Yesterday evening saw the start of the Paris Olympics, with a slightly mad opening ceremony which probably asked more questions than it answered. But the Games themselves are at least now underway, and while it may be easy to forget with all those badminton heats and 10-metre air rifle bouts sitting behind the red button, today also marks exactly 12 years since the London 2012 opening ceremony. With only Rio and the Covid-riddled Tokyo games to split them apart, London was the last time a European nation had to make such a grand cultural address to the world – trying to present and define its essence even as it was bogged down in its own political-social upheavals.
The 2012 ceremony now stands closer in time to the launch of Millennium Dome than the present day. That should really be one of those staggering, slightly depressing markers of time – like the first Strokes album being older than Bukayo Saka, or Dragons’ Den turning 20 next year. It should induce a pang of impermanence and mortality, and yet it doesn’t really.
Because in many ways, London 2012 feels even longer ago, and increasingly like a false memory – one melded together from bits of Adam Curtis b-roll and snippets of reality. Did Frank Turner really play on a giant grass mound inside the stadium? Did Kenneth Branagh dress up as Isambard Kingdom Brunel or are we making it up? Was Mr Bean there, or did we all experience some national norovirus dream? There are all manner of unreal moments to pore over n.