Spain won. I yelled and punched the air when this happened. I was most pleased. Mainly because Holland seemed to think the best way to stop Spain was to kick them (in the chest at one point).

And here endeth the football.

It must be a false memory.

Like that one where I’m still convinced that, when I was about 6, I used a toy phone to speak to my cousins in Dundee. I am still sure, to this day, that I did speak to them despite all evidence to the contrary. I’m nothing if not stubborn.

So it’s with an expression of perplexity that I sit night after night and watch the World Cup (of Football, in case you were confused). I hear the vulva horn thingies buzzing away and can see the pitch, the ball, the referee and the players. Every possible moment has a mention of England in one form or another, and there are liberal doses of casual xenophobia left, right and centre.

It’s definitely a World Cup.

But by GOD it’s boring. It wasn’t always this boring, I know it wasn’t. I got to watch ALL (every single game) of Mexico ’86 as I was off school with chickenpox. I kept my own notebook of scores, laboriously coloured in each flag and the mascot was painstakingly recreated on the cover. The football was fun, goals were score, crowds cheered, commentators fumbled over foreign names and got over excited every time one of those new fangled Mexican Wave things started.

It was exciting, entertaining, and engrossing.

Fast forward to South Africa 2010 and… what has happened? Dull, boring and I’ve even turned off a couple of the games through sheer disinterest.

It wasn’t always like this, was it?

But I have been able to crack on with some website work and as always it’s great when the client is accomodating, helpful and all round just a nice guy. Say hi to www.davidbelbin.com (then go buy one of his books!).

I’m also adding some functionality for a previous client, so I’ve got plenty to keep me busy AND I’ve found time to gently kick start my reading habit. Tackling the last of the Larsson trilogy which is a fun read in a Dan Brown kinda way. Mind you, I did read half of From Russia With Love before realising I’d already read it, oops.

The only other moment of excitement has been paying £4 for the privilege of receiving 4 rather shady looking photos of my fizzog. I need to renew my driving license and, amazingly, the photos actually look like me! (and no, I’m not showing you them).

Right, time to mark off another day in the “Hurry up I want an iPhone 4!” calendar.

Oh yeah, and football. World Cup and all that. If you need me, I’ll be in front of the TV.

I’ve watched tennis and football too but they get enough coverage (thankfully there isn’t an Olympic golf contest!).

There is one thing that the BBC remain good at, and I guess it’s largely down to their researchers, is building stories into each event, adding personal backdrops to the unfolding drama and, for me at least, helping to drag you into the excitement.

Add in some skilled commentators who understand that their audience might not understand the finer points of the given sport and it’s an excellent combination (if only they’d managed to shut up during the opening ceremony, where they managed to spoil two surprises).

An example, the men’s cycling road race. At about the halfway point there was a breakaway of 3 riders. Now I’ve watched enough Tour de France to know that breakaways are difficult and that the peloton (the chasing pack) usually reel them back in (strength in numbers and all that).

However the breakaway pulled out a 30 second gap and managed to hold it. With a third of the race to go 2 more riders broke out of the peloton to try and reel them back in before the finish. They managed to get about 15 seconds out from the peloton but couldn’t catch the leaders. Then, with the race entering the final quarter, the last few kilometres, a lone Swiss rider broke from the peloton.

Now, this is a one off event, 3 medals and that’s it. Why the peloton didn’t work harder to catch the leaders I don’t know (there is an element of teamwork at play here too, with the Spanish riders in the peloton probably holding back because they know they have one of the front 3 riders).

Back to the Swiss rider then, and all of a sudden he’s catching the first 2 breakaway riders and no sooner has he done that than he starts to drag them up to the front 3. The kilometres are ticking down, surely the front 3 can’t be caught … but wait! there they are, just up ahead…

By now I’m on the edge of my seat. One man has to work VERY hard to close such a gap, surely he won’t have enough left for the final few hundred metres to the finish line, uphill!

6 riders turn the final corner, up out of their seats, legs pumping hard, lungs burning, adrenalin flooding their veins as they realise they could win! The Russian rider breaks into a sprint, but surely he’s too early!! The hill continues, the other riders are weaving hard now, focussed, determined, they catch the now fading Russian and pass him, the Spaniard edges ahead, the line approaches… HE’S WON!!!!

But what of the Swiss? Does he get anything for his efforts? Any reward at all? I’m desperate to know, unsure if he was beaten into 4th or managed to earn 3rd place and a coveted medal… the tension is killing me, come on commentator!!

He did it, he got bronze!! WOO HOOOOO

OK, so maybe I get a little wrapped up in such things a little too easily but I appreciate the effort, the training, the techniques and strategies at play, and not just in cycling. The mental pressures are as tough as the physical ones at times, and for some this is a one time only chance, the pinnacle of their sport.

How can you NOT be dragged into such drama? How can you possibly flick idlly to Eastenders or Big Brother when there is REAL emotion, real guts and passion on display.

Honestly, if you aren’t watching the Olympics you are some weird kind of cretin. It’s not about sport, it’s about passion, commitment and desire. It’s about despair and pain, about winning, about competing, about focus and drive. Tears, laughter and joy, not medals. It’s about being alive.

Isn’t it?

OK, maybe not. But I do have an excellent example of how this interwoven online life we lead is actually a good thing… bear with me though, as this covers many tangents.

It all started with an RSS feed…

[cue wibbly wobbly dream sequence]
wibbly wobbly wibbly wobbly

[cut to dashingly handsome man, idly checking his RSS feeds]

So there I was, sat at the computer having a quick skim through the myriad of nonsense I track in Google Reader when I happened across a post about a t-shirt. It immediately caught my eye as it was both stylish and bold, and commemorated one of the sporting highlights of my year, the NBA finals.

I may need to elaborate a little.

I’ve always liked basketball, possibly because as a kid I was better at it than football, possibly because my Dad is a P.E. teacher and encouraged me to look at other sports? I’m not entirely sure but I still remember watching the few brief snippets of coverage the NBA was given in the UK, completely in awe as Magic Johnson threw another no-look pass, being stunned by the grace of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s skyhook, and amazed by the white boy in the room, Larry Bird. Those are hazy memories but were soon made vivid by a young man called Michael Jordan who brought boom time to the NBA and regular coverage to UK TV.

Skip forward to today and despite awe and admiration for the 95-96 Jordan led Chicago Bulls team, I have remained a quiet Lakers fan. I remember hearing about Shaq being signed to the team, and admit to being non-plussed when a rookie named Kobe Bryant was added to the roster. Turns out that rookie was pretty sensational himself, hey, he IS this year’s MVP.

The only reason I know all of this is largely thanks to the internet (sidenote to Channel 5, your coverage sucks). NBA.com has kept me up to speed with the regular season and has helped build my anticipation as the finals approach, watching snippets of video online as the Lakers and Celtics headed toward another slice of history.

So it’s thanks to the internet that I can maintain my enthusiasm for basketball, an enthusiasm which includes a desire to own a t-shirt that commemorates the Lakers appearance in NBA Finals this year.

Excitedly I clicked through to the website (80spurple.com) and started filling out the order form, happy to pay for delivery of a $18 t-shirt. Although not so happy when I found out that the delivery costs were $36, way beyond what I had expected and what I was willing to pay for, let’s face it, a screen printed t-shirt. I was somewhat irked.

But, no matter how hard I tried (ok ok, I didn’t try THAT hard) I could shake the desire. I really wanted the t-shirt. Admittedly this may be a downside to the internet, with the instant gratification and the materialistic desires it can promote, the lure of many shiny things dangled temptingly within easy reach. However we are only as weak as our… ehh… willpower is strong? I dunno. All I know is deciding I couldn’t have the t-shirt only made me want it more.

As my frustration grew I posted a plea to Twitter, in the vague hope that any of my American followers (gosh that makes it sound a tad religious, don’t you think?) on there might spot it and be able to help out. It’s a bit cheeky I admit but, like I said, NOT being able to have something only makes the desire grow stronger. I was getting desperate!

Now, as some of you know, I have a Facebook account and, rather than use the Facebook status thing I use Twitter. In other words, whatever I post to Twitter is displayed alongside my Facebook profile, so anyone who has me as a friend on Facebook will see what I’m saying on Twitter. To be honest I only really set it up to work that way to save myself having to update two things when I could just use one. I like simple maths like that.

I monitored Twitter a little too fervently for the rest of the day, in the hope that someone, ANYONE, would respond. FINALLY, and possibly after having reworded my initial plea into … well… outright begging, two good people got in touch with me with generous offers of help.

The first was an old school friend who I haven’t seen for… god… 14 years? She now lives in Boston and had recently found me on Facebook. She very kindly offered to receive the delivery of said t-shirt and post it on to the UK, confident that it would cost MUCH less than $36 to post. Her name is Kirsty and she is the fabbiest bestest person on the face of the planet at the moment (or at least she was for THAT moment, such things are transient). The other person was Adrian -dare I post the photo of him passed out in the pub during his own party- Sevitz, who is travelling to the States later in the month and offered to bring the t-shirt back with him and post it on to me. And, in a rather nice chunk of serendipity, it was the self same Sevitz who convinced me to re-instate my Facebook account (as the invites to that party were distributed from there, you know, the party where he fell asleep.. ).

See, isn’t the internet fabulous?

From an RSS feed, to an online store with the chance to purchase an item, the purchase of which was fuelled by continued use of another website on a specialist subject, to a Twittered plea (beg!) and a Facebook status update, through a couple of emails and an online order paid via Paypal.

Without the internet none of this would be possible. Without the internet I wouldn’t have the adequate methods of communication, I wouldn’t have been able to reconnect with an old school friend and I wouldn’t be able to keep my passion for the NBA alive.

And best of all, I wouldn’t have been able to bore you all with this story.