Did you watch the opening ceremony of the London Olympics? You’re in good company. The event had almost 27 million television viewers in the United Kingdom alone, and close to 10 million tweets on Twitter were written about the Games during the festivities.

The data comes courtesy of Twitter UK, who also note that the appearance of Tim Berners-Lee, the founder of the world wide web, “set Twitter alive” as the tweet he sent during the ceremony received almost 10,000 retweets.

This is for everyone #london2012 #oneweb #openingceremony @webfoundation @w3c

— Tim Berners-Lee (@timberners_lee) July 27, 2012

And the biggest spike of the night? That came courtesy of the rather surprising appearance by Mr Bean, aka Rowan Atkinson, during the orchestral production of Chariots Of Fire.

Biggest spike in conversation during #Olympics Opening Ceremony? When Mr Bean made his appearance. Recap: blog.twitter.com/2012/07/onlyon… — Twitter Comms (@twittercomms) July 28, 2012

(I have to say, it did make me chuckle, but the Queen/James Bond sequence was easily the night’s standout moment.)

Twitter’s numbers differ slightly from an independent study taken out by Bluefin Labs, who tracked just five million mentions during the opening ceremony, placing the London Olympics third behind the 2012 Grammy Awards and the 2012 BET Awards. Their infographic also tracks the peaks and troughs during the ceremony.

Still, until somebody proves otherwise, we’re more than happy to stand behind Twitter’s official data.

(Olympic image via Shutterstock.)