JOHANNESBURG
Popular? Sure. So was prohibition. For a while.
South Africans love their vuvuzelas. Everyone else is ambivalent. At best.
After months spent defending the native horn, Danny Jordaan, the head of the World Cup braintrust, said Sunday that he is willing to consider a ban on vuvuzelas in stadiums. Their steroidal, bee-like drone has become the defining feature of this first World Cup in Africa. Can’t hear me? I SAID, IT’S BECOME THE DEFINING FEATURE OF THIS FIRST WORLD CUP IN AFRICA.
[More]
Updates:
2:00 pm EDT, June 14th, 2010 — Vuvuzelas redesigned after complaints
Well, mystery explained. Yesterday I was watching a game and I asked my wife what in heck that constant very irritating noise was. We both thought it must be some sort of malfunction in the electronIcs system of the stadium and wondered why they didn’t fix it? Now it turns out to be this? Let’s hope that the first World Cup in SA is also the last.
“A ban would rob the tournament of part of its cultural identity, leaving thousands of locals perplexed: could you imagine being told by an international body that you could no longer drink beer at American football games, or fall asleep during baseball?”
Having a beer at the footbal game or falling sleep at baseball? Drinking beer does not drive millions of fans the world over to mute their television and resort to subtitles to mantain sanity. Neither does a fan falling asleep at a baseball game. Nobody else is bothered period. These feeble excuses are the best this guy can come up with? But then again when you have nothing to compare to………ya gotta dumb it down.
At least if “fans” are complaining about the horn noise, at least they are watching the beautiful game
. It is anoying but then there is the mute button. Only missed 1 game so far and there has been some great football … more to come!
Yup, mute button and great football, no question there. A whole month still to come. The various ethic communities here in the Peg are all flying their country’s colours, even on private and work vehicles. It is great to see them so enthusiastic. I always can really get the Greek crowd all wound up when I accuse them of being Italians and tell them their Italian flags look great (of course it’s the Greek flag). All in fun and we all laugh big time. Haven’t seen or heard a single one of those stupid horns thank goodness. Our ‘Little Italy’ part of town is really something and a good place even for an Irish/English guy to hang out. Everybody is welcome, everybody is friendly. IMO this fan interaction beats the Stanley Cup hands down.