Now for the real thing - World Cup 2010

I dont know about you but I like the fact that there is no need today or tomorrow or anytime soon to worry about what is on television - soccerwise that is.
The Fifa Confed Cup is over and very soon,
yes we will be back to the same routine of Premier League soccer, English soccer and all the other weird and wonderful sports we are used to.
Confed Cup was a blast.
A reader in one of the paper today commented how the park and ride improved from shambles in the first game to real organised operation by the end of the games.
I must say having attended two games - USA vs Brazil and Bafana vs Spain games, I can attest to that. The first game was shambles.
I arrived in Pretoria at the agreed venue but the drivers supposed
to take us to the stadium at Loftus were lost. Taxi drivers lost! Go figure.

Mind you they were lost on the way back from stadium to the restaurant where they had picked us up in the first place.

The second game - or the losers' final as they say - was a thorough
breeze. We left JHB at noon via Pretoria. At the last toll gate before Rustenburg we were handed a piece of paper directing us to the various park and rides.
We picked one and drove straight there. A quick transfer to the bus and before long we were at the stadium.
Again after the game, it was basically the same. Out to the waiting buses and before long we were back in cars and on way home. Part of the park and ride problem is that people do not listen. As you board the bus, they tell you that you need to check the sticker on the bus so you will not be lost.
A lot of people boarded wrong buses.
I hope those are not the ones who have been complaining loudest - the ones who had not noticed the stickers.
So just as well we have Confed Cup. There is still a lot to improve but we shall get there.

Singing for the world

The year was 1985. The brief was clear. Actually it was more the idea than it was a brief. We were going to make the concert of the year. St Francis College in Mariannhill is not one of those rich private schools where elaborate matric dances are held.
In fact you could not even begin to call the last concert a matric dance. It was more of the fun and games. I was in an invidious position where I was expected to come with the idea. But in the end it was not an issue at all coming up with one.
The year saw a number of hits but the best was Michael Jackson's We Are The World. That it was a catchy tune was not the reason that we chose it. The message was what appealed to most of us. You see, most of us came from thoroughly poor families and were there at the mercy of the church or some other sponsor from the various countries of the world.
So the appeal to help was particularly edifiying for us. Its one thing identifying your signature tune. It is a completely different executing the task. Then there were no websites with lyrics. We certainly did not have compact discs.
Instead we had a tape recorder and a tune that was badly copied off radio. Radio deejays really messed the likes of us with the well-timed comment in the middle of the song. From the tape recorder with a dodgy battery we had to make sense of the tune and work out the lyrics. Once that was accomplished, we had to assemble and try to sing the song. Except what passed on as lyrics did not make sense sometimes and a huge argument would erupt on the exact words. For crying out loud we did not know the exact words. And much as we cared, it was near impossible to pull off the concert and still find the exact words. So we went with what we had.
Twenty three years on, most of us believe it was probably one of the best concerts we had. And the most important part was that we did not have the resources. A former schoolmate remembers the craze of red jackets. He also remembers like me that only two of the 500 or so boys could afford to have them. That and the concert are our shared memories of phenomenon Jackson.