On December the fourth as evening set in - after finishing work on animating my t-shirt and a pair of orange socks - I set off to the nearby town to collect my son on his return from a week of hard schooling.
As I drove through the forest the car radio crackled into life bringing me live coverage, and a lot of static, from Cape Town - South Africa, where the names of 32 nations were being drawn by chance and calculation to form groups for next summer’s Football World Cup.
I have always found the world an exotic and mysterious place (an atlas an invitation to dream) so driving through the late autumn night in a French forest and listening to intermittent speech from a summer’s eve in a contrary hemisphere on a continent I have never really set foot on was very, very exciting.
All the more so when words like Cameroon and Mexico tumbled together through the crackles.
North Korea and New Zealand.
Argentina are going to play Nigeria, how exciting is that!!?
I think I have written elsewhere that one of the best things about the world cup is/are the flags, and Argentina’s is one of the best.
But Nigeria’s is cool; beautiful in a classic way.
And I was particularly tickled to see that my prediction – made in these pages – is still potentially accurate.
So, what has all this got to do with December 27?
Nothing, sorry, just trying to catch up after 24 days of silence.
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4 comments:
I find it sad that many South African fans won't be able to afford tickets to their own team's game(s). I sure hope someone has the sense to start up a fund for free tickets. - I'm looking forward to yet another fun summer of "public viewing". Has the (German) term translated into French as well?
Good point Anne - should we be the ones to start it?
I don't mean particularly that i have a pot of unused wealth that i can contribute but i could help organise it.
And what German term are you translating?
The Germans called getting together in public spaces and beergardens to watch football on relatively big screens, often accompanied by a huge party, "public viewing", and everyone was out on the street doing just that in 2006 and again in 2008. My students had a laugh when I told them we use the term when the coffin is opened at a funeral. Do the French watch at home or out with friends?
I don't have any close friends from or in South Africa, so I wouldn't even know where to start. No, I'll be keeping my eyes peeled and will contribute when I see someone local getting the word out.
I'm not sure about the rest of the nation but in the local village the pig farmer lends out a disused barn that gets a screen set up and a few old arm chairs appear and then the barbecue gets set up outside.
How many people turn up depends on how the French team perform.
4 years ago it got pretty exciting and the whole village came,
Now as for the campaign for free tickets do you know any millionaire German footballers who might like to join the scheme?
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