shipping the snow in from a nearby mountain, then that ran out and they had to get the world second largest helicopter (a Sikorsky followed by some random numbers and letters apparently) at a cost of $10000 per hour....and its a four hour round trip!!! per bucket...okay its a big bucket but I am thinking mountain...got be a lot of buckets...then it keeps melting....so more buckets....on the upside if you are the owner of the worlds second largest helicopter it must seem like all your Christmases have come at once!!
So on the ceremony and I thought I would give you the high/lowlights so you can flick through on the TiVO/PVR...
Okay, its staged in GM Place which is where they play the hockey games - when you see the amount of seating you realise than hockey is a pretty major thing here! It also has a 'soft roof' and apparently if all the doors open at once the roof deflates! So everyone has to go through airlocks...literally...which is quite funny when you have a guy with a 3 ft high flaming torch trying to get out to light the beacon waiting for the airlock to cycle...
...okay so the good bits....the Team GB...a little taste of home...Team Canada...mitten madness!...Nicki Yanoski belting out the Canadian National anthem...she's 16 and basically knee high to a grasshopper...whales in the middle of GM place...v. cool! (now you are going to watch!)....the fiddlers...lots of diddley-diddley...giant sparkly polar bear...not one but 4 athletes to light the torch...totally Canadian!! And if you wonder who Wayne Gretsky is...he's the Canadain equivalent of Beckham/Lineker/Bobby Charlton/GOD in one...put the whole 1966 World Cup winning squad into one person and then double it!!...police NOT freaking out when loads of over eager kids hopped the barricades and running alone side the car with Wayne+torch...poetry guy (trust me)...kd lang bringing the house down with Alleuia
and the not so good....avoid the Opera singer...and the French singer...the speech by the head of the IOC....the start...the whole team intro thing...except the UK/Canada of course!...the strange flying skiers/snowboarders.. thats just odd...French before English...its only bloody Quebec!!...Sweden...Mittens? OUR idea!
oh and the person who had the worst night possible? The hydraulic lift operator/engineer. Rehearsal after rehearsal..flawless. Every bug ironed out, every piece checked and rechecked. Like clock work through the night...giant totem poles...the Rocky Mountains..Trees...stages...everything perfect...then the Olympic torch needs to be lit....umm....err (I'm sure it was a bit stronger than that under the stage)...1 of the 4 athletes starts to look a bit uncomfortable...4 athletes...3 torchy lighty things...nope, its not going to happen....very good response from the TV guys,change the angle on the camera and bingo it looks okay!
There you go - 4 hours of TV (and no I didn;t watch it all - Shaun's not here so I can watch 4 channels at once without driving him insane!) condensed into 10 minutes.
