We’ve just been watching the inauguration.
We were big Obama fans. We’d been looking forward to it for weeks. Even timing our completion of watching the entire seven series of the West Wing to just the night before. So we were sitting there with great excitement.
We didn’t want to miss a minute.
I got tense and worried when the timings started going wrong.
And then I was worried when Obama seemed to get the giggles just before taking his oath of office, seven minutes late.
The Teenager was horrified when Barrack Obama stumbled over his words whilst taking the oath of office. We were sitting there with nice cosy socks and chocolate crunchy thingys to eat, watching every moment. We both cringed when he got befuddled.
The Teenager was horrified that the leader of the free world couldn’t repeat six words. He was so disappointed he couldn’t listen to the inaugural speech.
I was also disappointed. I felt he missed a lot of opportunities to connect. He didn’t look directly into the camera when he was speaking; and worse he had nothing to say on a warm friendly personal level to all those people who’d been waiting to hear him speak in the icy cold for hours.
I also didn’t like the preacher he chose to speak. We were amused by Aretha Franklin singing different words to the British National Anthem though and wondered if it was a hint that America wanted to come back into the fold.
I was annoyed by the BBC commentator speaking through half of the music recital.
Then there were the two huge microphones that obscured the face of who ever it was giving the benediction.
And though the BBC laudably did the spin and found chilled dry-eyed black Americans to ask how they felt about the moment; the lack of good long loud applause during Obama’s speech, and the diminished applause at the end of his speech compared to the enthusiastic applause when he first appeared was the stronger memory.
I think when Obama walked onto the stage we thought very highly of him. He had god like status. When he left we were less impressed. He was no longer a god; instead he was Santa Claus leaving us with the wrong present.
I l;istened on World Service before getting SOOOOO annoyed at the idiot 'commentator' talking over the whole thing (like blinking Wogan used to at Eurovision) that I switched to 5Live, whose female presenter was doing a better job before finishing on good old faithful PM. The event was something of a damp squib. A paltry 1/2 hour all told. Us Brits do these things much better!
ReplyDeleteI am still very dissappointed that I didn't spot that 'National Mole' they kept talking about!!!
Wow, that's uncanny. We too spoke of the BBC coverage being rather like Wogan's way of ruining Eurovision. Really wanted to watch 'Hard Rock Alleluja' perform again their winning entry the following year and Wogan ruined it completely for me with his chatter.
ReplyDeleteI too thought that we Brits do ceremonies so much better and said so to TT at the time.
I didn't hear about the 'National Mole' what was that?
(We now realise that it was the chief justice who got the oath wrong and led Obama astray BTW.)