Opening ceremony: British enough

A little bit noisy and a little bit messy, but it looked British enough.

Vowing to impress the world with its specialty, the opening ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics dropped the traditional way but delivering somehow a mixture of concert and stage play.

With the ringing of the largest harmonically-tuned bell worldwide, the opening ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics kicked off at the Olympic Stadium on Friday night with a strong British ascent to welcome more than 10,000 athletes hailing from 204 different countries and territories at the 17-day gala event.

Boasting a history of industrial revolutions and rich culture legacy, the London organizing committee just made the two elements to maximum.

The show started with a picture of the pleasant British country life featuring farmers tilling the soil, cattle fed by housewives and picnics held on the meadow on the center site, which was designed to emulate the rural landscape in east London.

Wowed by greeting videos, featuring soccer star David Beckham delivering the torch on a yacht along the Thames, all th 80,000 attendees applauded while playing Mexican waving to expect more thrills.

After another segment celebrating Britain's role as the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution with a dramatic stage change, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Head of State, accompanied by her husband the Duke of Edinburgh, entered the site with Jacques Rogge, IOC president.

Following the parade, the show continued with demonstrating some renowned British-made products including imaginative children's literature, Olympic-themed movies and modern pop music.

A glittering collection of celebrities including Horry Potter's writer JK Rowling and the comic actor Rowan Atkinson (better known as the Mr Bean) appeared one by one to join the show and made it into the climax.

"The opening ceremony here is different and I believe it is wiser for London not to emulate the ceremony in Beijing," Rogge said. "You can see something about the history, about the way of life, about what I would call the Britishness."

The athletes' parade begun led by Greece and concluded with the entry of Team GB.

The Chinese delegation entered the stadium as the 42nd with basketball player Yi Jianlian flying the national flag.

After a bicycle-parade show going with British rock band Arctic Monkeys' live performance, Sebastian Coe, Chair of the Organizing Committee and president Rogge gave speeches respectively before Queen Elizabeth II declared the official opening of the Games.

And then, the most closely guarded secrets about how to light the cauldron was unveiled in a stunning way.

Seven young torchbearers moved towards the central stage and ignited a single tiny flame within one of the copper petals on the ground, triggering the ignition of more than 200 petals.

The cauldron's long, elegant stems gently rise towards each other and converge to form one great flame.

With the cauldron lighting the whole stadium, legendry British songwriter Paul McCartney appeared near the bell, singing the best-seller pop song, Hey Jude, with all the attendees to play the evening out.

Despite some dislike about the performance at the opening stage, most of the audience credited the unique British approach.

"I see some of the feedbacks online that they didn't like it. But I thought it was good. It's not that big or spectacular, but it's very British flavored," said Danny Borshchevsky, a reporter from Israel.

According to a poll on China's Sohu.com, almost one third of the voters said their favorite part was the cauldron lightening.

"I think the way they light the main torch made the whole ceremony to another level," Philip Jorgensen, a Danish tourist, told China Daily after the ceremony.

"The first half was not that intriguing as I am not a big fan of British music, but the torch was really impressive," he said.