"I love this city tonight, I love this city always." Hyde Park, Friday.

Red Arrows@ Hyde Park Opening Ceremony Concert

Copyright @elmurphs on Instagram

As Eddie in Absolutely Fabulous had so brilliantly put it "Well darling - it’s been everywhere for 5 bloody years, hasn’t it?! Will we, won’t we? Will it be built, won’t it be built? Will we win, no we won’t. Darling, excuse me if I missed it actually starting - it’s been like tinnitus!"  Finally, after the tinnitus of the last few years for us Londoners, the day had finally arrived.  To describe my state of mind on Friday as excited would be underplaying it slightly. London had worked itself into a frenzy of Olympic proportions (see what I did there?) and now we were ready to party.  So with an afternoon off I made my way with an excitable skip in my step to Hyde Park to join that particular party with a few thousand friends.  I'd booked the tickets a while ago vaguely thinking that it would be a great opportunity to see Stereophonics & Snow Patrol live but mostly because I wanted to be with London on this memorable day.  My state of frenzy on the day also had a lot to do with the fact that I had seen the opening ceremony and I couldn't wait to share it with everyone else.  

The level of security was mind-blowing.  I had a full body pat-down, followed by a full body scanner, followed by a hand-scanner over my body, followed by a full bag scan, followed by a bag-search.  My umbrella apparently caused some concern.  Little did this deter us from settling down on a well-chosen spot (right next to the path to the toilets and wine bar) and soaking in the atmosphere (and the now flowing wine and cider).  The music was great: Duran Duran's Ordinary World had me singing at the top of my lungs and into the woman next to me's ears in an attempt to get her to move on to another part of Hyde Park, their set also being punctuated with the Red Arrows- always a marker of a great celebration; Stereophonics playing a set of their truly best stuff had me reminiscing and jumping around the park and into the women next to me in an attempt to get her to move on; Snow Patrol finished off the night with a magical set, interspersed with images of the GB team at the parade and the lighting of the torch which brought all my (wine enhanced) emotions to the fore. And Paolo Nutini. (Sorry Paolo, not a massive fan, and was that event really the best time to sing some "new stuff"?).  Plus the opening ceremony shown on the big screens somewhere between all that.  It was great to watch it with a massive crowd and see what went down well (huge laughs for Rowan Atkinson, big cheers for Becks), but I think if I hadn't seen it already I would have been a bit disappointed- it's not very easy to watch a show like that on tip-toes trying to see above people's heads and held-aloft iPads (do you really want to film it off the big screen?  Can't you just record it off the TV?).  But to soak in the atmosphere of such an extraordinary night in the city I love, well, to quote a famous credit card company......Priceless.