Of all the animals of prey, man is the only sociable one.
Every one of us preys upon his neighbour, and yet we herd together.
The Beggar's Opera: John Gay

Saturday 12 June 2010

Oh Vuvuzelas! It's the Scummy Gnome again!


Some of us learned a new word this week. Vuvuzela. Sounds delightful, doesn't it? But though it trips off the tongue so euphoniously, the reality is somewhat different.

If you haven't already experienced it, imagine an angry wasps' nest amplified hundreds of times and you have some approximation of the sound of thousands of these things being blown continuously in unison. In an impressive display of lungpower, fans manage to keep up the racket for the duration of the match and, according to a sleep-deprived BBC reporter, for hours afterwards.

Unfortunately, for the next few weeks the Tavern too will reverberate to the sound of trumpets (one begins to feel sympathy for the inhabitants of Jericho) as the Spouse and the Urchin merrily tune in. I'm looking forward to getting a lot of reading done, if I can only shut out the noise of these migraine-inducing infernal instruments.

So I hereby announce that I'm officially adopting 'Vuvuzelas!' as my expletive of choice for the duration of the World Cup. And I may even accompany it with a brief rendition of the Scummy Gnome Song, as seen in Simon Barnes' Times column today; the one that goes:

Scummy gnome!
Scummy gnome!
Scummy football, scummy gnome!
(repeat ad nauseam)
Which is, I suppose, an improvement on the Earwig Song: Earwig-O, Earwig-O, Earwig-O - (H/T Witterings from Witney at Mrs Rigby's excellent post on the subject).

Update: there's no escape - even the Badgers are getting in the World Cup spirit (H/T John Ward)

4 comments:

  1. After only a few minutes we abandoned the football because of the airhorns. Now if we do watch a game we will have the CD's on with some suitable music. I suspect the funeral march from Gotterdamerung will be on for the USA game.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I wanted the Toreador's Song but I've been overruled by the Spouse - seems my sing-a-long-a-Bryn wasn't appreciated.

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  3. It was too much, gave up with the England vs USA match because of it.

    ReplyDelete

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