Another Hot Day

Another hot day and I’m sitting here writing this with just my shorts on at 5.45pm, Sunday. Kind of low energy day today, due to the weather and also due to the fact I had a really bad night last night because of the dreaded hay fever which kept me awake for hours in a state of extreme discomfort. Plenty of sneezing and a niggling sore throat throughout; married to mild palpitations and over-heated bodily temperature due to the couple of beers I had drunk earlier in the evening. Hopefully I won’t get a night as bad as that for some while to come because it really did get unbearable; tossing and turning in bed eventually gave way to sitting up with my back against the wall with Van Morrison’s Philosopher’s Stone on the headphones. The smooth soul music of early ‘70’s Van went some way to soothe me but it was a pretty ragged affair all the same. I think I might have eventually got to sleep at around about 4.30 am. This meant that when I woke up at 7.40 I felt absolutely hammered. Managed to stay lying down until about 8.30 and then got up and had a shower. Since then I have been feeling reasonably OK but definitely in no shape to go out and run a marathon.

The 2006 World Cup in Germany began on Friday after an age of build up in which time seemed to crawl during certain phases of the last few weeks. It must have had something to do with the fact that so many people across the world were thinking about it all of the time and just willing it to hurry up and happen. That kind of mass mental energy can actually produce the opposite effect and because so many people want time to go quickly it only slows down. And of course there is nothing worse than wishing time to move more quickly, it implies a feeling of unhappiness with the present as if what you already have just isn’t good enough. I have to admit that I thought more along these lines when I was younger and consequently found things that I should do in order not to feel so impoverished. Now, however, I think it might be better just to admit to the fact that the World Cup is something that I look forward to and that yes there most certainly are occasions when I wish the whole thing would just hurry up and get started.

There is no doubt in my mind that the World Cup is the greatest sporting spectacle that the world has to offer bar none. In fact I would go further and say that soccer is the only sport that man has so far invented that can be exported to beings on other planets. Or put another way, if aliens landed on earth I am sure that it would not take them too long to get a team together and start competing in whatever competitions would be available to them. It is a beautifully simple universal sport, that contains at the same time almost infinite complexity. Of course every time the World Cup comes along I kid myself beforehand that I will not bother watching too much of it and only pick out the choicest fixtures and not bother with most of the matches in the group stages, especially the ones involving countries I don’t know and have not really heard of. The truth of the matter however is somewhat different. There really is not much else that is going in my life that demands my attention and this means that more often than not if a match is on I will sit down to watch it and generally feel good about the fact that I have done so. It is the World Cup after all and there is no point in feeling frustrated with all the build up (which like I said at times seem to move at a snail’s pace) if I don’t then sit down and watch it once it has started. What exactly is it that I think I am going to be doing if I don’t watch it anyway? My hobbies are virtually non-existent and if I have not got a good book on the go and there are no chores to do around the house then there is really not much else stopping me from sitting down and watching the matches. To try and ignore that they are on and to fill my mind with other things is a weak façade that just robs me of energy. Better to admit what you like and feel no shame, as long as you are not actively hurting anyone.

In fact the whole spectacle of the early stages of the competition is what I enjoy most, when all the stadiums are full with the fans from so different countries from around the world. It is also usually when you get to see the best football, before players become inhibited in the knock-out stages when a single error can be fatal and mean instant exit. At the moment there is a festival atmosphere to the 2006 World Cup in Germany, home to so many truly magnificent football stadiums. The weather is as hot over there as it is here and that obviously helps. The colourful street scenes of so many fans from so many different countries mixing freely with big smiles on their faces, albeit because they might be pretty tanked up, is heart warming and it is easy at times like this to feel once again that there is hope for the human spirit. Most of the games that I have seen so far over the course of the first three days have been enjoyable, with the notable but predictable exception of the England match that was tortuous to say the least, but then again England matches in football competitions always are. Like everyone else, of course I have hopes that England will do well but seeing them play yesterday and seeing them struggle as they did against a small country like Paraguay brings home to me the complete and utter certainty that England will go out well before the final. This not due to lack of belief, quite the opposite in fact; it is due to total belief that England simply are not good enough. It is always so slow and painful watching them and they are nearly always incapable of scoring any of the splendid goals that usually grace a World Cup. Once or twice there are exceptions to that rule such as the Michael Own goal against Argentina in 1998 (a match that England still went on to lose) but by and large it is true to say that England never come close to playing with the fluency of so many of the other countries that are in attendance. Never, never, never. Portugal, France, Holland, Germany, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico and many others are easily capable of producing so much more excitement and joy for the game than England. It is difficult not to feel very uneasy that this fact also reflects on the country at a broader level and that, just like the football side, a lot of England in the 21st century as far as the contribution of man is concerned is painful, ugly and choked full of frustration