Being a man is a lot like that. One brazenly puts oneself in an uncomfortable position and then has to find a way through it, motivated equally by worry that he can’t and belief that he will. The tug of ambition on the one side and the pull of failure on the other. The combination leads to greatness. There are no guides to manhood. Not really. We try on selves – constantly. We see traits exhibited by other men and we emulate them. We learn by example and trial. We keep trying…

But look we men are always going to do stupid stuff. It’s who we are, and how we learn.”

David Granger

Portugal and PDRK exchange shirts - doesn't get more cultural than that!

The Vineyard is lovely, I always think that I should spend more time there but it’s just not a routine habit that I have been able to bed down. My parents, go often for tea and to greet a dear family friend who know works at the Hotel making sure that their debits and credits balance. So it was an obvious choice for Father’s Day.

But there is just no escaping the football though, during our lunch it became apparent that the Protuguese team were staying at the hotel. I saw Ronaldo and the frenzy that his presence tends to cause amongst teenage girls and their respective mothers. Some of the players signed scarves and jerseys and whatever that was thrown their way. It was nice to see them taking a few minutes out, to make it special for their fans, to pose for photographs and to get into the spirit.

When our meal was over I got up with my aunt who wanted to go for a cigarette and I accompanied her. We were away for about ten minutes talking about some of the games and the fever which she assured me has even spread to sleepy surburbia. On our return my mother proclaims, ‘you missed all the excitement,’ and shows me a picture of my father and Carlos Queiroz taken a few minutes ago.

Neil and Carlos

Of course the next day at the UFO we got to see Portugal score a magnificent seven, now I am not saying it was the advice that I told my father to pass onto Carlos but maybe at half time he remembered something that was repeated to him late Sunday afternoon and the rest is history.

So? Who could have predicted it, we tried to escape the football but it continues to follow us wherever we go, and it’s wonderful. This World Cup is leaving a collage of memories and fantastical imprints which we will treasure always irrespective of the gender or generation – the Beautiful game how beautiful you are up close and personal.

Ronaldo's Back

Then I was into it, I knew I would be, and so much so that I now own a Serbian replica shirt and a most grubby South African jersey.

And we scored the first goal of the tournament and what a good goal, suddenly our boys were once again ‘OURS’ and so good that you had to say the name twice -Bafana, Bafana. But just as we almost had those precious three points, ‘they’ scored…Ole!

Onto the stadium with our most sensible beagle caps on our heads.

And we even had Bud non the wiser.

The game was boring but the stadium – the UFO is brilliant – it was cold we were shouting for Africa’s surrogate team: Allez, allez les bleu! But they were hopeless. The Uruguayans were far cooler, vamos, vamos Uruguay! My mother even had her picture taken with one of the players mother’s, I’m not saying more other than ‘Diego.’

The TV, the tweeting, that three points that Ghana gave us and how Paraguay christened the Cape Town stadium with it’s first goal.

Now I have the ‘Vuvuzela 2010′ application on my Itouch so that I can make a nuissance of myself whenever, wherever.

And you do know that Brazil haven’t played yet but those Chermans continue to be furiously efficient even with a Jabulani ball at their feet.

You gotta love a World Cup…don’t you just!

Diego's mother and my mother before game one - Vamos Uruguay!

I recently heard this little anecdote – A man is lost and approaches a local and proceeds to ask him if he knows the way to Caltuket. The local looks bemused and replies, “Yes I do but if I were you I wouldn’t start from here!”

Aarh life’s little journey.

I then stumbled upon this nifty little Zen phrase, ‘People like to ask about satori but I don’t encourage dirty talk like that” from Robert Allen’s book a 1000 paths to Zen. It makes me smile every time I read it.

—
I still can’t finish book number eight even though I have started books nine and ten. It stymies me that I can’t finish number eight which is a great read and that is possibly why I just don’t appear to want to get to the end, which is problematic because now I am falling behind that 20 books read for the year target.

Oh well, you can only give it your best shot and then draw a line when the count down happens and random strangers begin to kiss you and wish you happy New Year.

—

I have discovered the joys of sleeping with ‘white noise’ I bought an application from iTunes ‘Sleep Science’ for a dollar. Now I fall asleep to the sounds of nature, primarily in my case the falling rain and the gushing wind. I recommend it.

And while I am recommending stuff let me mention Caviar’s Belgium Chocolate Mousse which is so good that it should come with a health warning.

—
And I finally found out how to pronounce ‘Sj’ in Swedish, I am not going to tell you, go find your own Swede to help you say ‘sshh…Sjowall’

—
And, and, and, is this the new ‘Blondie?’

A great site – impossible to describe cool – but they do try and it works.

The impossible cool.

‘…what we learned as children
that one plus one equals two
we know to be false
one plus one equals one
we even have a word
for when you plus another equals one
that word… is love…’

It still saddens me that there won’t be a Season Three, one plus one may equal one but how do we get to three?

Two plus one? Anyone?

I have been playing the new album non stop for a couple of days and it’s their best effort yet, a fitting end to the trilogy of sorts. I bought the first album coming through LHR and it never grabbed me, I couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about. A while later I heard, Daft Punk is playin’ in my house, during the opening scene of one of the episodes of Life ( that great TV series) and I was forced to re-evaluate, the album and the band.

There was no need for any of that faffing about this time around, saw it, bought it, played it and I’m still playing – file this one under, ‘quite brilliant,’ even though they don’t hits.

—
The project has finally moved through the Define phase and into the Execute phase and it’s as if somebody has just deflated my being, all the life, the angst and the plan-b’ing stops and now I can finally sleep before we stick another coin in machine again and start up the game.

Everybody involved is feeling good, we’ve spent half of the money and now we’ve been given a mandate to spend the rest and complete the work. Nothing is easy, I wonder if I am attracted to/by these projects, I always tend to find myself involved in this kind of activity, I guess, somehow, by hook or by crook you pay for your sins, my most obvious is not having staff.

—

For a week and a bit I had water dripping from my ceiling, it took a few days for me to be sure, the drip is in the kitchen, I am never in the kitchen, mostly never. So when a drop of water hit my head I was forced to look up and that’s when I realised that, that was where the water was coming from and not from my fridge which I had suspected. Thankfully it’s stopped now.

I phoned my father to confirm, that there weren’t any pipes in the ‘ceiling’ he said, ‘no it’s the flat above,’ and then proceeded to tell me about their new flat screen TV, 10 seconds later I gave up on that conversation, my mind wondering if a bath was overflowing and whether it was about to fall on me, dispensing some naked body, in the process (nice watch, I’d think tampering with the evidence). I went up one flight to satisfy my imagination and nobody was home.

The next morning after a series of phone calls to the owner who was overseas we managed to get into the flat above and that then triggered a further sequence of events and now thankfully there is no longer water dripping from above.

—
Last night I started watching the Breakfast Club but before it got good, I had to switch it off, tonight I think I will finish what I started. The Breakfast Club was my least favourite of the John Hughes directed movies, still I thought I would give it another chance, I suspose, ‘I can change.’

It’s a long shot, put a tenner down, the odds are in your favour.

—

Finally and perhaps most profoundly, it’s finally happened to me, I think I am grappling, no that’s not the word, I am coming to realise that I should simply have more faith. A simple enough realisation that has got nothing to do with laziness or procrastination, and I need to practice this in spite of waking up some mornings and seeing that the Yankees lost the ballgame, that’s not the faith that I am talking about.

If a stranger said to me, randomly, ‘where is your faith?’ I would battle, I would have to repeat the question and then later, my faith would wet my head, probably in the kitchen as it came dripping back.