Okay, so I approached the Olympic opening ceremony with more than a little trepidation, expecting four hours of Boris Johnson in a Routemaster eating jellied eels. And yet, I still found myself desperately cursing NBC for not showing the thing live, hunting down an illicit stream of the BBC feed just as it was starting.

Twitter was soon aflame - baffled cries of “what the Hell?!!”, “Michael Fish?”, followed by “this is the most British thing ever” and relentless gushing. Plus Americans getting more annoyed that NBC were holding the entire thing back for a messily-edited reel later in the evening.

Turns out that it was as British as jellied eels, but in a way that avoided some of our worst clichés. There was no way to top the scale of China, so we didn’t even try. Instead Boyle’s programme was THIS IS BRITAIN, a ramshackle blend of Strictly Come Industrial Revolution, a Gigantic Two Fingers To The Tories (We Love The NHS remix), Underworld stealing the soundtrack, slyly transmitting the first onscreen lesbian kiss to various countries, and fooling everybody up until the last moment about who was going to light the torch. Plus fulfilling our contractual obligation to wheel out Paul McCartney at the drop of a bowler hat.

Boyle broadcast Tiger Feet to the entire world. TIGER FEET. And DESMOND’S! And Kes. And Gregory’s Girl! And…and…

It was bizarre, and I imagine (and know, talking to a few American friends) at times incomprehensible to people who weren’t from the UK. And I was a little disappointed that The Doctor wasn’t more involved. But as sappy as it sounds, it showed off a lot of what made and makes Britain great, from the engineering genius of Brunel all the way to that beat in Blue Monday. All held together with sticky back plastic and the NHS. Which somehow meant more than outdoing the regimented spectacular performances of Beijing.

Come on, was there anybody in Britain my age or older who didn’t have a huge grin on their face when they started playing the pips? I think not.

Greenwich Time Signal FTW.