Funfare for the Common Man

I know my loyal and faithful fans and readers are waiting on tenterhooks for the next instalment of my World Culinary Cup extravaganza, and I certainly don’t want to disappoint. But as we’re leaving on holiday in a matter of hours, I’ll have to rush this one a bit. (Although I’m the king of leaving things till the last minute, I did have to wait until last night’s final quarterfinal match before I could write this…obviously…) After the group stages, things started to fall apart on the cooking front. Perhaps it was the initial euphoria that wore off, perhaps we lost momentum, and we certainly lost a bit of inspiration. Doing it the right away became pretty time-consuming and a wee bit stressful at times, rushing around like a blue-arsed fly trying to get the ingredients I needed. I should have just kept it simple and done something like a World Cup Beer Odyssey, as a former colleague Jonathan has been doing (impressively tracking down a Sam Adams for the US, as well). How t...

Don’t worry: this isn’t really about actual football per se. There will be no talk of tactics, the intricacies of the game and there certainly won’t be any analysis or predictions; not directly, anyway. I learnt my lesson four years ago, when I was ridiculed and pilloried for the drivel I wrote about the 2010 World Cup. It got me into all sorts of trouble, my credibility was put into question, and I lost a handful of readers for good. My German pal Tilman probably still hasn’t forgiven me for lazily dismissing Germany’s chances, and I don’t think he’s read anything I’ve written since. Nowadays, I’d say the vast majority of those who read this couldn’t care less about football. Or maybe I’m wrong, who knows. But with the World Cup just days from kicking off, I’ve inevitably – as I’m wont to do – found myself drifting down memory lane, and reminiscing about where I was and what I was doing at various World Cups. Big sporting events tend to kick in the nostalgia and sentimentalit...