Hell's horns

I know I am not in the forest, and yet… there it is again. That distinct mating call. Like an moose on heat. Or a camel, but then without the bubbling sound to it. A sound that rasps your ear drum and penetrates your brain with the sole aim to annoy you into oblivion. But I am in a stadium, so it can’t really come from an animal, can it? Close, it comes from football supporters blowing on their vuvuzelas.

Before I tell you in which stadium I was and what I did there, allow me to elaborate on the nuisance called a vuvuzela.

A vuvuzela is a simplistic derivative of the well known horn. Other than it’s brother the horn, who is an established member of the classical instruments, a vuvuzela is not capable of producing any musical sound. If there had ever been attempts of including a vuvuzela in a philharmonic – or any other type of- orchestra, I am sure the player of that “instrument” got immediately banned out of the music loving society on the ground of being downright too annoying and unfit to produce a single correct note. But somehow this outcast of the world of real music instruments managed to survive. It aptly found its target audience in dumb witted football supporters and children who just love to make irritating noise on the account of being children and not knowing any better.

For sure you have at least once in your life picked up a traffic cone, put the tip to your mouth and then tried to make a trumpet (like) sound. Imagine the cone being much thinner and around a meter long with the tip nice and round, welcoming your wet lips to simply touch that cheap plastic. That would be your vuvuzela right there. Not less, and definitely not more.

Unfortunately this thing is considered harmless and is thus not prohibited in the stadiums. It is not welcomed either, by me in any case, but it is allowed in. And hundreds of people drag one along.

The vuvuzela and all its shortcomings is one thing. The use of it is an other issue worth spending a couple of words on.

Since this thing is used by football supporters and children, you can expect there isn’t really a vuvuzela etiquette. No unwritten rules govern the use of it, like you would have for breaking wind or belching. Try to grasp the far reaching consequences. You can walk around, chatting a bit, minding your own business, being harmless, while some vile passer by aims a vuvuzela straight at you and blows it out of all his might. You’ll scare the heck out of yourself.
Or you are standing in line for a nice cold beer, surrounded by vuvuzelas and their owners. The thought of them being able to blow their horns at any moment will take away your craving for a nice glass of cold, gold coloured tasty fluid. Cursed be them who take away beer cravings !

At very, very rare occasions, the vuvuzela handlers blow their horns at the same time. It is more a coincidence than a preconceived plan. But when it happens, it sounds almost nice. There is a hint of a feeling of togetherness in it. And it shows that a bunch of those things together might actually sound nice. Much to my regret, this potential remains untapped. There are no songs, no rhythms, no hymns, no nothing that those vuvuzela people do together. They just randomly make the irritating noise. It is not linked to what is going on on the pitch, it is not aimed at each other and it is certainly not to entertain the surrounding people. So why do they use it? Your guess is probably better than mine. I have no flipping idea.

Some argue it is folklore and that you should respect it for that reason. I think that holds no water. There are herdsmen in the mountains of Iceland who castrate their sheep by biting off their balls with their teeth (not the sheep’s teeth, fool. And no, they don’t castrate sheep by biting off their own balls, they bite off the ram’s balls, capice?). I am sure that is folklore too, but regretfully I don’t really feel much respect for them. You have knives to do what they do, or even forks if need be, just like you have proper instruments to make sounds that represent the beauty, power and skill of the team you support. Cheering on your team with a vuvuzela seems like wishing them the worst leg cramps imaginable. Hardly the desired effect I’d say.

What should have been an introduction to a very juicy story became a lengthy bit of ventilating frustrations. And now I have to go to sleep because it is getting late. And I didn’t get a chance to tell what I was doing in that stadium! Do you think it has something to do with the lessons and the exam I mentioned last time?

I will let you know in due time.

Night night.