IT was the answer to everyone’s prayers. The skies cleared, all the anxieties were swept away and Battle commenced at the command of the Lieutenant Governor.
There’s something of a sneaking complacency which says that even if nature has been throwing every inclemency at us for days before, come Thursday lunchtime, the spell is cast and Jersey’s unique spectacle bathes in sunshine, bonhomie and an over-bubbling relief and enthusiasm – a fitting return for all the hours of hard work, preparation and expectation.
By all accounts, this year’s Battle provided one of the best displays of float-dressers’ art and accompanying high spirits along the Avenue. There was no violence, few of the breakdowns and interminable hold-ups which dogged earlier parades, and but for the opportunity for a free peep along the way, the event was deemed a huge success for the Island’s image. Furthermore, a financial ‘fairy godmother’ has now guaranteed backing, so the show may go on.
Contrast this with the other glittering spectacle parading to the world’s media half way across the world.
It too was the product of long-term meticulous preparation, depended heavily on commercial sponsorship and reflected a country’s open window to the world. Obvious, but superficial comparisons apart, you couldn’t help but feel there is a world of difference between the natural exuberance and general delight of the crowds on Victoria Avenue, and the militaristic artifice and regimentation of the opening ceremony of Olympic Beijing.
Let me say immediately there’s a great gulf fixed between the set-piece puppetry of the opening and closing razzmatazz and the genuine effort, training and dedication of competitors striving for the podium to achieve personal triumph and national acclaim. The aspect that grates is the hijack of an ideal for sheer Barnum and Bailey jingoism and crude nationalism. Nothing, it seemed, was permitted to interfere with the façade engineered by the organisers and their political masters. The subsequent tales of dubbed singing by a ‘prettier’ girl chorister, bussed-in spectators, and faked TV pictures of the firework effects during the opening ceremony just make it all the more tacky. And since it’s all bound to come out in the wash, why do they bother to do it?
Given the high costs involved – both financial and as regards credibility – you have to wonder why countries continue to scramble for the ‘honour’ of staging the two week spectacle. It’s a high-risk strategy, exposing yourself to all the rigours of an inquiring, sceptical press; subjecting your infrastructure to thrombotic stress – regardless of any political upset which could erupt during the proceedings, or leading up to them, and turn triumph into disaster.
Think of the public relations minefield sown by the blue track-suited torch enforcers who rampaged through acquiescent local streets on the way from mount Olympus. Nevertheless, Peking’s extravagant £22 billion price tag will be enviously eyed up by London, already well into its own cost-spiralling preparations for staging the event in 2012.
There’s no way London can compete with the infrastructure that has been imposed with brutal dictatorial efficiency, destroying homes and creating such eye-catching architectural structures. Nor should it even try. There is no comparison between the sterile political asphyxiation of Olympic Beijing and free, albeit a trifle ‘rough and ready’ London, though the organisers will have to brave the pressure of the Olympic juggernaut which year-on-year demands the latest event will be the ‘best games ever’! 
This, of course takes no account of the consequences for the home town hosts: Montreal saddled with years of crippling debt after 1976, and Athens, a mere four years after the glitz, faced with policing a rotting, gypsy-inhabited slum, the remnants of its over-commitment.
Of course, a good spectacle engenders a very welcome ‘feel-good factor’. Look at the happy faces on the Avenue, the amazing scenes in the Mall during recent Royal weddings and jubilee celebrations.  Now, the outstanding success of ‘Team GB’ – shouldn’t that be ‘Team UK’ – in Beijing has brought acres of positive headlines in the national media and – no doubt to the relief of the Chinese authorities – swung the spotlight away from reporting the underlying repression in the country.  A cynic might suggest they engineered that too!
The point is, of course, the most successful spectacles are those in which everyone feels they have a stake – from our own local modest celebration of flower-power, our ancestors’ harvest suppers, indeed many of the traditional thanksgivings for the seasons, through to participation in competitive sport. All demand some degree of input, even hardship to achieve success.
Where it all goes pear-shaped, is when the spontaneity and honesty is hijacked. Sadly, this has all too often become a feature of State occasions, where the choreographed ritual replaces genuine emotion. Obsessive attention to ‘dress codes’, timing and ‘what’s expected’ can be disappointingly counter-productive – witness the despair of veterans dragooned past the Cenotaph, and the chasm between establishment and public sentiment at the time of the death and funeral of Diana Princess of Wales.
‘So may the outward shows be least themselves’, says the Bard. Progressively, the Olympics have strayed well into that category. Events such as synchronised swimming and beach volleyball might delight the voyeurs of late night cable television, but have scant relevance to the ideals of triumph over adversity which characterised the ideals of the Olympians.
The militaristic over-trumping of the packaging witnessed through the smog of Beijing certainly did nothing to inspire. Only the feats of individual drugs-resistant athletic prowess and dedication came to its rescue. Which brings me back to the honest amateur exuberance of the annual non-Battle. Maybe that’s why the sun keeps shining on our parade.