This week,” said my husband Anthony, “I challenge you to write about the World Cup.”
“But I don’t know anything about the World Cup,” I said. “And nor do I care about it.”
“Exactly,” he replied. “That’s the challenge.”
Well, I would hate anyone to think that I do what my husband tells me, but I do find a challenge hard to turn down. And it’s fair to say that the World Cup is impossible to ignore in our household at the moment.
Last week, Anthony brought home a free-with-the-Evening Standard wallchart which names all the fixtures and leaves space to fill in the results.
Six-year-old Boaz is treating this chart with the same amount of reverence and awe that one might give to, say, an original edition of the Magna Carta. He has taken to reading out sections from it, complete with the dates and times of the matches. It’s completely riveting.
And the wall chart is the least of it. Whether I like it or not, there is a World Cup haze hanging over all of life.
For instance, Anthony eats supper early so as to be able to watch the game. Then at book group, we sit in the kitchen because the match is on in the living room. The tournament even gets a fleeting mention in my Biblical Hebrew class before we get down to analysis of the kamatz katan.
One night, my daughter asks for help with her homework: “I’ve drawn Uruguay in the class sweepstake,” she explains. “I have to find out how they did at previous World Cups.”
(This does seem hard on the children who have drawn, say, Panama or Saudi Arabia: not only have they been landed with a team that has no chance of winning, but they then have to do homework to establish just what a bad team they’ve drawn.)
Meanwhile, our oldest child, Isaac, who normally couldn’t care less about football, has taken to announcing random facts such as: “Did you know, Germany haven’t lost in the first game of a World Cup since 1982?”
The last time Isaac showed a serious interest in the game was during the London Olympics, when Anthony took him to see Gabon v South Korea — that being the only match he could get tickets for.
As neither team were any good at football, and nor do we have even the most tenuous cultural connection with either country, it didn’t really seem to matter which one Anthony and Isaac supported.
Isaac (then aged seven) did not agree. He announced that he was going to support Gabon, and proceeded to do so with extraordinary commitment. He researched the country and its government, regaling us with details about its leader, President Ali Bongo, at every opportunity, whether we wanted to hear them or not.
When we all went to visit the Olympic stadium, children were lining up to have a flag painted on their cheek with face paint. “Gabon, please” said Isaac when it was his turn.
The face-painting-lady’s face lit up. “Thank goodness for that,” she said. “I’ve been doing nothing but Union Jacks for hours.”
On the day of the match, Isaac went to Wembley wearing a t-shirt he’d decorated himself with Gabon flags and slogans. The game ended in a goalless draw, and the news site Pixel Sport said of the match: “It speaks volumes that the loudest cheer heard all day was when one of the fabulous Games makers told the crowd that Bradley Wiggins had won gold for Great Britain in the cycling time trial.”
I don’t think this spoiled the experience for Isaac in any way. Like me, he has a tendency to be thinking about something more interesting when an actual goal is scored, so he probably wouldn’t have noticed anyway.
I find that any global cultural moment — the Olympics, a Royal Wedding, the World Cup — takes on a life of its own that makes its specific nature almost irrelevant.
There are always people who manage to hold themselves completely aloof, quite determined to have nothing to do with it – whatever the it may be. And that’s absolutely fine.
It’s worth noting, though, that you do have to make a specific effort not to be engaged. You have to switch off the news, throw away the special newspaper supplement, put your fingers in your ears and chant “la la la la la” as soon as anyone starts talking about it.
Or you can take really extreme measures and lock yourself in your home for the duration, ignoring the doorbell, shutting down the wifi, refusing to answer the phone. Though even that might not be enough. Even now I can hear next door’s builders discussing the game.
I’m actually quite enjoying the general atmosphere of excitement, even if I don’t intend to go so far as watching an actual game.
“Will you at least watch if England get into the final?” Isaac asked me.
“Yes,” I replied promptly. “I promise that I will.”
Rarely have I been more confident that I won’t have to keep a promise.
@susanreuben