Buenos Aires today is dark and rainy. I woke up at ten, despite having an early night last night and a 2-hour siesta earlier in the evening. It is so unfair that sleeping is not an Olympic event - I would be proud to represent Britain and would surely bring home medals in both sprinting and marathon snoozing. I was glad to wake up though, as I was in the middle of a very detailed and disturbing dream. It is a recurring theme that has been with me for at least twenty years and involves me watching an aeroplane, knowing it is about to crash. The circumstances are always different and the level of panic changes every time but of course it is never pleasant. In last night’s, I was in the garden in Somerset with two of my sisters when an Air Lingus jet went over, flying backwards with just one wing. My sisters thought this an amusing sight but of course, I knew it was going to crash, which it duly did a little way outside the village. Anyway, I won’t bore you with the rest but I woke up before actually reaching the wreckage this time. Over to you Dr.Freud!
So it is an unusually miserable day here, which may cheer anyone who is enduring an English summer. So far, the winter here has been ridiculously mild. There is a cruel wind that comes in off the South Atlantic and can chill you instantly to the bone but it is infrequent. On the whole, the sun is still warm on the skin and it shines most days. It sets at about 6pm, so there is none of that hideous business we have in England where the winter days seem only to last three hours (I know, I should get up earlier!).
A good day in fact for sitting at home and watching a football match.
Well, what luck! Argentina is playing Mexico this afternoon, so the whole town will be closed anyway. This country is totally taken up with the football, much more so than England though you may find that hard to believe. They are very keen on flag-waving anyway, so there is always an excuse to hang the blue, white and blue from any available position but at the moment it is ubiquitous. I had to go to the post office last week during the Sweden match and it was like walking through a ghost town. This is the main street in a capital city in the middle of a weekday afternoon. Most of the shops I passed were shut. Those which were open had radios or TVs on with people huddled around, following the commentary intently. A near miss - and there were plenty that day - was met with a roar of disappointment up and down the street. They didn’t need to win as both teams had clearly qualified for the next round but they would have liked to. In the post office, I was the only customer and the one guy serving was catching up on his paperwork while his colleagues could be heard in the back office following the match. Every now and then, one of them came through to tell him there was still no score.
The previous week, Argentina wiped the floor with Serbia Montenegro and there was jubilation in the streets of Buenos Aires. Again, I had to be out and about in town during and after that match, and was amazed and impressed by the reaction. There is a tradition of throwing paper around in celebration - probably a bit like the US ticker-tape parade - so all the offices who can open windows must spend the days leading up to a match furiously shredding old documents. Then when victory is in the bag, they open their windows and throw it all out. It is pretty to watch at the time but blimey what a mess it leaves! I had to go round to the banking district and at times needed to wade through clumps of shreddings. Down at the obelisk, such traffic as there was had stopped and a big party was going on with horns and flags and singing and dancing. And no, not pints and pints of beer. That really is not how things are done here. People cannot understand why the English would get plastered while watching an important match, how can you concentrate if you are pissed? How can you commit to memory every beautiful pass, missed opportunity etc? And how can you remember it all afterwards? People seem happy and alive enough without excessive alcohol and I love that that is the norm.
All weekend, a particularly elegant goal was replayed on the TV, one station set it to Beethoven’s Ode to Joy, starting with the first possession of the ball and following it being passed elegantly down the pitch, past the other team who might have been lamp-posts for all the resistance they gave, ending up suddenly in the net. Finally, I could see the point of watching football! I doubt that will have too lasting an effect on me though.
I have watched a few of the matches on TV, largely because everyone wants to talk about it and I would rather discuss football than the Royal Family. It is a good way to start a conversation and any chance to speak Spanish is welcome to me. I had been limited to telling people that Rooney is known as potato head as a diversionary tactic to cover up my lack of knowledge. Sarah has filled me in on the thing about his toe and the thing about that hooker but so far I haven’t needed them. England’s first couple of matches were lacklustre beyond belief, so I hope it is not a treasonable offence to diss them in front of Johnny Foreigner! The last match involved quite a bit more running about and fancy footwork, so that rather redeemed them. What I love is the commentary on the TV because it is SO fast I can barely make any of it out. In the Argentina matches it is unashamedly partisan, which they do not really do in the UK in case anyone gets offended. It’s all “Oh jolly good goal to the foreign team, we really should have seen that coming!”. But here they are right behind their own team and talk up a frenzy of excitement. There are a lot of words that come straight from the English without translation - like goal and corner; others which get directly translated, e.g. mid-field becomes something like medio-campo. Best of all are the pronunciations of the English names: Rrrrrrrah-been-sohn, Crrrrr-aaaaa-ooch, well I am not even going to try spelling out how they say Garragher but it is very fruity indeed. Rio Ferdinand of course sounds the least exotic from this angle.
So, half way round the world and for once in my life, I know the names of the England football team and have taken time out to watch them play. What a place of wonders this is.
The BBC seem to think that Argentina is going to win the cup, I hope they are right. This is a town that knows how to party!
Meanwhile, if anyone needs any pale blue and white striped items - you name it - they are all available here in abundance. Including winter jackets for any size of dog, toys, suitcases, napkins, toothpicks… the list goes on. This is a people unafraid of waving - and wearing - their own flag.
