Part of me is ashamed to admit that I’m still fairly obsessed with the olympics, and in particular olympic ceremonies. A voice at the back of my mind keeps saying I’m being sad, and that I should start to focus on something else. Yet, when you think about it, I’m not straying too far from my background in film, tv and cultural studies: it occurs to me that such ceremonies are essentially works of art, but on a scale unlike any other. They can be read as presentations by a city/country to the world, and thus are highly revealing, highly political works. I also have a hunch that the olympics in general, from the selection of the city onward, can tell us a lot abut international politics. The ceremonies are therefore rather interesting to try to decode, compare and contrast. I have written on here before of my fascination with the London 2012 ceremonies: if we can indeed read them as we would a film or theatrical performance, surely the next logical step if I’m going to take this fascination seriously is to read them in relation to what preceded it, as well as other events of their kind (commonwealth games, world cups, song contests and so on). Ironically, the ceremonies of London 2012 were the first I had ever watched in full, but fortunately there seems to be a plethora on Youtube – I was just watching the opening of the Vancouver 2010 winter games. There also seems to be quite a big literature on the subject too. That, and the fact that each ceremony is so damn long, means I have plenty to keep me occupied.