World Cup

Being in the cup rocks. For all those a bit foreign to the round ball...this is the best place to look up match times, click the mousie on the time to get a little auto-conversion to wherever you are in the world. Ok so our house has traditionally been fairly non sport-oriented. (Except for Mum playing the North Adelaide SANFL matches on the radio on the weekends while doing housework and occasionally watching the grand final). Dad always had a preference for the round ball, being a Pom and all, but I think in a more intellectual way. He's more your book readin' type. I think I picked up Ma's enthusiam for the crowd mentality or the hive mind. I'll never forget her yelling the loudest when watching the AFL final on the bigscreen in a certain National Science Museum theatre in my years as a student. It was the Crows playing for a second-year-running win and I think the phrase bellowed out over the heads of my post-grad classmates was "C'mon stop playing like a bunch of gerrls" .

Anyway, I love the shared mindless celebration. Call me populist. I love being a in a pub with yelling happy people all staring at the screen. I especially love when the screen shows other people all over the world with the same level of interest in their team. I like to think that the World Cup encourages a kind of global solidarity, where everyone is chuffed to see other countries' supporters in their colours, there is such a global diversity that very few get riled up with that viciousness born of binary frustration. (Celtics-Rangers, Boca-Juniors, Blues-Doggies, Liberal-Labour, for example). So I bear no ill will to Mother. Her genes helped me get absorbed into the last world cup while in the other hemisphere, together with countrymen of my second nationality. It has also been useful in at a couple of live Port Power matches in Sydney, and a running of the bulls in Central Spain.

Finally, check out my mate Johnno's blog. He's actually over there catching all the Australian Round One games. Now that's good value Buzz.