00:01 They've been 2578 days in coming, but the Games are finally here. London's Olympic Opening Ceremony takes place today! 00:02 Last minute rehearsals continue inside the stadium. Danny Boyle still can't get his troupe of Cockney tapdancers to throw their flat caps into the air simultaneously. 00:30 Following last night's Torch Relay fiasco, Buckingham Palace is still burning. 01:30 Somewhere in West London, Seb Coe can't sleep. 05:16 Sunrise. There's gold in the east. 06:00 Traffic cones are laid out along the Games Lanes between Park Lane and Stratford. 10 points for the first person to spot a coach full of executives. 07:12 Severe delays on the Jubilee line due to a signal failure at Waterloo. Not a problem. Twelve hours later, now that would be a problem. 08:00 The newsagent on Stratford High Street quietly doubles his prices. 08:50 Time to pull an Olympic sickie and ring your boss claiming you can't get to work due to excess road traffic. It's all lies, obviously, but your boss lives in Surrey so won't see the flaw in your excuse. 09:00 London's first Olympic event kicks off - the preliminary ranking rounds of the Archery at Lord's. Even better, this is not a ticketed event... so tens of thousands of people have turned up, because it's good to be first, and because they didn't get tickets to anything else. 10:03 Police carry out a controlled explosion on a carrier bag in Greenwich town centre. 11:00 Bob Crow opens his mouth to threaten strike action on the tube - but a level-headed bystander knees him in the groin, and he shuts up. 11:37 Several groups of lost Chinese tourists are wandering around Plaistow taking photographs, probably for the first time ever. 12:00 Police arrest street traders trying to flog fake Olympic t-shirts in Hackney Wick. They needn't have bothered, because that logo still hasn't grown on anyone yet. 12:45 Wenlock and Mandeville go for a walk on Tower Bridge. They are not mobbed. 13:10 Police wander up and down Bow Road randomly searching people, because you can't be too careful. 14:22 Did you sign up to be an Olympic volunteer? Well, good news - there's a toilet at the Basketball arena needs unblocking. 15:30 Police complete their third check beneath manhole covers on Stratford High Street. 15:31 A bomb explodes in a shopping mall in Birmingham. Didn't see that coming. 16:00 Outside City Hall, several lines of BP-sponsored bunting flap in the drizzle. 16:48 Sue Barker and Gary Lineker take up position in their BBC penthouse above the Greenway. They won't be coming out for a fortnight. 17:00 Olympic refuseniks get in their cars and leave town until the whole bloody thing's over. 17:05 Major traffic jams on the Blackwall Tunnel Approach Road (unless you're the Prime Minister of Belgium, Chair of the Venezuelan Water Polo Association or the Marketing Director of McDonalds). 17:30 The Olympic Stadium is filling up with spectators. There are still two hours to go before the Opening Ceremony begins, but LOCOG can't risk having any empty seats, plus everyone needs to be trained in waving their coloured flag at the right time. 18:00 That noise you can hear, that's Olympic buzz, that is. 18:30 Over in the Olympic Village, thousands of athletes start dressing up in national costume and bickering over who gets to carry the big flag round the stadium. 18:55 Huge crowds are milling expectantly around the Stratford area, several hours too early to see the fireworks and unable to gain admittance to the Olympic Park. Most of them go shopping at Westfield instead. 19:02 Mobile phone coverage across east London suddenly collapses. 19:15 In Paris, life continues uninterrupted, unjammed and unspecial. 19:29 Ready? The world is watching. Curtain up!
And as for what happens in the Opening Ceremony, I still stand by most of what I blogged six years ago...
Olympic opening day
