Why Are They Playing Footy in a Beehive?

Why Are They Playing Footy in a Beehive?
or How I Learned to Claw My Own Ears Off and Hate the Vuvuzela.

Meet your worst nightmare...the Vuvuzela, aka. the Lepatata, aka. the Stadium Horn.
Left to it's own devices its a harmless plastic horn that makes a generally annoying sound. Placed in the hands of 50,000+ South Africans in a semi-confined space and get ready to fight urges to commit suicide. Just turn on a Confederations Cup match, preferably one in which South Africa is participating to get the full effect, and you'll understand.

The vuvuzela is no stranger to controversy. Criticized by many as being annoying and distracting, these plastic noise making nightmares have been banned in stadiums across the world...and rightfully so. The sounds coming from these heinous horns is awful, it's annoying, it's distracting...it's like nails on a chalkboard! What's worse for ESPN and their advertisers, these lousy lepatatas make me, and many other I imagine, want to turn of my television!

Not everyone feels the same as I do about these molded monstrosities. South African supporters say these sorry excuse for a musical instrument, quote, "brings lively atmosphere to the stadium and it is has become part of South African football culture and a way of showing loyalty and dedication to your soccer team".

Despite FIFA concern about the potential for these insufferable instruments to be used as weapons, the "geniuses" at FIFA decided to lift a ban on vuvuzleas for the Confederations Cup and the World Cup in 2010...LUCKY US. Thanks FIFA, way to find yet another way to annoy footy fans.

It might not be as bad if South Africans would learn how to play the damn things instead of just blowing on them incessantly, creating a constant monotonous drone. You can actually create a rhythmic, dare I say musical sound with these nefarious noisemakers, but there seems to be little desire to do this in South Africa. Instead, the Confederations Cup has turned in to a giant human experiment on whether or not a mass of humanity can simulate what it is like to live in a beehive or be surrounded by a gigantic cloud of flies. As much as we were all tripping over ourselves to discover what these two experiences felt like, I think it's safe to say that there are better places to try these eardrum destroying experiments.

As a viewer of Confederations Cup matches, I feel that I am the unwilling victim of some kind of sick and twisted social experiment. Is the nation of South Africa trying to take control of the world using these terrible trumpets? Is there some kind of voodoo mind control subliminal message being broadcasted through the never ending buzzing sound coming through our televisions?

We can only hope that FIFA will come to their senses once the buzzing in their ears subsides and these tyrannical trombones will be banned come the World Cup next year. Some of us actually want to watch the tournament rather than lay in the fetal position on the floor of our living rooms or favorite pub with our hands clasped over our ears as we are slowly and methodically driven insane...

...or maybe it's time to start shopping for ear plugs.