A Time To Make Friends Begins

Opening ceremonies manage to be fervently nationalistic whilst also bizarrely functioning as a welcome to lots of foreigners. They play on national stereotypes and are camp, kitsch and carnivalesque. England, hosts of Euro 96, decided that a re-enactment of the legend of St George (you know, that English bloke who probably came from Palestine) slaying the dragon would be one way to sum up the host nation. In USA 94, Diana Ross ran onto the pitch and missed a penalty. I don’t know what that summed up about the USA, but it was very entertaining. The World Cup opening ceremony yesterday was a spectacle, to say the least. It finished with the amusing sight of Jackie Charlton, Ozzie Ardiles, Pele, Laurent Blanc et al trying to look like they were enjoying an awful terrace-pop anthem. In fact, I think Pele was enjoying it. I wanted another hour of it at least.

If an Englishman had been the creative director of that opening ceremony I wouldn’t have been surprised. It featured Germans in Lederhosen, braces and hats slapping their knees and ankles. It featured whips, fifteen feet in length, being cracked. It featured excited looking men waggling their midriffs which bore giant cowbells. It featured giant haystacks (no, not that Giant Haystacks). It featured a really terrible attempt at hip-hop (I think Peter Crouch featured in the dance troupe) and an even worse song, sung by an old man.

Let’s recap: leather, braces, hats, whips, hay (in giant stacks), bad pop music, bad fashion. Possibly the only thing missing from the Englishman’s national stereotype of a German was an empty sunlounger draped with a towel. I’ve never been to Germany, so always thought that these stereotypes were crude. It turns out that, in fact, it is precisely this image which Germany wants to project to the world.

The commentary usually makes the opening ceremony even better. Sadly, I don't get the BBC’s coverage here, and I miss it. Here in Singapore I’ve bought four dedicated World Cup football channels, which is the only way to see all the games. It only cost about three quid. But the BBC is free and has Motty. For the opening ceremony we had one of those commentators whose voice you recognise but you don’t know his name. Those sub-Tony Gubba types.

Still, at least it wasn't Barry Davies, the priggish bigot.

Anyway, the commentary during the ceremony and the opening game was shocking. “Red, green, yellow, black, white, any colour you can think of, it’s all here,” is how he started. You’d think, if you were commentating on the biggest event in football, you’d have prepared something more interesting to say than that.

There is a very cheesy motto for the tournament this year. Apparently, it’s “a time to make friends”. Hmmm. We’ll see when the knock-out phase starts.

As for the games: Germany and Costa Rica were rubbish, but provided a fair bit of entertainment and some great goals. Poland, I thought, looked like the best team in the group, despite losing 2-0. They were very unlucky, scoring a goal that was wrongly disallowed and hitting the post twice. Still, you make your own luck in this game, Brian. England can’t possibly lose to any of those four teams in the next round, though, surely? If we get there. Of course, I'm not writing off the Germans. If I did that I'd be at my peril.

I expect they'll overrun Poland anyway. Not for the first time.

Finally, I’m all set and fully chavved-up for England’s first match. Ella bought me the wristbands – my first concession to the bizarre fashion of wearing a cheap piece of plastic on the wrist. I like it. In fact, I’ve wanted one for ages, but felt too embarrassed to buy one at my age (all the kids have them at school, of course) and now I have two and the excuse that it was a gift. Brilliant.

The bottle cooler was a gift from a colleague, who was in England last week. It came with the following packaging. You can tell that the target market for this product in England is expected to need a little bit of help in working out how to use it and also needs to keep the packaging in case they forget what the product is for.