It's like watching paint dry to a cacophonous soundtrack. Intermittently there is an instant of absurdity in the struggle. Some massively well paid fellow gets the ball at last after an agonising inch by quarter inch struggle down and up and down and up and down and up and -you get the picture.
I've decided that the reason why soccer [known elsewhere in the world as football] is all-powerful is that it so perfectly mirrors the human condition, where so often life's struggle is unfair and the victory so frequently doesn't go to the best team or player.
The big name hero who's name is electrifyingly shrieked by the omnipresent tv announcer appears like a flash in a melee and balloons the ball into the air in a deadly blow struck for the old fashioned amateur in us all-reminiscent each time of something I myself may have once attempted thinking that the ball was for rugby. Never did so many teams suffer from strike failure as have collapsed this year into formlessness-perhaps the ball was strange to them then.
Yes it's struggle, struggle, struggle, struggle- with an occasional chance- usually failed. Teams leave the game never having been beaten-so close to impossible has it been to score goals. I am sure that there have been fewer goals scored than twice the number of teams originally taking part-and that makes watching paint dry a little less dramatic but certainly more rewarding.
Next week the spotlight turns though and the world is going to place us under an 'inscrutable scroot' [as Bloodknock would have put it].
It is time for our 2010 preparations to become 200 % more transparent than they have been-We need a corporate sponsor to erect a huge billboard somewhere with a timeline CPA [critical path analysis] ticking off the projects as they unroll.
We have some issues-Undoubtedly when we sold the FIFA on this venue-us the hosts- there were things that it was understood needed to be done to be ready. Aside from such obvious trivia as Stadia and ticketing booths, we needed a safe environment for a million drunks to puke about in, for instance. We needed a goodly supply of clean and wholesome young women to take the edge of the stress of following some inept collection of players from venue to venue. We also needed to show that we can move people around with comfort and ease-and it is our declared intention to do all of these things. What is that old saw about the road to hell and good intentions?
So far we [the public] have been subjected to a great deal of evasive bullshitting by many people and whether they like it or not the next few months are going to be 'Kak of Betaal' time [for offshore readers O.R.: 'shit or get off the pot']
A publicly visible timeline showing for instance the alleged fifteen or so stadia that are alleged to be in progress need to be revealed from completion date, which I understand to be at least 2009 [about the time of the next election]
or maybe earlier, showing the steps to be covered between then and now. We need to know what still has to be done- Enough of this fluffy 'alles sal regkom' [It will all be alright on the night.] This German thing is a tough act to follow-and this follows the Asian version, which was already an awesome piece of organisation.
Ditto for other things-and what are we going to do about the whoring bit?
The Germans had fuckbooths arranged, for those lusty visitors whose general robustness had not been impacted by gallons of beer. As seen on TV they were like drive-in cabins which discreetly screen the participating parties and which come equipped with alarm bells for the receiving party [the fuckee]. Should such party feel aggrieved or threatened a quick ring of the alarm bell will apparently bring a horde of defenders to rips the nuts off the offenders.
Like Sydney a few years back and Athens too, huge numbers of able and hopefully willing fuckees [or penetratees if you prefer] were needed to service the aroused passions of a million or so horny visitors: who being mostly male and at leisure seek nothing less than that glorious release provided by a pair of clenched thighs. It is certainly a more engaging act than watching paint dry on a well-trodden field.
Are we going to embark on a campaign to deal with the HIV status of the thirty thousand or so 'relational needs suppliers' who will be called upon to perform lustily for the host country? And shouldn't that also go onto the scoreboard.
I am not even going to discuss the crime thing. One presumes that the deal was sold on the back of declining crime figures. 'We'll be down to zero crime by 2010 Louis'. We don't really know what has been happening with crime trends due to the ban on the release of crime statistics by the SAPS. We have tended to accept the police version that the trend was down and we were happy that we had survived the worst.
So the recent upsurge in what may be called 'terroristic crime' does seem to be a counter trend, guaranteed to give us bad headlines. It would be easy to fall into the old conspiracy trap-ie the random spate of murders both high and low profile has no apparent motive and seems random and awful-A film director shot dead while walking his dog-no arrests. One of my students randomly shot dead some weeks ago walking down a suburban street [no arrests]-A pair of young men abducted with their car and executed in Cape Town-[some arrests] a woman journalist randomly shot dead after stopping at the wrong place on the highway-[no arrests]-and -and -and-the litany proceedeth-People who mention the murder rate at a lower than before 48 or so per day are seen as unpatriotic-but presumably the courts of more advanced country's would not flinch at hearing class action suits from young men maimed for life or even sentenced to death as a result of our unclarified social difficulties. Perhaps FIFA would sensibly issue tickets with an indemnity written in -attend at your own risk-not responsible for off the field mishaps. It would be a sensible move.
Are our criminals so obviously in such savage competition with their fellows that they must suck the marrow dry before the bone cracks. It is as I have observed before that our malicious crime rate is the one true example of free enterprise left in our oligopoly stricken land.
[Of course there is the increasingly obvious news that the crime wave with its excess of brutality could well be part of a military campaign being waged by enemies of democracy living next door to us as our neighbour proves to be our worst nightmare.] Whatever its source we are going to have to do something radical-as if we never knew that-and the something radical could well mean a further inroad on our hard won freedom.
The problem with chickens is their regular need to roost and ignoring that doesn't negate reality. As they say in the movie business-'hurry up and wait.'
So much to do so few sponsors.
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