Vuvuzealous
Posted by Vom Vorton | June 15, 2010 | Comments Off
Vom Vorton, “our man near a post”, studies the second loudest football phenomenon ever.
I am in South Africa, and it is full of bees. I keep waving my arms around in front of my face to bat them away, but my hands come into contact with nothing. Because, you see, it isn’t the practically extinct bumble-bee that has packed this backward country, but a sort of virtual bee, trapped in a cone.
Invented by Mexans in the 1970s, the Vuvuzela is a long, thin, annoying device that can only play a single note, much like Noel Gallagher. Fittingly, Oasis used the plastic “trumple” – it is precisely half trumpet, half bugle – on many of their 90s megahits, layered betwixt guitars to drown out any passing critics.
Much coverage of the Vuvuzela has focused on the negative qualities, but to the South African natives, it makes the sweetest noise of all – that of victory. Ironically, a noise that the Bafana Bafana rarely hear, because 17 members of their World Cup 2010 squad were deafened during qualifying – 12 of them by the infuriating noisemakers themselves, and 5 during a run-in with bellowing oaf Dean Windass.
As Earth’s Finest Tournament rolls on, and critics of The Harshest Noise are slowly drowned out, some have attempted to move the goalposts and slyly claim that the real problem with the VVZ is the health risk, germs and bacteria being blasted forth from the fluted end like some kind of genius war machine. However, regular attendees of football – or “soccer” – matches will attest to the complete lack of danger involved in spitting furiously for two hours.
As I write, listening to the exhilarating end-to-end action packaged neatly into the match between New Zealand and Slovakia, I feel gently soothed and massaged by the waves of sound that ooze forth from my iPad 5live stream, and my only criticism is that the massed hornets aren’t loud enough to drown out the woman commentator.
Mark my words, football fans – when the World Cup South Africa 2010 is over, you will miss these sweet, noble tones. So enjoy them while you can.