Dear Boris,
I expect you must be getting quite a few of these letters right now... “2012 - Opening Ceremony - what the hell are we going to do?”
Fear not, or as the saying goes... “The only thing we have to fear is... Stephen Bayley or some other Design Guru getting his hands on it.” Of course it was Bayley who walked out on The Dome, the white elephant which for a generation will serve as a reminder of how we can get things spectacularly wrong when we let the focus groups, the PC brigade and the all-things-to-all-people fanny about with a ‘Grand Projet’.
It seems clear that these events only work if they are entrusted to one person to oversee them; one person with a theme, a vision, a through-line, a sense of purpose, scale and imagination. Moreover, someone with a sense of narrative, someone who knows the story that needs to be told.
And the story itself? It seems these days people have become unclear as to what Britain actually stands for, what she represents. Certainly Britain of Old, The Empire, hangs around my generation’s neck like a millstone. But there is much in our History of which should be rightly proud. Nevertheless, unlike the Chinese, I’m not sure that an Olympic ceremony should solely be about that... spacemen and Sarah Brightman notwithstanding.
Comment has already been made as to how much the Chinese had to whitewash from their past during their ceremony, and we would no doubt be accused of the same thing, especially from press naysayers keen to leap up and down like spoilsports from the touchlines. But what 2012 really provides us with is an opportunity to move forward. Too often Britain is seen as a Nation trading on its past. The National Heritage version of Britain seems to be defined by others, and greedy for their dollar, we forever play up to it. While I think there is no harm in referencing our proud History, we should treasure it rather than be bound by it.
The great thing about our country has been its ability to constantly re-invent itself. You of all people hardly need a lesson in History, but I do think this is a theme we should celebrate.
Over the years and during my travels, one thing I have become both aware of and delighted by when speaking to people from foreign lands is the main reason they give for coming to Britain. They come here to feel free. Not in a traditional political or economic sense but something more personal, more emotional. We live in a country that celebrates the eccentric, the idiosyncratic, the one-off. We are quick to assume but slow to judge. We can bluster and grump but at the end of the day if you’re an honest, kind man or woman who works hard and has a good sense of humour, more often than not we will take you to our hearts, wherever you originally hail from.
Young people travel to Britain from all over the world for precisely that reason; to escape the shackles of their family, their society, their religious or social upbringing. Here they can dress how they want, wear their hair how they want, play the music they want, and no one bats an eyelid. This sense of liberation we take for granted. For people from other lands, it’s a revelation.
This is the kind of spirit we need to celebrate in 2012... the uniquely British concept of the individual. We love the bawdy, the belligerent and the bold. We’re often crude, curmudgeonly, loud and obscene, but we’re also the country of manners, of understatement and the stiff upper lip. This contradiction and complexity should be extolled. It’s what makes us original. It’s what makes us who we are.
So... no sanitized version. No Morris Dancers and Maypoles (unless styled by Vivienne Westwood and Alexander McQueen). We have some of the greatest artists, designers, musicians, actors, dancers and singers in the world. We have have black, brown, yellow, straight, gay, and people somewhere in the middle... we have Radio 4 and Pirate Radio.
What we have is a big old rainy-day umbrella coming out of a Mary Poppins’ carpet bag, everything is in there and everything is sheltered by it.
This is the Britain we need to show off... with glee, with a tongue sticking out, with our bums in the air and with a firm but polite handshake.
We need to show off our Queen, our benign and benevolent Mum... always charming, always unruffled. And like Artful Dodgers, we need to show off ourselves.
By the time our show’s over in 2012 we should want everyone watching from all over the world to be thinking - “That looks like one hell of a place... when can we go?”
Until then...
A thunder-thighed Leona Lewis, a gurning Jimmy Page, a zonked David Beckham looking as if he'd crossed one time zone too many... doesn't portend well. And the Junior Showtime dancers? Hmmmmm....