What’s plastic, a metre long, brightly coloured and sounds like an elephant? It’s the vuvuzela, the noise-making trumpet of South African football fans, and it’s come to symbolise the sport in the country. [Link]

Despite the many calls mostly from players to ban this freaking annoying machine, organizers are instead defending it.

Van Persie, a dutch player, didn’t hear the referee calling an offside today cause of the horns.

“Look at them (vuvuzelas) as part of our culture in South Africa to celebrate the 2010 FIFA World Cup. As our guests please embrace our culture, please embrace the way we celebrate,” said Mkhondo. [Eurosport]

That quote is so touching i almost dropped a tear. Embracing sport by making the most annoying noise ever and damaging players’ and viewers’ hearing. Very Original!

I suggest the country hosting the next world cup to embrace chainsaws as their sport symbol and distribute them to everyone in the stadium, or even better grant the refereers vuvuzela-like whistles so that they keep the 2010 South Africa World Cup memories alive.

Morale of the story: World cups should only be organized in Europe.