The Last Days
So yeah, I was at the World Cup final. Admittedly it wasn't the best game, with the Dutch gameplan seemingly to kick several shades of shit out of the Spanish and hope that Howard Webb didn't give them a red card (having seen some highlights, he could have done so much sooner but apparently a kung fu kick to the chest doesn't merit a red these days). And admittedly we were right at the front behind one of the nets which, due to the many cameramen in front of us, was not the ideal vantage point we'd first imagined it to be. And admittedly you could only really get the full effect of the closing ceremony from high up in the stands, or from watching it on TV, and I only got the tiniest glimpse of Shakira in the flesh. But hey, I was at a World Cup final, which still feels pretty cool.
More by accident than design, the last few days of this trip have featured not one but two theme parks - UShaka Marine World in Durban and Gold Reef City here in Joburg. Both of these were a bit rubbish, however, and hardly merit further discussion. We are about to head off on a tour of Soweto though, which should be very interesting. Soweto is one of those historic names which everyone is familiar with - known as a township although now it is more of a city in its own right, home to over 3 million people and with its own rich areas to rival those of its larger neighbour.
* * * * *
I was going to do a whole post about the media coverage of the tournament over here in SA but I don't really have the time or inclination now. The radio commentary has been great fun - SA has 11 official languages with every game being broadcast in each one, and clearly some of the commentators "double up" and do some games in English even when it is not their mother tongue. In fact, for our favourite guy it didn't even sound like his 3rd best language, but his delightfully rich tones, bizarre ways of pronouncing names and equally bizarre method of describing the action so that you didn't quite know what was going on until several minutes afterwards proved highly entertaining.
Meanwhile, the TV coverage was very much based on the American model of pointlessly cavernous studios considering they only contained one desk, staffed by a team of host and pundits all immaculately and identically dressed. Although the state broadcaster SABC showed all the games, everywhere we went always plumped to show the coverage of cable broadcaster Supersport instead, whose punditry team included many familiar faces to English eyes such as John Barnes (clearly an expert on football - just look at his managerial record), Gary Mabbutt (really), Jay Jay Okocha, Daniel Amokachi... pretty much any African footballer who'd played in the Premier League seemed fair game, basically.
For the match commentary itself all the SA TV broadcasters used a universal feed, which uses mostly English commentators and I suppose must sell itself to any country who can't or won't do their own feed. By far the best of these was the underrated John Helm, who used to be ITV's third commentator for many years and has cropped up on Five now and then too. His bluff northern tones and somewhat tortured wordplay aren't to everyone's tastes, but he has a distinctive presence which is far more fun to listen to than most of the BBC and ITV's current rosters.
* * * * *
A final bit now which I wrote a while back and may as well publish (hey, just because I edit stuff for a living doesn't mean I'm capable of editing my own ramblings)...
Rustenburg aside, each stadium has video screens which provide a comprehensive menu of adverts, highlights and messages, all of which have become wearisomely familiar as we approach the end of the tournament. Indeed, I've almost memorised every facet of the half-time video line-up:
More by accident than design, the last few days of this trip have featured not one but two theme parks - UShaka Marine World in Durban and Gold Reef City here in Joburg. Both of these were a bit rubbish, however, and hardly merit further discussion. We are about to head off on a tour of Soweto though, which should be very interesting. Soweto is one of those historic names which everyone is familiar with - known as a township although now it is more of a city in its own right, home to over 3 million people and with its own rich areas to rival those of its larger neighbour.
* * * * *
I was going to do a whole post about the media coverage of the tournament over here in SA but I don't really have the time or inclination now. The radio commentary has been great fun - SA has 11 official languages with every game being broadcast in each one, and clearly some of the commentators "double up" and do some games in English even when it is not their mother tongue. In fact, for our favourite guy it didn't even sound like his 3rd best language, but his delightfully rich tones, bizarre ways of pronouncing names and equally bizarre method of describing the action so that you didn't quite know what was going on until several minutes afterwards proved highly entertaining.
Meanwhile, the TV coverage was very much based on the American model of pointlessly cavernous studios considering they only contained one desk, staffed by a team of host and pundits all immaculately and identically dressed. Although the state broadcaster SABC showed all the games, everywhere we went always plumped to show the coverage of cable broadcaster Supersport instead, whose punditry team included many familiar faces to English eyes such as John Barnes (clearly an expert on football - just look at his managerial record), Gary Mabbutt (really), Jay Jay Okocha, Daniel Amokachi... pretty much any African footballer who'd played in the Premier League seemed fair game, basically.
For the match commentary itself all the SA TV broadcasters used a universal feed, which uses mostly English commentators and I suppose must sell itself to any country who can't or won't do their own feed. By far the best of these was the underrated John Helm, who used to be ITV's third commentator for many years and has cropped up on Five now and then too. His bluff northern tones and somewhat tortured wordplay aren't to everyone's tastes, but he has a distinctive presence which is far more fun to listen to than most of the BBC and ITV's current rosters.
* * * * *
A final bit now which I wrote a while back and may as well publish (hey, just because I edit stuff for a living doesn't mean I'm capable of editing my own ramblings)...
Rustenburg aside, each stadium has video screens which provide a comprehensive menu of adverts, highlights and messages, all of which have become wearisomely familiar as we approach the end of the tournament. Indeed, I've almost memorised every facet of the half-time video line-up:
- "This is Africa" song - performed by Shakira who is of course, er... Columbian. Sometimes the video is replaced by cheerleaders dancing on the pitch, who thankfully aren't dressed in quite as provocative a manner as West Ham's decidedly icky "Hammerettes"
- Fan of the Day, sponsored by Hyundai (random shots of gurning face-painted nutters)
- A reminder to vote for your man of the match, sponsored by Budweiser. The graphic always uses LOPEZ as an example, cue lots of in-no-way-tedious quips about how Lopez is having a good game today when there is obviously nobody called Lopez on the pitch
- Various ads for all the various OFFICIAL FIFA SPONSORS: Coke (featuring K'Naan's Waving Flags, yet another official world cup song), McDonalds, Castrol, and not forgetting Yngli Solar - whoever the hell they are
- Brief first-half highlights
- Video promoting some campaign whose name I can't remember as I'm always transfixed by the presenter's heavily-botoxed face
- Bloody MTN "Ayoba!" ad. I'm guessing you've not had these in the UK - however bad our ads might have been, just be thankful you didn't have to suffer some bloke shouting "AYOBA!" (literally: "cool" or "great", or something) to advertise a mobile phone network during every break
- Strange advert with blokes in Brazil shirts dancing to Beyonce's Single Ladies tune
- Plus a rubbish-looking Zakumi mascot wandering around the pitch to very little interest
Comments