The spectacular city

"In societies dominated by modern conditions of production, life is presented as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything that was directly lived has receded into a representation."

Guy Debord, Society of the Spectacle.

Photo by Flickr user Will Rose

As I stood in Hyde Park on Saturday, among an estimated 1 million people that turned out to witness the Tour de France coming to London for the first time ever, I had the rather surreal sensation that I was participating in some kind of mass consensual hallucination.

Elsewhere this weekend, London hosted a Live Earth concert at Wembley and tennis finals at Wimbledon. Just one week after a failed car bomb explosion and 2 years after the 07/07 tube bombings, London was reaffirming its identity through a series of grand spectacles.

With the beautiful weather, the garish skinsuits and sleek machines of the riders, set against the backdrop of landmarks such as the House of Parliament and Buckingham Palace, while helicopter shots of the Thames and the London Eye beamed around the world, London never looked more spectacular, in the true sense of the word.