Let's not hear it for the dreaded vuvuzelas

JOHANNESBURG LETTER:The novelty of the horrendously noisy horns didn't take too long to wear off

IT’S ONLY day nine of this World Cup but already my brief love affair with the vuvuzela is over. To be honest, though, after a euphoric first few days together here in South Africa, the novelty had started to wear off by day three or four.

The charm of seeing staff from a hotel and scientific institute that face each other across a busy road in Cape Town stage a “vuvuzela-off” played its part in capturing my heart for a while as did the far more bizarre sight of a 35-metre long vuvuzela perched on an unfinished flyover close to the city centre.

It, rather memorably, was emblazoned with the words “Hyundai, bringing the gees.” Written in 10ft tall letters on the side of a giant, bright coloured instrument on an unfinished flyover, it was not something I could ignore.

Then the games began and after that first night at the Green Point stadium, the constant drone started to become tiresome.

Don’t get me wrong, for the most part the press aren’t badly affected, unless we’re sitting on the very edge of the area reserved for us, and for long spells on match days I’m barely aware of the din, which is constant before, during and after games.

When somebody produced one a few rows behind me at the Ghana and Serbia game in Pretoria last weekend, however, I got my first real sense of what it’s like to be subjected to the noise at close hand. I still had the luxury of a few metres distance, however, unlike the woman who was sitting directly in front of the “blower”.

She repeatedly winced and looked to be in actual pain as blasts of noise were emitted little more a foot or so from her head.

The final straw, though, came in Rustenburg a few nights back when I swung by the toilet of a bar opposite the ground before commencing a three-hour drive back to Johannesburg. It was fairly late at night and the guy beside me may well have spent the entire day drinking because he was completely trollied.

He certainly didn’t look too firm on his feet and so I didn’t really notice as he shuffled about a bit, propped himself up against the wall in front of us with his right shoulder and blasted his vuvuzela straight into my right ear.

Briefly, I thought my head was going to explode, and the only consolation was that had I not already been relieving myself into a piece of porcelain specifically designed for the purpose, I’d almost certainly have been making the long journey home in a puddle.

Around that time, the debate about whether to ban vuvuzelas from the matches was at its height but, having failed to do so before the tournament started, the organisers were never likely to step in midway through and the prospect is not really a matter for serious discussion over here anymore.

Broadcasters like the BBC and Canal+ are employing new technology to offer vuvuzela -free commentaries and over here earplugs have been added to the already wide array of goods you can buy on the way to games.

If you are sitting in the regular seats they must be pretty much a necessity, for the noise of the vuvuzela has been measured at about 135 decibels, with even the newer, quieter models weighing in at more than 120, which is still reckoned to be more than you would be subjected to if standing close to the speakers at a loud rock concert.

Neil van Schalkwyk, whose company, Masincedane, will sell around 2.5 million of the things here this year claims, rather floridly, that in a country with 11 official languages; “there’s one language the people all understand: it’s the 12th language of the vuvuzela”. Soon to be replaced by a 13th, signing, one suspects.

Van Schhalkwyk claims to have personally popularised the vuvuzela back in 2000 or so when he handed out hundreds at league games in the hope they would catch on.

Two years later, he sold 20,000. Others claim that vuvuzelas made their first appearance at matches in the mid-1990s or even well before that.

There is also more than one school of thought regarding the origin of the items, with the romantic version being that they are a modern day equivalant of the traditional curved horn made from the antlers of the kudu, a local deer-like creature.

The less romantic version is proffered by Freddie “Saddam” Maake, a Kaiser football supporter who claims to have removed the black rubber part from a bicycle horn way back in the 1960s before fitting a mouthpiece to it so that he could blow through it at games. He then made bigger versions to produce more noise.

Whatever the truth of the matter, Sepp Blatter has been quick to seize upon the opportunity to portray himself as the champion of the local underdog as he observed: “We should not try to Europeanise an African World Cup”.

His comments tend to ignore the fact that players from all the other continents have in fact complained about not being able to communicate on the pitch during games.

Fifa seem not to share the concerns of local police either, who complain that vuvuzelas can be used as weapons in the event that violence breaks out inside or outside the stadiums.

You can bet on one thing, though. If a company that is not a fully paid up “partner” tries to hand out vuvuzelas with branding on them, then Blatter and the boys will swing into action.

If Hyundai’s rivals flooded the venue cities with branded ones this weekend, rest assured they’d be banned by Monday.

That’s unlikely to happen and vuvuzelas will continue to be blown in and around stadiums for the rest of this tournament.

Like everyone else, I’ll live with that but I am starting a campaign right now, to get the things prohibited from public toilets.