And so a whole month has passed since I last saw Blighty, but it won't be long until Sydney the driver arrives at the talkSPORT Lodge to once more send me hurtling through the early evening traffic without sparing the horses until we reach Tambo Airport for my 'red eye' flight home.
And so Holland make the final for the first time since 78 - the last time the tournament was held in the Southern Hemisphere. It was orange everywhere as Ray & I walked the 2km from our drop off point to the impressive stadium.
Another day, another flight and another hotel room – so this is why rock bands go crackers on the road. At least the setting here is stunning – Cape Town’s Table Mountain looks down on our suite and the entire city, and it’s futuristic-looking Green Point Stadium is the setting for tomorrow’s semi-final between the swaggering Dutch and the rather ‘handy’ Uruguayans.
Well that was a mad 24 hours and no mistake.
Ray & I were dispatched to Port Elizabeth first thing Friday morning to cover Holland Brazil in a slight change of plan - we were due to do both Jo'burg games, but as Stan & Jim couldn't get flights from P.E. to Cape Town, it was easier for us to fly in and out on the same day and for Stan & Jim to do the same in Cape Town today for Germany's annihilation of Argentina...at least we scored against the Germans. Twice.
Those of us in the talkSPORT lodge who write the occasional blog for entertainment purposes are finding lots of common ground lately i.e. we're running out of things to talk about!
Well everyone and the neighbour's terrapin have had their say on England it seems. Being removed 5000 miles or so from the 'word on the street' so to speak, you're reliant out here on the online content of our newspapers and the general malaise amongst my facebook friends, most of whom have been using swear words even they never thought themselves capable of using.
I've vented my spleen at players & FA bigwig coaching idiots in my previous blog, and there is no point in repeating yourself unless you're AC/DC, who are quite fantastic at it. So be it.
Dang and blast it England - why the hell do you keep on doing this to us??????????
Commentators and reporters all have different methods by which they put together reports or approach games they work on. One aspect that I'm asked about a lot is whether I 'write' specific lines of commentary to suit a goalscorer or a match-winning player.
Well, the vindictive talkSPORT Lodge roof pigeon can coo for all he's bloody worth at 7am tomorrow and I won't care one jot, thanks to Jermaine Defoe. I cannot ever remember being as clueless beforehand as to what to expect from England in an international match as I was at lunchtime today, but what I saw was more like the England we're used to. Still loads of room for improvement, you have to be realistic and say that, so the negativity that the lads got from callers to talkSPORT drivetime after the final whistle was very disheartening.
Nearly 2 weeks in my cavernous room at the talkSPORT lodge and it's only tonight that I appear to have discovered the plug that activates the underfloor heating. Words like 'horse' 'shutting door' and 'bolted' are flashing across my mind amongst others. And those are the clean ones. Never mind - it might warm up by the time we're due to fly home next month.
