This blog post is certain to get blocked for anyone in China.

The Olympics opened today. It was stunning, beautiful and did exactly what it was designed to do.

It's basic "sleight of hand", distract the eye, in other words, "tricks that depend on your skill and dexterity to fool the audience, much more so than on props or gimmicks."

China wheeled out some awe inspiring props and gimmicks as well as demonstrating their skill and dexterity to fool the audience.

You could hear the cheering and see the camera flashes going wild and know that the people in the "Bird's Nest" weren't thinking of China's terrible history of human rights abuse. If China can make us forget Mao, the Cultural Revolution and Tiananmen Square then the Olympics were worth getting. Your watching a moment of history where the wheels rattle over the points. China is sneakily giving itself a year zero. A line in the sand where everything before can be sanitised, scrubbed clean and those who disagree are either exiled or killed. Then who is left to contradict the official version of history.

I would have given anything to hear Sue Barker say "Well... this kind of display by the Chinese government is a long way on from Tiananmen Square. Just look at the artfully deployed dancers, far more graceful than a column of tanks. What do you think former Olympian Matthew Pinsentt?"

The moment of silence where Matthew Pinsentt gropes for the correct thing to say would have been wonderful. A deathly silence where Matthew reflects that rowing was far easier than this speaking melarky.

I wish the audience in the stadium would take up the chant "The world is watching". We are watching but some of us with more fear than delight.