Friday, June 18, 2010

GOAL!!!

Being precisely one-eighth Swiss (my mum's mum's parents were both from Switzerland, although they met in Gippsland), I was pleased to wake up yesterday morning to the news that my fractional ancestral home had defeated Spain, an Actual Soccer Playing Nation, at the World Cup.


Imagine if Switzerland hosted the World Cup. They could replace those wooden trumpet things, which make it sound as if the whole of South Africa is permanently under attack from swarms of killer bees, with alpenhorns.


Is the World Cup draw truly random? Wouldn't it have been interesting if North and South Korea had been in the same group. Or if, say, in the 1942 World Cup America had played Japan, or England had played Germany. Was there even a World Cup in 1942? There kind of was, but it ran for six years, and the playing field was larger than usual.