The Afghan government said it was going ahead with what President Hamid Karzai's office had characterized as a "splendid" transfer ceremony scheduled for Monday at Bagram Air Base, where the Parwan prison is, to mark the shift in detention operations.
I remember seeing him at a public ceremony, wearing his splendid traditional leopard-skin robe with the red feathers of the ruling clan stuck into his hair – the very picture of the wise old monarch, which is what he really was.
The proposed new Nobel Center, to be built in central Stockholm, would draw 600,000 visitors a year, provide a splendid new venue for Nobel award ceremonies, and become a hub for science, education, and literature.
Even the Queen played a role, joining Daniel Craig for a James Bond spoof in the opening ceremony, which got things off to a splendid start.
Splendid in his towering mitre, Dr. Arthur Michael Ramsey Archbishop of Canterbury, conducted the wedding ceremony.
"We're a warm-up act for the real show coming up," ceremony director Danny Boyle had said to the crowd, minutes before his surreal, splendid shebang blasted into life.
And, while the ceremony itself began with a full-throttle song-and-dance number, courtesy of TV's Neil Patrick Harris – splendid in a sequinned blazer and accompanied by a bevy of be-feathered dancers – that turned out to be the only song on offer in a ceremony that, though long on glitz, was short on bona fide razzmatazz.
I also found room for three splendid lunches at the Bistro at the Maison de Ville, where Patrick Van Hoorebeek, the city's master of culinary ceremonies, presides as mâitre d'hôtel.
