If this is what the 2012 Olympics will be like, I want to emigrate: Beckham, BoJo and a bus

David Beckham, Leona Lewis and Boris Johnson in Beijing Olympic handover to London 2012

Footballer David Beckham is to be the star of the Olympics closing ceremony, arriving on a red double decker bus to mark Beijing's handover to London 2012.

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X Factor 2006 winner Lewis, 23, is said to be singing a duet with Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page for the event, which will be screened live to a television audience of as many as 150 million people.

Beckham, 33, will be driven into China's national stadium, the Bird's Nest, onboard an iconic Routemaster bus, before dismounting to kick footballs with children representing every country in the world.
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Hip hop dancers will then join ballerinas to complete London's £2m, eight-minute contribution to the finale on Sunday, August 24.
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"It is set to be one of the most mind-blowing spectacles ever," a source close to the organisers said.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/olympics/2556245/David-Beckham-Leona-Lewis-and-Boris-Johnson-in-Beijing-Olympic-handover-to-London-2012.html

Thank God for dishonesty. I can't have been the only Briton to shift awkwardly in their seat throughout the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic games the other week. The Chinese mounted an unprecedented spectacle. Thousands of synchronised drummers, acrobats, fireworks, impossible floating rings made of electric dust (surely alien technology, that), dancers, prancers, singers and flingers. Maybe not flingers. I just threw that in to complete the rhyme. But you get the picture. It was amazing. It cost around £50m and was probably rehearsed at the shooty end of a machine gun. Dance, beloved populace! Miss three steps and we take out your kneecaps. Miss five and we go for the head. Dance till your homeland is the envy of the world! Stop weeping and dance!

Yet even as my eyes took delight in the colour and magic, my spirits sank. I'm no patriot, but I feared for our national pride come the 2012 London Olympics. How the hell are we going to top a display like that? Our plans currently consist of six roman candles, Bernie Clifton riding his ostrich, and some Britain's Got Talent prick-a-ma-boob beatboxing on a trampoline. It would be less shameful if we all marched into the arena one by one, dropped our trousers, yanked our bumcheeks apart and let the entire globe gaze right up our apertures for an hour, while the Kaiser Chiefs perform their latest single in the background. If nothing else, it would give the rest of the planet something to think about. They'd never mess with us again, that's for damn sure.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/18/china.olympics2008