Was it the paean to the NHS, or the gay Brookside kiss that did it? Was it Simon Rattle solemnly conducting Rowan Atkinson, or the nod to Ken Loach's films? Perhaps it was the procession of great British pop hits (Olympic gold for that ticked off)? It might have been the moment when Conservative MP Aiden Burley tweeted that the whole show was "multicultural crap".
But for me, the spellbinding thing about Danny Boyle's Olympic opening ceremony was the way it forged a new mythology for Britain: not the tired old stuff about cricket and spinsters bicycling to evensong, but something that was rich and strange, and embraced Shakespeare and Blake and children's books and Tim Berners-Lee and, yes, cricket. Plus the weather and suffragettes and Monty Python.
Maybe it was the spine-tingling moment when five flaming Olympic rings floated into the sky, shedding sparks, that I lost the last vestiges of my Olympic cynicism and thought: this is astounding. But it wasn't just about the spectacle, or the story; it was also about tone. This was simultaneously serious and silly, reverential and idiotic: a bonkers but brilliant melding of comedy and gravitas, cheek and anti-authoritarianism that no other nation could have pulled off.
Biggest surprise: That former culture secretary Jeremy Hunt is now in charge of the NHS.
Coldest moment: I thought I might get pneumonia after visiting Deborah Warner and Fiona Shaw's stunning installation Peace Camp – illuminated tents breathing poetry on the Northumberland coast. The next night, I'm told, the weather was glorious.
Hero: Gerald Barry. His opera adaptation of The Importance of Being Earnest revealed the screaming insanity at the heart of English manners.
