Fleeing the football, part 2

As long ago as 8 December 2009 I wrote a blog entry about the looming Rugby World Cup entitled “Fleeing the Football”. Already, back then, I was starting to panic about the abyss of booze and hyper-silliness into which the RWC threatens to plunge us all.

I mentioned having seen a kind of countdown clock in Christchurch Cathedral Square which was already, even then, proclaiming the number of days and nights before the advent of Rugby Heaven. Has that thing survived the earthquakes? If it has, can anyone get near it in the CBD Red Zone to see it and worship? Anyway, I can announce that it is now 79 days to the opening ceremony -- we get the countdown every evening immediately prior to the TV One 6 pm news.

Moreover, we now have stories of “wannabees” auditioning for dance troups and the like for the RWC opening ceremonies. I might consider auditioning to dance at the closing ceremony... But here were all these odd and ofttimes apparently talentless people prancing around in the hope of free entry.

We have dark debate about whether Eden Park is up to it. The only time in my life I have ever been near Eden Park was in 1981, protesting the All Blacks’ final test against the Springboks. The police made very sure we never got into the park. But that was the day of aircraft low-level flour-bombing of the park, and much violence. The protesters that day were sorted initially into groups of graded willingness to get batoned by police and otherwise assaulted. Barrie MacCuish and I joined the group with the most nuns and people in wheelchairs. It was a great day on which we said that some things matter more than Rugby football.

Christchurch’s facilities are of course no more, and there is much grief about that.

There remains no solution about escape from all this, unless I am willing to cough up whatever it costs to take a cruise down the Rhine, or spend some weeks on Niue. The thing is going to last for weeks. I have not had the courage to find out how long it lasts.

Possibly, for all our Rugby tradition and fervour, the country is just now too preoccupied to be greatly bothered, and all the hype will end up struggling for attention. Everything about it seems tiresome to me -- such as the report tonight that most of the “Kiwi-made” artifacts and mementoes on sale in the tourist shops are actually nothing of the kind. They are made in China or Vietnam, fake, cheap, embarrassing. It’s trashy and sad.

We have huge problems to occupy us in NZ at present, some aspects of them bringing out the best in Kiwis. It’s hard to see how the RWC will be anything other than a nuisance, and some occupational therapy for the sports-mad and simpletons.