Abide With Me

[tealin]

I was lucky enough to have access to a live stream of the Olympics Opening Ceremonies as covered by the BBC yesterday, and saw NBC's coverage last night, so I happen to know that aside from the connecty bits over which one would expect to have commercials plastered, there was an entire segment which didn't even air on NBC. It was a segment which made quite an impression on me, and I thought it a travesty that a whole nation was denied access to it.

Unfortunately, I haven't yet been able to find a clip from the official, best-foot-forward directed-for-broadcast video, but here's one taken from the stands:

I am perfectly willing to believe that the average American was much happier watching Ryan Seacrest chat with Michael Phelps than being challenged by a sombre and sublime piece of surreal theatre obliquely honouring 'those who couldn't be with us today' ... but for the rest of us, here's a shred of what we missed.

ETA: Spoke too soon: Here's a link with a working video.