World Cup Survival Guide

10^th June - 14^th July – Days 253-287 – Stories from Strand, South Africa

The successful viewing of a World Cup, it is well known, needs only 4 simple ingredients. In Strand, we had all 4. It seemed like it was going to be good.

1) In order to be a good World Cup viewer, one needs every football fan's companion - the Wall Chart. Especially during boring games, it's almost more fun to fill in the wall chart and list every scorer in order to geek at it during the few hours between games. We got our wall chart for free from the Cape Times newspaper, and papers ripped from a notepad and white-tak provided a classy scorers list.

"Who scored the equaliser for Tajikistan again?"

2) After the games, of course, there is a slight come-down as one realises that it will be a full 18 hours until the next game kicks off. Sleep will fill in some of those hours, of course, but nothing fills the rest of the hours like E-TV, the South African channel that showed the entire "Rocky" series during the World Cup. Y'know?

I'm a fighter, eh, that's what I do. I fight. Y'know eh?

3) When the sun is out, not only is it nice to be outside but also Rocky isn't on TV until long after dark. Hence when one is in a beach town, it's important to have at least one kick-about on the beach and swim in the sea (if, given that it's winter in South Africa, the swimmer has the mental strength to deal with small-weiner-shock-syndrome after a dip in the glacial waters). Cheers to Dixon and Sal for providing our Jabulani ball.

Tough guys at 12 o'clock

4) When a wall-chart just isn't enough, one must wait for the final games of the group stages, which are played concurrently. Watching the games just isn't enough so to fill in those hours before the game, two nerds can do no better than calculating all of the possible permutations and poring over them as soon as a goal goes in!

M whips out the mathematical brain that has lain dormant since graduation

Feel it - it is here! And WE are READY!!