London 2012: An Olympics of subtlety

Pity poor London. The city has taken the torch from Beijing, which just put on the greatest Olympic spectacle of the modern age. Yet fair Albion is in no position to match China in the Olympian arms race. For 2012, Britain will have to fall back on its virtue of understatement. Thankfully for the country’s taxpayers, the Olympics organizers already seem to have taken this message to heart. At Sunday’s closing ceremony, the British handover consisted of a double-decker bus, an aging rock star, a...