A couple of days ago, I had an idea, or rather I had an idea which I hope people in brazil have. Given that one of the most memorable parts of the London Olympic opening ceremony was a short film in which James bond escorts the queen to the stadium, how might the Brazilians develop that meme? If you think about it, it is quite an interesting question: that film brought together two British icons, one fictional, one non-fictional, capturing the moment in the most brilliant, surprising and awesome way. After all, who would have ever expected to hear her majesty utter the immortal line ”Good evening, Mr Bond.”? How, then, could brazil respond to that? It occurs to me that they have to – London threw down the gauntlet when it made this film, creating something emphatically British yet playing with British icons, in so doing telling a joke that the whole world would get. The question, then, is how can rio reply?

I was pondering this on Monday: I have a couple of brazillian cousins, so I thought I would ask them whether brazil has it’s equivalent of 007. Alex suggested a guy called Capitao Nascimento who seems to fit the bill, although I daresay no other character from any country occupies Bond’s unique niche. Nascimento comes from Brazilian hit film ”Elite Force”, and, according to alex, has a couple of cool catchphrases, like ”your not man enough to use the black uniform” – he would do nicely. The question is who would jump out of the helicopter with him, if indeed there is going to be a helicopter at all. As I wrote here, ‘Happy and Glorious’ is a rereading of power structures – power structures which are uniquely British. Only we have this benign maternal figure, slightly anachronistic, slightly absurd but which still has our respect and admiration; only we have a martini-drinking spy who is the central character of the biggest, longest running film franchise ever. Both icons have unique places on not just British but worldwide culture: it will be intriguing to see whether the joke is taken up by Rio, and the meme evolves Brazilian style. I love the way an event like the Olympics affords us an opportunity to play with such concepts, and I really hope London has started a tradition continued in rio and beyond.