Portrait of the week | 18 August 2012

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The closing ceremony of the Olympic Games, watched by an average of 22.9 million people in Britain, included a mixed choir of deaf and not-deaf children singing: ‘Imagine there’s no heaven/ It’s easy if you try’; Pete Townshend (67) and Roger Daltrey (68) singing ‘My Generation’, omitting the line ‘Hope I die before I get old’; and Eric Idle, surrounded by Welsh women in national dress, Scottish pipers and rollerskating nuns, singing: ‘Life’s a piece of shit when you look at it.’ David Cameron, the Prime Minister, said that the primary school curriculum would in future include competitive sport; but requirements for schools to provide stipulated space for playing fields were relaxed. Great Britain and Northern Ireland had finished with a total of 29 gold medals (10 more than in Beijing), 17 silver and 19 bronze, third in the tables after the United States (with 46 gold) and China (with 38). Mo Farah added a gold in the 5,000 metres to his gold in the 10,000. Charlotte Dujardin added a gold in individual dressage to her gold in team dressage. Nicola Adams won a gold in women’s boxing in the first year of its introduction. Thirteen million viewers in Britain saw Usain Bolt of Jamaica add the 200 metres gold medal to his gold for the 100 metres, but 10 per cent of the population managed to watch less than 15 minutes of the Olympics on television. NBC’s viewing figures of 219 million made it the ‘most-watched television event in US history’. No terrorist outrages took place and there was wide praise for the cheerful helpfulness of 70,000 volunteers and 18,200 personnel from the Royal Navy, Army and Royal Air Force.

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