Olympics: 2 weeks of unbelievable spectacle surpassed wildest dreams

And so it ends. After 16 days of exhilaration and elation, of the heroic endeavours of the athletes and, too of the rest of us, of an orgy of communal delight and self-congratulation, the 2012 Olympic Games finally came to a tumultuous conclusion last night (Sunday) in a vibrant closing ceremony that would have blown the roof off the Olympic stadium, if it had one, and which could surely be heard to the furthest reaches of East London.

If Danny Boyle's opening ceremony had left many overseas observers bemused, in its slyly subversive chronicling of 200 years of British history, there was no room for misunderstanding or ambiguity in last night's event: this was an unabashedly riotous celebration of a field in which Britain has long been a world leader - pop culture: For two and a half exhilerating - and extremely noisy - hours the Olympic stadium was transformed into a living, dancing jukebox, loaded with some of the most memorable British music of the last fifty years, accompanying scenes of high emotion.

David Arnold, the ceremony's music director, had promised that the evening would be 'cheeky, cheesy and thrilling', and 'the greatest after-party in the world'. If the opening ceremony was the wedding, then this, he promised, was to be the wedding reception - and so it proved, although thankfully without the embarrassing dad-dancing and best-man's speeches and the climactic massive punch-up between the bride and groom's families.

These have been the Olympics which have made London the capital of the world, and it was fitting that the narrative theme opening the ceremony should have been a day in the life of the city.

The centre of the of Olympic stadium had been transformed into a huge Union Jack, on which stood miniature (but not that miniature versions) of the capital's most familiar landmarks - Battersea Power Station, the Houses of Parliament, the London Eye, the Gherkin, and Tower Bridge, all wrapped in newsprint proclaiming Britain's proud literary heritage, from Milton and Shakespeare, through Tolkin to the poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy.

At 9.00pm precisely the festivities began, with 80,000 voices in the stadium rising in unison to count down the chimes of Big Ben. Emile Sande sang Professor Green's haunting 'Read All About It' - 'we're wonderful, wonderful people' - from the back of a lorry wrapped in newsprint; members of Stomp, the theatrical troupe, dangled precariously from wires, using the London Eye and Tower Bridge as huge percussive instruments; from the roof of County Hall, played Elgar's Salut D'Amour, an accompaniament to Winston Chruchill, in the person of Timothy Spall emerging from the spire of Big Ben to reprise Caliban's speech from the Tempest - 'Be not afear'd, the isle is full of noises...' which had begun the opening ceremony. Here was London coming alive - a morning rush hours of cars, trucks, taxis, bicycles and pedestrians, all wrappeed in newsprint, dashing hither and thither, the tempo and noise increasing, until called to a halt by Churchill. All of this, and it was still only 9.07 pm.

With the formalities of the the arrival of Prince Harry, representing the Queen, and the president of the International Commitee, Jaques Rogge, dispensed with, the party got back into its swing.

A snippet of film of Michael Caine from The Italian Job, counted down to the appearance of Del Boy and Rodney Trotter in their Reliant Robin. Madness performed Our House, with Lee Thompson being hoisted above the London skyline in a Union Jack kilt to perform his sax solo.

The Pet Shop Boys, circled the stadium performing West End Girls from the back of bicycle rickshaws, accompanied by an honour guard of pinstripe-suited cyclist in conical orange hats, followed by One Direction singing from the back of a flat-bed truck. Now Stomp took to the stage again for a clamorous percussive battle with dustbins and staves, as dancing cleaning ladies swept the streets of London clean at the end of the day, heralding the arrival in a taxi of the great Ray Davies to sing the capital's unofficial anthem, Waterloo Sunset, as acrobats and circus performers disported themselves on the buildings, and the sound of 80,000 people joining in on the 'sha-la-la' chorus drifted into the sultry night.

So slick and swiftly moving was the choregraphy and presentation that it was hard to keep track of it all.

Now came the entry of the flags of all the competing nations, heralding the arrival of all the atheletes, moving through the crowds, and into the heart of the stadium, to the stirring anthem of Elbow's Open Arms, their national identities dissolving in a great sea of waving, smiling humanity, to fill each segment of the Union Jack on the stadium field. What a splendidly moving moment this was, as was the presentation to representatives of some of the 70,000 thousands volunteers who have provided such a welcome at all the Olympic venues, and helped the games to run like clockwork.

Now the celebration of British music began in earnest; singing and signing choirs from Liverpool accompanied film of John Lennon singing Imagine, who in turn seemed to be accompanying the entire stadium singing the song - with not a dry eye in the house. George Michael, miraculously resurrected after his near-death experience, performed Freedom. A cavalcade of chrome-bedecked scooters circled round the stadium, delivering Ricky Wilson of the Kaiser Chief onto the stage to perform Pinball Wizard.

At times, it all seemed too surreal - frankly, bonkers - but in a good way. Were we hallucinating the Household Division Ceremonial State Band playing Blur's cockney anthem Parklife to a choreographed street party, and Russell Brand essaying the Beatle's I Am The Walrus from the top of psychedelic bus? Apparently not.

Watching this extraordinary musical spectacle Britain unfold, one could reflect on what the past two weeks have given us, and what they have told us about ourselves.

Contrary to all the worst expectations - and despite some early hiccups - the Games have been a triumph of planning and organisation, our initial reluctance to embrace them simply melting away.

We have witnessed heroic accomplishment from the finest athletes from around the world. But from the running track to the Velodrome, from the equestrian centre to the choppy waters of the English channel at Weymouth - from the rowers Helen Glover and Heather Stanning who won our first gold 11 days ago, to boxer Anthony Joshua, who fought his way to our 29th yesterday - it has sometimes seemed as every Olympic arena was designed for the sole and specific purpose of British athletes to surpass our wildest expectations, and deliver a haul of bullion unparalleled in modern times.

It has given us permission to feel good about ourselves - how welcoming, how gifted, how nice we are, or can be if we put our minds to it. Never before can so many Union flags have been waved quite so proudly, but there has been nothing the least beligerently jingo-istic about the effusion of feeling good about being British. Our triumphalism, such as it has been - beating the French and the Germans in the medals tables - has been good natured: delight sharpened by a sense of mild astonishment that we should have done so well, and put aside our reputation, as Sir Chris Hoy put it after winning his sixth gold medal, as a nation of 'plucky losers', and that 'being part of a British team is being part of a winning team.'

It has been a wonderful advertisement for the virtues of perseverance, dedication, and sportsmanship - of losing with good grace and winning with a becoming modesty and understatement - like the redoubtable Nicola Adams who greeted being the first woman boxer ever to win an Olympic medal with the ringing declaration that 'I just want to go to Nando's', and the rower Kat Copland's expression of stunned disbelief: 'We've just won the Olympics..And we're going to be on a stamp'.

Could there have been a more heartening and positive image of inclusive modern Britain to richochet around the world than that of 'Super Saturday', and a refugee from Somalia, a mixed-race woman and a white man brandishing their gold medals while wrapped triumphantly in Union flags? What an inspiration the examples of Mo Farah, Jessica Ennis, Greg Rutherford - and every other British Olympian - will be to the next generation.

These Games may not have banished our national woes, but they have poured a soothing balm on them, if only temporarily.

It now falls to Rio to match the spectacle of the London Olympics -or to attempt to.Two weeks ago, these unbelievable Games had begun with the words of Shakespeare. 'Be not afear'd, the isle is full of noises...' Those noises have proved to have been ones of unadulterated celebration and joy. Now at the Olympic's closing, it was another line from Shakespeare came to mind. For a fortnight at least, we could genuinely talk of being this happy breed of men - this happy land. It really has been - to borrow the word of the moment - 'unbelievable', hasn't it? Now it's back to reality.