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With the opening ceremony out of the way, we're into the serious stuff, but not before we look at how Paddy Barnes hijacked the Olympics, Queen Elizabeth became the new Bond girl and Ireland's inspiring gymnast.

Paddy Barnes steals the show

Screw everything else at the Olympic opening ceremony, if you were following Paddy Barnes Twitter handle last night it was far more entertaining.

There’s a lot of love here at JOE for the Belfast light-flyweight, not only is he an Olympic bronze medallist, and all-round entertaining guy, but he also gave us an interview ahead of the London 2012.

We didn’t think it was possible but our love the boxer grew last night, as he stole the show with the best Irish performance thus far and we should have known the mischievous wee-man was up to something when he tweeted this before the ceremony:

There have been a lot issues surrounding advertising at these Olympics whether it’s Paddy Power up to their old tricks or a hotel chain pissed off at the restrictions of marketing restrictions surrounding the games.

Barnes trumped those two companies by grabbing a piece cardboard and holding it aloft as the athletes paraded around the track with his handwritten message of “Open for sponsors @paddyb_ireland (Twitter).”

The image was beamed across TV sets the world wide and Barnes has been getting messages the world over congratulating him on his cheek, the word 'legend' being used on a couple occasions.

You think that would be enough to cement Barnes status as a top man but he then proceeded to pretend to rob the Irish tricolour from our flagbearer Katie Taylor:

He then posed for pics with superstar athletes including Asafa Powell and tennis ace Novak Djokovic.

It marked off a pretty entertaining performance from Barnes, who had a great day – he got a by in the Olympic boxing draw to the round of 16 meaning he’s only two fights away from getting a medal.

You can follow him on Twitter here.

The Queen is the new Bond girl

Fairplay to Barnes for stealing the show, because it was quite good in the end.

People weren’t sure quite what to make of the decision to put the director of Slumdog Millionaire, 28 Days Later and Trainspotting, Danny Boyle in charge of the opening ceremony.

The show was a celebration of modern and traditional Britain in all its quirkiness. Nowhere else in the show was this more apparent than when the Queen herself made her acting debut as the new Bond girl alongside Daniel Craig.

Queen Elizabeth didn’t get down and frisky like most Bond girls though, a video cutaway had Daniel Craig escorting her majesty and her corgis to a helicopter, from which a Bond and Queen double then parachuted down into the stadium from.

You can check out the Queen’s acting debut in the video below.

Irish gymnast/Superhero

Finally we will leave you with the feel-good story of this, or indeed any Olympics, Irish gymnast Keiran Behan.

He’s only the second ever gymnast to qualify for an Olympics from Ireland and he makes his Olympic debut today.

He’s been garnering a lot of attention abroad and in places like The New York Times, because due to a botched operation on his leg when he was younger he was told by doctors that he might never walk again.

If you check the video of him practicing below, the doctors may have got their diagnosis slightly wrong...