KEY POINTS:
Let the Games begin, then. And let the sitting around on the couch to all hours of the day and night with three kinds of salted snacks, a variety of ales and a bloody big heater begin, too.
I must confess my eyes were glazing more than a
little weeks before Friday night at the very thought of yet another Olympics beginning.
Apparently the Games begin every four years. Perhaps it's age, but they seem to me to begin every 1.3 years these days.
Still, I allowed myself a smidgeon of excitement at the idea of them beginning.
In keeping with the now customary practice of having the build-up to any sporting event go on for what seems longer than the sporting event itself, TVNZ began broadcasting a full 2 1/2 hours before the Beijing shindig began.
It was 2 1/2 hours of padding really, with a history of every gold medal New Zealand had won at past Olympics, plus a series of outrageously gushing advertorials for the host city's tourist attractions.
The highlight of the build-up was most definitely anchor Peter Williams' explaining by way of a moan about his accommodation that, for the Chinese, the number eight is auspicious.
"I'm on the eighth floor of the Hubei Hotel and there are 18 light switches in that room - pity only 16 of them work." Anyway ...
In the absence of Tony Veitch, Williams is the man in charge of guiding us through the next two weeks of whatever it is they do at the Olympics.
I'm not sure how he's going to handle it: a day into the Games his desk was covered in piles of paper, suggesting he has trouble with tidiness.
How long before he's hidden by spent pizza boxes and crushed beer cans?
However, it was Keith Quinn - he's been to every Olympics since Plato was a boy, apparently - who was the sage tasked with guiding us through the intricate opening ceremony. With sidekicks John McBeth and host Sophie Zhang (there to offer a New Zealand Chinese viewpoint) at his side, Quinn bragged to viewers that he had expanded the 80-page opening ceremony bible issued by Games organisers to 180 pages.
"It's got everything we need to know and what we hope we'll be able to impart to you at home about the opening ceremony ... "
A question Keith: Did you read, actually read, the bible? If you did, your short-term memory and your powers of comprehension must have begun fading when Aristotle was boy.
One couldn't fault the ceremony itself. It was lush, magical, elegant, moving and endlessly imaginative - even if there was something a little creepy about all those people acting as one to celebrate the first opening since 1980 of the Olympics in a one-party, totalitarian state.
The highlights were many. For me, I'd pump for the moveable-type section, the Cecil B. DeMille-esque Silk Road bit and, of course, the astonishing flame-lighting sequence.
Yes, it was all rather eye-opening. Meanwhile the accompanying commentary from Quinn and McBeth was eye-watering.
It seemed to be being piped in from the Shady Trees Retirement Village for the Bewildered.
Let's just say if non-sequiturs were an Olympic sport, they'd have taken the gold. A selection of my favourites:
"It's beautifully co-ordinated as only the Chinese can do."
"Can't complain about this not being extremely visual."
"We've certainly moved away from the ancient or historical."
Is this a hint, John, of more, er, space exploration from China in the not too distant future?"
"Now back to those kids from the 56 ethnic groups, unless I'm mistaken."
The wisdom of letting these two aging sports heads loose on the opening ceremony is questionable. But then this is what happens every 1.3-to-four years.
Why didn't TVNZ organise someone with half a clue? Why didn't they send Hamish Keith and Ngila Dickson, for example.
He could have explained whether things had any artistic merit and she could have told us about the costumes.
Instead, a most beautiful Olympic opening ceremony was marred by waffling and inanity. It was tragically uncoordinated, as only TVNZ can do.
