This world cup drives people round the bend. At least my world is getting rounder every day. I kind of missed the U.S. Open Golf Championship almost entirely (at least I found out an Irish boy won it, Graeme McDowell, well done) but am glued to the screen every day to watch nations I never thought even played soccer fight against other nations I have no connection to, whatsoever. And I am not even interested in football. Normally I am not. But since 2006 I kind of got the hang of how the average German does it. What with the entire nation going nuts for the duration of the event. This condoms for car side mirrors that came into fashion this year! What nonsense that is. In olden times I would have insisted, that this are people of the kind that drive Opel Mantas, displaying flames on either side of the vehicle. The kind of folks that always feature a bloody left elbow because they forget to take in their arm when parking in the garage. It seems, that part of the population grew out of proportion and are now rather the rule than the exception. Nowadays even expensive cars are done up in black-red-gold ornaments of every style. I am happy to report that I refrained from such atrocities so far. At the same time I have to confess that on Wednesday I shall join a bunch of soccer-crazed Germans in an event called public viewing. The very term public viewing has a dirty ring about it, don’t you agree? As if it were something normally done in absolute privacy, now dragged out into the open for everyone to see. And I am betting the outcome of any given game on an internet platform, too. As I have no clue about the qualities of the teams involved I just go ahead, guessing. It would be such fun to beat the “experts”. To be honest, I do get involved as soon as the match starts and can not turn my eyes off the screen until the referee blows his whistle at the end. I must be crazy.

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