Get set, Glasgo

Gaffes, guffaws galore as Scots laugh at themselves, with rest of Commonwealth, at a lovely little ceremony.

The Indian contingent at the openin ceremony of the CWG. (Source: PTI)

The Indian contingent at the opening ceremony of the CWG. (Source: PTI)

Gone are the days when gaffes at opening ceremonies of big sporting events would lead to groans of embarrassment. These days you just guffaw, and remember the funny flubs more than the farce of host countries who try too hard to look grand for one night.

Russian creative director Konstantin Ernst had improvised wonderfully with a wink at the Sochi Winter Games, recreating the fifth Olympic ring malfunction of the opening night.

At Glasgow’s Commonwealth Games opener on Wednesday, Prince Imran of Malaysia, also the Commonwealth Games Federation President, tried in vain to unlock a complicated combination that sealed the Queen’s message inside the baton.

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An entire stadium waited impatiently, then sensing the royal’s awkwardness masked by a wide smile the crowd started cheering good-naturedly, before Chris Hoy — the country’s greatest athlete — stepped in to prise open the scroll.

The Queen chuckled, and Celtic Park had its giggling laugh.

At the London Games, they had made Her Majesty — alright, a body double — fling herself out of a helicopter with James Bond. The popular queen sure seems like a good sport, but Glasgow didn’t mind making light of keeping royalty waiting in an opening ceremony that tried to shrug off the ‘ceremonial’ tag.

They laughed at their own accents, at their inability to pronounce dot nation Brunei Darussalam, and finally when they beamed in a message from the International Space Station, the crew was wrestling with gravity-defying mics and tumbled mid-video not bothering with perfect frames and patchwork of editing consoles.

Charm offensive

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It was a Scotland charm offensive — props of a giant kilt, the red Forth Rail Bridge, and nods to several inventors including tyremaker

Dunlop. Whisky barrels and all home brews that are not drams were prominently on show, as was their iconic music and dance. They reeled off their discoveries of which there are many, but it was never a brag.

And they took biggest pride in being the first city to welcome Nelson Madela as a free man, as well as the earliest to admit a coloured man for a medical degree at the Glasgow university.

Sporting ceremonies have exhausted all that is there to pyrotechnics and fireworks with giant masses coordinated to clockwork on even bigger stages. Glasgow kept it short and sleek (they are the design capital) and the most thoughtful choreography was in getting dancers in vivid monochromes to place chairs on the stage so athletes could be seated as centerpiece.

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Rod Stewart crooned his thing, and so did John Barrowman, but the most dazzling moment was when a couple from the Scottish ballet twirled on a bare stage with zero props. No frills, all straight lines, one kiss. Design doyen George Rennie McIntosh would be proud.

The Queen arrived in a chocolate brown Bentley and got a warm applause. She will get to keep Balmoral even if the Scots vote Yes in their independence referendum, they seem to like her very much. Short speeches — even by Alex Salmond — meant the much-dreaded booing never started up.

Celtic Park’s giant screen — like Imax three times over — and confetti used at the right times, sufficed to make it look grand

Sure, there was no monstrous blimp in the sky or bling on the stage like Delhi had, but Scots pulled off the show just fine. Both London and Glasgow would’ve found Beijing and Delhi tough acts to follow. So, they simply scaled down the finances, tightened their scripts, threw in Mr Bean and Billy Connoly for the gags, and told the rest of the world that you don’t need to splurge billions to get a few laughs.