If you get the chance to watch it then do. I was lucky enough to go to the technical rehearsal on Monday evening - awesome!

How come the Olympics needs a great big massive £27m opening ceremony anyway? Sounds like a phenomenal waste of money, to me.

The Olympics are in Britain. Why not simply have the Coldstream Guards playing the National Anthem, then get the Queen to cut a ribbon, declaring the games open. She can then get Prince Charles or someone to light the flame.

OK I admit it, I'm biased. Not only do I not like Athletics, but I also don't like the way our previous government committed us to spending obscene amounts of money on the Olympics, knowing we'd not got that kind of money to spend, and most likely, knowing they wouldn't be in power when it all had to be paid for.

Keep the secret though.

I'm looking forward to it tbh, along with the rest of the Games, once the politics and petty posturing is over.

But they got across-the-house support didn't they.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to the competitions and the opening ceremony if only to contrast against the simply appalling episode of Eastenders that I found myself watching the other night, first time in a decade that I've watched it but if the BBC ever need to save any money then they could do much worse than to start by dumping it.

Not sure why you singled out athletics, the Olympics includes swimming, boxing, cycling, sailing, football, rugby (of sorts), weightlifting, gymnastics ... etc etc.
I guess it's possible to dislike all of them.

I am intrigued though ... how did Tony Blair know in July 2005 that, "most likely", Labour wouldn't be in power after 2010?
If he possesses that level of clairvoyance, we should get him back.

I hadn't realised that governments only commit to what they are going to spend in one parliament and that the Olympics was outside that rule. Thanks for putting me right on that.

The cost to you and me won't be £27m.
First deduct the tickets revenue (prices from £20.12 to £2012.00 across an 80,000 capacity).
Then deduct sponsorship.
Then try and put a price on how much an opening ceremony boosts the profile of of the games.
Arriving at a true cost is not quite as simple or as expensive as it first appears.

The Olympics being the Olympics boosts the profile of the Olympics. It's the Olympics. It doesn't need advertising.

As for Blair, I'm not getting into it, as this isn't yet another politics thread. But even he - in fact, ESPECIALLY he, will know that parties can't be in Government forever, and that people want change every so often. Even if the Conservatives were doing fantastically well right now and immensely popular, I'd pretty much guarantee that the electorate would want a change in 10 or 15 years time.

My sometime photography tutor was at the rehearsal. He said:

"The opening ceremony is very British; a bit cheesy, with a severe identity crisis, a longing for past glories, a long wait for something to happen, ironic, often empty, but somehow spectacular and somehow we pull it off in the end. I was a sceptic, but came away converted despite my best efforts. Well done Danny."

After Boris and the bus in Beijing four years ago, it seems there will be no similar sense of a national cringe.

Boris' rant about table tennis and then having a pop at the Chinese, complete with Seb Coe cringing his head off in the background, afterwards was fabulous television.

Indeed they did.

I love the sport – the things that are doing my head in are the massive, completely OTT corporate b*ll*cks everywhere, and the attacks on civil liberties and small businesses etc.

And having to listen to a recorded message from bloody Boris on the bus!

Walk, like I do.