Olympics chief rings in the games

UK Olympics secretary Jeremy Hunt rang a bell Friday morning to herald the beginning of the summer games. The bell disintegrated, parts spinning into nearby bystanders.

• [RKTR ♫soundcloud.com/rktr]

  The bell breaking sums up how I feel about the olympics.  A large resource-sucking sinkhole dumped upon whatever city invites it, leaving behind years of empty buidlings in the wake of a massive takeover of public land for contractor use.

• [Daneel]

  Bell end ends bell.

• [James Hardy]

  I like to call him the The Hulture Secretary as I am a fan of Revd, Spooner

• [Nathan Hornby]

  These are the people that think it’s a good idea to militarise the entire city, and they can’t even handle a fucking bell without injuring someone.

  I laughed, but then I cried.

  • [fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

    Had there been a suitable complement of surface-to-air missile batteries deployed around this ceremony, the fragments could have been intercepted and a tragedy averted…

• [Warren_Terra]

  I think Paxman had Mr. Hunt’s number, but that’s hardly the bell “disintegrating” and sending fragments flying; the numbnuts just let the handle become unscrewed from the bell and clapper, and so it came apart into its major component pieces.

• [semtek007]

  “The bell disintegrated, parts spinning into nearby bystanders. ” 

  Breaking into two parts is hardly disintegrating, I expected shards of brass flying through the air cutting into bystanders… I know using power words like “desintegrate” is aluring, news channels do it all the time, but this is not “disintegrating”

  • [Antinous / Moderator]

    Funny, because the definition of disintegrate is “to separate into parts or lose intactness or solidness.”

    • [ocker3]

       ah, but our expectation is that it will come apart into small pieces, otherwise we’d just say “fell apart.” An exploding artillery shell disintergrates, something that’s not properly screwed together falls apart, at least in common useage.

• [xkot]

  Sticker on bell: “Made in Britain.”

  Sorry. “The IT Crowd” joke. :-)

• [mat catastrophe]

  Romney was right after all. These people are dangerously unprepared to host a serious thing as the Olympics.

• [Nathan Hornby]

  Incidentally I love how he bumbled nervously, “health and safety!”.  

  I think we can expect some new laws regarding the correct handling of brass bells in public places.  You’ll also need bell insurance.

  • [Nat Mcaleese]

    If bell insurance existed no politician would last a full term…

• [Jed Stevens]

  In six months, when Britain reveals that there was never such a thing as the 2012 Olympics and that this was all a really elaborately-staged prank on the rest of the world, we’ll all have a good laugh.

• [Ben Engelsberg]

  Ah, all of the problems with the London Games are now explained!  The Olympic Secretary is Mr. Bean!

• [s2redux]

  Have the engineers had time to inspect the Great Bell yet? I mean, I get toasty after only 3 or 4 leisurely bongs; can’t imagine what kind of shape a 153-year old would be in after doing 40 bongs in 3 minutes.

• [Katrina van Malksvig]

  doh…

  when I read the title I expected him to have rung and broken the ship’s bell (you know, the huuuge brass bell by the wheelhouse)
  not a poxy little “let me ring for the butler” type affair

• [Narmitaj]

  As for HMS Belfast. I’m not particularly interested in ships, but this is a great museum ship even if you aren’t, and you can get all over it, from the bowels where the shells were stored, into the gun turrets, into the engine room, to the bow where the (or a) brig was, the galley, up to the bridge.  Plenty of exhibits – the radio room, medical station, battle command centre and galley etc full of equipment and costumed mannequins. Worth a visit if you’re touristing in London. Opposite the Tower (promise I don’t work for the tourist board).

  Fun fact mentioned on board and publicised on QI - those naval guns shown in the youTube are trained on the Gateway (formerly Scratchwood) Service station on the M1 motorway heading north out of London, about 12 miles away.

• [Chuck]

  “The torch is on the way to the stadium, right?  …  What?  …  Somebody dropped it into the river?  …  Well — we’ll see what we can do about that.”

  • [Antinous / Moderator]

    Oh, it’s already gone out once when they took it whitewater rafting.

• [Bryan “bytehead” Price]

  I find it odd that I can’t play the clip in Google Reader (copyright claim by Rightster!), but it works here.  Also the fact that Google = YouTube = WTF are they blocking it  on Google Reader for…

• [jimdigritz]

  Jeremy Hunt hits woman with bell end.

• [Deidzoeb]

  Harbinger much?

  • [benher]

    Harbingers only work for adjectives like doom – and such descriptors surely cannot apply to the Olympix?

    • [Deidzoeb]

      At the opening ceremony, they showed a film of Queen Elizabeth and James Bond lookalikes parachuting into Olympic Stadium. I rest my case.

• [dacian]

  Oh my, I first read ”
  The bell disintegrated, parts spinning into nearby bystanders.” and then played the clip expecting a giant bell exploding and hurting people. “Small bell falls on ground.”