Best in Show: the Olympic Union Jack

Well, after all of that talk of the Union Jack, in the end I suppose its greatest incarnation came during the London Olympics' Closing Ceremony. (Never mind that it was almost two weeks ago; we left early the next morning for a vacation/honeymoon, so I didn't have a chance to get to it.) I was bowled over by the stage, and the way the colors kept changing. My absolute favorite was the set-up at the beginning, featuring London's monuments.

The Eurosport commentators didn't say anything about the design, but just now I came across an interesting article on the Telegraph's website, where Es Devlin, the designer of the Closing Ceremony, talks about coming up with the basic idea, asking artist Damien Hurst to contribute and making his design happen. From what I understood from that article, his Union Jack -- the blue-white-red swirly one -- was the main design, laid down in the stadium as colored tiles; then I assume they used lights to change the colors throughout the ceremony. Hurst's design is titled Beautiful Union Jack Celebratory Patriotic Olympic Explosion in an Electric Storm Painting. Yes, I'm completely serious.