For three minutes, Big Ben will toll from within London's famous Clock Tower as seven years of waiting gives way to a late-night celebration of all things British, and there may be very little rain to fall on this almighty parade.
After several days of blazing hot sun and temperatures reaching the high twenties, Londoners woke up on the morning of the Olympic Games' opening ceremony to 17 degrees and 84 per cent humidity. Here's hoping James Bond's suit is fashioned from one of those clever cooling fabrics.
Though many of the ceremony's details have already been leaked to the public through various means, people on Twitter have been dreaming up surprise participants of their own.
The best suggestion, for pure Britishness and synchronicity, came from Australian author Michael Pryor (@MichaelJPryor), who would like to see hundreds of bowler hatted, umbrellaed gents from the Ministry of Silly Walks.
Across the Atlantic, young American tweeters don't seem to be all that enticed by a rumoured showdown between Harry Potter nemesis Lord Voldemort and flying nanny Mary Poppins, with both literary heavyweights pushed away from their affections by the Hunger Games' fan-favourites, Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark.
