Sweet Nothings

We've seen several sides of South Africa in our two and a half weeks here. Although the place is vast, the nature of the World Cup being spread out between cities in as many areas as possible and our purchasing of different types of tickets has meant plenty of driving and allowed us to see a decent cross-section of it. On day one we briefly experienced the ultra-posh Sandton suburb of Johannesburg (well, one street on which we queued for 2.5 hours at least), which is as white and affluent as you can get. We also saw a bit of Rustenburg (a city everyone agrees is rubbish), and had appalling experiences both in getting away from the stadium and at our hostel - the latter charging us 300 rand each for what turned out to be newly-built bunk beds crammed in 8-to-a-room, as the owners were attempting to make as much cash from English fans as possible. The knackered manager reckoned he'd been up for over 48 hours, which might have elicited some sympathy if he and his sour-faced wife...

... not for us anyway, we still have two more weeks over here including second-round, quarter-final, semi and final matches involving either Paraguay or whoever ends up beating them, and I'm determined to enjoy myself. But I feel almost duty bound to rake over the ashes of yesterday's limp defeat. Here are a few half-baked theories as to why this World Cup campaign was such a disaster for England: Over-reliance on one player Pretty early on, Fabio Capello sussed out that Wayne Rooney was by far our best and most creative player and thus built his formation and team around him. Rooney was by no means alone in being horrendously below par in this tournament, but he was the one player we desperately needed to be on his game. Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold etc Pressure/nerves England did look nervous against the USA but this could be excused as opening-match syndrome, and we still could have won the game against our most difficult group opponents on paper. Then ...

... er, actually not at all. Addo Elephant Park , a huge national park in which we stayed last night, and where you can do your own safaris or guided tours with a chance of seeing all sorts of big game, was really good. I just wanted to do that pun. (Sorry.) The so-called Big Five animals all live there, although of the five we only saw elephants and buffalo, missing out on rhino, lions and leopards. I didn't have massively high expectations going into the safaris, having never done anything like this "in the wild" before, and therefore I really enjoyed seeing a plethora of pachyderms as well as warthogs, meerkats, zebras, a tortoise and a whole host of deer/antelope-y creatures - an Eland, some Hartebeest and loads of beautiful Kudu, which were by far the most numerous. The guide on the guided trip we did said there used to be even more Kudu in the park, which was the main reason for introducing the lions into the fray. Having stopped off at a market at lunchtime, I ca...

... but hopefully not England too. Just a quick one this, as WiFi is expensive and time is against me. South Africa will count themselves rather unfortunate not to progress past the group stages after yesterday's performance, one albeit aided by a farcical mid-meltdown French side. We watched the match on a big screen in a hall on top of a massive hill, at the bottom of which was the Storms River Village - a fantastic national park where we spent the last two nights in a log cabin virtually right next to a stunning stretch of rocky coastline complete with crashing yet strangely soothing wave sounds. (Are you jealous yet?) The aforementioned hall was chock full of rapt South Africans who were going mental as the second goal went in, and throughout the remainder of the match to be fair. It really does seem like the entire country has got behind the national team for this tournament, a fantastic display of unity. And this match proved once and for all that it IS possible for a large...

Lekker: Our four days in and around Cape Town were mostly fabulous. I don't want to become one of those travel bores so I won't drone on and on about how pretty the scenery is, etc. Capetonians certainly love their city though, and the usual phrase you hear is "there are two types of South Africans - those who live in Cape Town and those who want to live here". You can see their point, as their city has the massive advantage of being built in a stunning natural ampitheatre (not sure if this is the correct geological term but it sounds good) surrounded by imposing mountains, including the daddy itself Table Mountain. Climbing the Table was really hard, mind. For some stupid reason, maybe because all my hill climbing experience was years ago in the Malverns/Brecons/Snowdonia, I was thinking the climb would consist of steepish slopes, not the vertiginous, endless rocky steps that were the reality. It was immensely satisfying once we reached the top, however. It sho...

Right, so my World Cup experience so far is as follows: Saturday June 12th Arrived in Johannesburg airport just before 5am after almost a whole day in the air. The plan was to have some breakfast, then get in the queue for the all-singing all-dancing FIFA TICKET MACHINES from which we could obtain all our tickets, including most importantly those for this evening's opening England match. We queue for the machines. The queue is not moving. The machines appear to be broken. We are advised to go into Joburg or Rustenburg instead. We wait a while. Many people leave. The queue starts moving. Up ahead, people are getting actual World Cup tickets from the machines. We get to the front. So close. All the machines break down again. No tickets. We decide to go to Sandton (posh Joburg suburb) to get them instead. Queue for ages to pick up hire car. Drive to Sandton. Queue for over two hours but finally pick up those precious tickets. Back to car, start drive to lodge we've booked...

Tomorrow my alarm will wake me up at stupid o'clock so I can get to the airport in time to catch my flight to South Africa. I'm going to South Africa! For the World Cup! The entire thing! With guaranteed tickets to the final! Which England might even get to! I am absolutely shitting myself. I've sensed the bemusement on peoples' faces when revealing this information in the last few days. Wait a minute, they will have been thinking, you're taking a month off work to go halfway across the world so you can witness one of the great sporting events in person, and you're not bouncing off the walls with excitement?? I see their point. Unfortunately, as someone who craves the orderliness of a safe, familiar routine, I do not make for an ideal traveller. I am also a terrible worrier. I blame this entirely on my mother, who could find the grey cloud of doom attached to every silver lining. Whatever I did with my life, there would always be something for her to nag m...