Closing ceremony’s got a Stakhanovite twist
‘n’ Pet Shop Boys’ pointy hats t’ can’t be missed
One direction past by anti-clockwise
While Waterloo sunset brought a tear to my eyes
Many nations, many flags
Earth’s athletes pass 80,000 fans
Ben Ainslie ’s our champion bearer
The highest decorated GB sailor
Shoulder to shoulder, no spite, no war
USA, China,
North Korea, Singapore
Smiling, waving as audiences clap
Shepherded by volunteers in electric blue light bulb hats
Cyprus, Guatemala
and Granada at last
Celebrate a break from metal-less past
Kate Bush’s running uphill cubic boxes
Slow time zigurrat tribal performances
Marathon medallists take the stage
Uganda and Kenya
wait an age
Bohemian Rhapsody’s sine wave
Followed by Lennon’s Imagine costumed
imaginatively
A deaf, sign-language choir
Sing to assemble the late bard’s face
Freedom sings
George Michael
As audience pixels graphically equalize
Athlete’s pound the air in might
For Games Makers once again celebrated tonight
Mod-ley, The Who saves us from George Michael’s wailing
Pinball Wizard the Kaiser Chiefs
resurrect
Mind bending for David Bowie
British Glamour ‘fashion’ escorted by fascist space cadets
Entombed in cages, the models dance
Campbell, Cole, Moss, no designers
Annie Lennox rides the black pearl
With bustled masquerade entourage
Wish You Were Here flame cover
welcomes
Russell Brand to hippy mania
Norman Cook’s Right Here Right Now
As the giant vampire squid coagulates
Sexy policewomen and cosplay ballerinas gesticulate
‘Money money money’ squawks Jessie J
Tinie Tempah passes to Taio Cruz
In Rolls Royces circling the crop
Cast back to 1996 with Spice Girls Wannabe
Cam, Sam Cam and Boris jiving
Wonderwall’s Oasis recalls Thatcher’s Cracked street
legacy of wont and grime
People say ‘The British are mad and this proves it’
Cannonball Lee Evans became Eric Idle
And we Always Look On The Bright Side Of
Life
The Romans upstaged by Bollywood dancers
Plus operatic trident wielding Britannia
And a Romanic chorus line with bag pipes
Forget Muse for a moment
Larger than life Freddy Mercury sings from beyond the grave
And Brian May riffs to Fox-Badger arms
Preparing for an apex climax with Jessie J
Mounted for the electric blues now groped by athletes
‘We will, we will, rock you’
And we all stand for the Ptolemaic anthem of Greece,
Britain’s
Olympic jackets are made by NEXT
And the Welsh glugby choir is drunk?
Military men march off with the Technicolor rings
Bojo gamely passes the tatty flag to a Rio bloke
Brazil colours wash over the tired eyed Rogge
Their gift to the re-ignites the working man
‘Samba samba samba’
The ocean passes majestically
This is my world of culture, beauty
It’s contextual, historic, haunting
In pursuit of GB’s game changer
Mega-sid techno priest and a pimp daddy
No slavish pop music
Tricolour beauties embrace fluorescent man
On the ramps, women undress
Then incognito Pelé reveals himself
A mega-ripple for Coe:
‘Thank you to the people who built the stadiums,
‘Who built a new community in the city’
America’s
costumes going back in time
Rogge: Celebrations to continue as we admire
The prowess of the paralympic games.
‘These were happy and glorious games’
I call on the youth of the world
To assemble in Rio in four years time
For the 31st Olympiad of the modern era
And Heatherwick’s cauldron demounts
To Take That and a phoenix
‘The UK’s favourite boy-man band’
Darcy Bacon descends to the Royal Ballet’s 200 super spikes
Reverb cut-off punk remony
Ember-like phoenix presides over
The extinguishing Olympic flame
And Baba O'riley by The Real Who
Marks then end of 16 days of fantastic sport and emotional
mayhem
Transcribed exactly as
it came to me on the night of the London 2012 Olympic Games closing ceremony, 12 August
2012
