There are many work-safe ways in which I have been enjoying this World Cup online: the Guardian website has the best minute by minute commentary, I think. So good that even when I watch the games at home, I still follow the Guardian live bloggers who are brilliant and funny and brilliant. The Guardian football page also has replays using little Lego men, like the one above, which is the Lego version of the infamous Sani Kaita kick. Heh heh.
I am also really enjoying Funmi Iyanda's musings on the World Cup. She is part of the ambitious Pilgrimages project which takes 13 writers to 12 different cities in Africa and one in Brazil during the World Cup - the writers are then supposed to each write a book about their travels. Funmi Iyanda is a huge celebrity in Nigeria where she is a talk show host. She is also a football afficianado, in this she reminds me of Zim's own Henrietta Rushwaya and the Guardian's Marina Hyde, they are three women who are very much at home in this most male of worlds. She had a hilarious post on the Pilgrimages blog on why athletes in their prime should not commit themselves to one woman, and recently, she had a great riposte to the tiresome "and here come the Africans" references to Ghana's Black Stars .... I watch football on Swiss TV, I love the Swiss commentary, which is usually restrained and respectful, and not the highly egotistic chatathon you find on the Beeb and other UK channels, but even there, they use "die Afrikaner" a whole lot when they mean die Ghanaier or die Sudafrikaner or whatever ... You all know my pet peeve, the lazy use of "African" when you mean just one country or group of people. How hard is it to refer to the one African country left in the competition by its name? Here's Funmi Iyanda on this:
"Yesterday Africa united behind Ghana, in truth a majority of the world united behind Ghana mainly because a Ghanaian victory against America was a much better story and because no true lover of football will support a country that calls the beautiful game soccer. As the very irritating commentators continually and insistently referred to the Ghanaian players as “the Africans.” l bristled, not because they are not Africans or that Africans are not fully behind them but because this is Ghana’s victory. Africa rejoices with her but it is Ghana’s victory. The distinction is important because an acceptance of a patronizing, lone African star doing Africa proud is a moronic oversimplification such that it can be tidily filed away in a box of retrogression that fails to recognize Ghana’s unique outstanding journey as a country."
Well said.
Away from football, I have been enjoying the thrills and shocks of Wimbledon. Alas, my vow to go to at least two Slams will not happen this year, but what a week and a bit it has been. Venus gone! Federer gone! Andy Roddick gone! Serena sublime! And Anna Kournikova is back! I must confess that I was one of the Anna mockers at first, it seemed to me to a sign of the times that the most famous tennis player in the world had equally famously failed to win a single title in her entire career. Then I developed some respect for her, she could easily have gone the Challenger route for some cheap wins, but she stuck resolutely to the tiered tournaments. And really, it is hardly her fault that the press went gaga over her looks. Then it occured to me that she was really just a kid when it all started around age 16 or so, and I began to feel sorry for her, at least, as sorry as one can feel for a millionaire several times over. Today, I came across this hilarious interview she did with Martina Hingis - they are playing in the Legends section of the Championships, if you will believe it, both are 29. Who knew that Anna Kournikova was funny and self-aware? And the woman really could talk for Russia! As the Guardian's Andy Bull says, "if only she could play with the same urgency as she talks, she would still be a championship contender". Heh heh.
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