I'm a bit of an anglophile (visited the country when I was a boy and have been fascinated with it ever since) but I thought most of the ceremony was dull. The agrarian>industrial revolution themed beginning fell flat, and I thought the whole boy-trying-to-meet-up-with-his-honey during the decades-of-music segment was a bit out of place, slightly ridiculous, and boring.
Thought the lighting of the cauldron was cool. That thing was cool.
Thought McCartney was strangely out-of-place. A tribute to British music is fine, but as a closer, it felt more like Live Aid than the Olympics. I always thought Hey Jude was one of the most overrated Beatles songs anyway. But I guess it does put a smile on people's faces, though I was amused to see when McCartney did the whole men sing, now woman sing thing and the camera panned to the athletes, most weren't singing along! Ha! Tells me again that there was something strangely out-of-place about it.
Let the games begin.................