Best. Photo. EVAH.

Me. Tim. Sir Ian Frikkin' McKellen. All in one shot.

#ThatIsAll

More Paralympic Opening Ceremony photos

Some more photos from backstage and rehearsals:

Mobile Hedges

As one of our fellow tandemists (name hidden to protect the guilty) said, "If I were allowed to attach a small camera to the front of the bike during our performance then the footage may well have looked like this...":

There's also a nice selection of rehearsal pictures here, and a behind-the-scenes rehearsal video here.

Sorry about the failure to embed the videos properly. YouTube's being a bit silly at me tonight. I blame the daquiris.

Paralympics Opening Ceremony Backstage

 
Most people were pretty happy to let us wander around with cameras last night - performers would obligingly strike a pose and (if you were painted green and dressed as a Renaissance hedge, as I was) also ask if they could get a photo with you. The only time I was told somewhere was off-limits was the time I tried to get back from the loos to the room I was meant to be in, only to be told that I should be the other side of the stadium. Pointing out that there were 55 other people dressed just like me in that room eventually convinced the security guard that I might be allowed in.

Anyway, here's a selection of some of the more fun ones from last night.

The Cauldron, during a brief pre-show lap of the stadium (to check it was working and rideable, of course):

The flag bearers: those dresses looked hideously uncomfortable, the shoes were padded out with blister-plasters, the women couldn't sit down properly, but damn could they smile and throw a pose when a camera appeared!

The doggie (I think her name was Trixie, or something like that): also a knew how to work the camera:

This woman was part of the "Protest" scene, and had just seen her country's flag go on. She looked so happy:

The view from Vom 5 as the "Pods" came offstage and we prepared for the finale:

Tim, wearing a far better helmet (he had to let the policeman wear his hat as insurance):

Paralympic Opening Tandems

So yeah. The helmets.

There were people swinging from ropes, people swaying on ten-foot poles, people on roller-skates (who fell over in every single rehearsal!), soft squishy people all around us who were going to be seriously injured if we messed up, and people on frikkin’ fire spinning around a tiny high-up platform! But no, only the cyclists need helmets because OMFG BICYCLEZ!

We’re not sure why. We only found out that we definitely had to wear helmets during the final rehearsal. Until then, only two of the sixteen of us had felt the need during practices – unlike the skaters who wore full body armour and helmets for every rehearsal, but not during the show.

It certainly wasn’t for safety – the helmets were enormous, didn’t fit, and were wedged on with extra padding and hair to in an attempt to stop them slipping over our eyes. And as pointed out above, if it was a safety issue, there were people whose need was far greater than ours.

Someone said that perhaps it was because we had to “set an example”. Well, setting aside the people swinging from ropes and the person setting a cape on fire and spinning it around, we’re cycling full-tilt into a group of dancers and assuming they’ll just get out of our way. There are more pressing issues with the “example” the performance is setting, if that’s really what’s concerning you.

It certainly wasn’t for artistic reasons – the overworked, stressed, and generally wonderful costume department put a lot of effort into making us all look fantastic, and then at the last minute were told “make these helmets look a bit more subtle”. ‘Cos yeah, nothing says “ballroom elegance” like wearing an upturned bucket over one’s eyes. It wasn’t even the choice of the lovely Laura and Lizzie organising our set – the order came from On High (aka “Central Casting”) that “cyclists must wear helmets”, and so helmets had to be worn, even if they didn’t fit and were unsafe.

The only possible reason for making the cyclists wear helmets was to prevent media (if the Daily Mail and its siblings count as such) furore along the lines of “IRRESPONSIBLE CYCLISTS DON’T WEAR HELMETS AND KILL KITTENS”. And I can understand the organisers trying to pre-emptively stamp out negative publicity for the Paralympics, and appreciate that it’s a difficult job to do.

It’s just a real shame that you didn’t get to see us in the Dress Rehearsal without our helmets. We looked fabulous.

Anyway, helmets aside, it’s all been rather lovely, and a more full (and happy) blog will follow, once I’ve had some sleep and sorted through my photographs.

Addendum: Someone nicked Tim's helmet whilst it was briefly left unguarded backstage post-performance. The gits! We had planned SCIENCE involving an axe with it, and they have deprived us of one of our experiments.

Paralympic Park

 
An area of land in Stratford (the London, not the Shakespearean one) is undergoing a transformation from the Olympic Park to the Paralympic Park.

The Paralympic logo consists of three "Agitos", from the Latin "I move"

There's even a monument to the Hackney Fridge Mountain

Look who we found lurking on the river!

History - though we thought it prudent not to borrow the Gloriana and re-enact it.

Heron!

Flags!

Mandeville (the Paralympic Mascot)

It's really rather lovely - in addition to the wildlife I snapped, I saw a multitude of dragonflies, butterflies, a shag, bumble-bees, coots and ducks. And I had the wrong lens on each time...