Saturday, June 10, 2006

Cup fever

I am absolutely beside myself with World Cup fever. England's first match is today - against Paraguay - and I'm as jittery as a bride.

Speaking of weddings and World Cup, the morning radio news did a piece asking us to spare a thought for the rather silly English brides who scheduled their weddings for today. Since English weddings are never in the evening always in the early afternoon, most receptions (in England eternally long boring affairs cluttered with poor public speakers - usually groom, best man, bride's father) will be scheduled right during the match. The commentator defending the brides who scheduled their match over England's match said they spent months planning it and it should take precedence over a silly football game. Yeah, right. Don't be stupid. This is the World Cup. It's only once every four years, whereas Saturdays in June are usually cluttered with weddings. Believe me, had I been invited to a wedding today, I would have gone, signed the book and then slipped off to the nearest pub with a tv, only to return after England victorious.

England's games are all pretty much at convenient times, but US games will require some very clever shifting of my work schedule. I'm already feeling a migraine coming on for Monday afternoon and the afternoon of Thursday the 22nd. I'm actually speaking at an event on the 22nd, but I'm keynoting, so should be able to get away in time.

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Update: on second thought - if someone had scheduled their wedding a long time before England's fixtures were announced, then the only choice would be to run with it. Do the wedding, themed with red and white flowers, show the game on big screen in the reception hall, with beer on tap instead of champagne. It would have been a wedding no one would forget in a long time.

T-tags: soccer, Football, World Cup 2006, germany, England, World Cup

2 comments:

Rex L. Camino said...

I was married on a second Saturday in October when Alabama had a relatively easy Ole Miss game scheduled and Tennessee had the week off. Had it been a week later neither Mrs. Camino's Tennessee guests and relatives nor my Alabamian family would've been there. It would've just been Mrs. Camino and the solely NASCAR watching faction of her family.

Anonymous said...

We had a similar scheduling conflict on the first weekend of October years ago. Four teams had to be in hiatus: Tennessee, Ole Miss, Army, and Notre Dame. A fifth team was considered, but alas, was relegated to second tier status. That was Vanderbilt.

(Who, though second tier, currently have winning streaks against two of those four teams!)