As an aficionado of stilettos, skinny hazelnut lattes and full service day spas, I’m generally not a huge sports fan, but I was ready to get excited about the World Cup. I really was.

Written by Laura Fulton

For one, almost every qualifying team has a fan in Abu Dhabi with whom I’m personally acquainted. I’m happy to latch on to the team spirit of my friends, even when the guys representing my own country fared terribly on their first outing.

National team pride aside, the organisers in South Africa have done a great job whipping up World Cup fervour. I love the colours and costumes and music and dancing. I love the official theme song, even if Akon is using it as yet another opportunity to flaunt himself. I want to see great things happen in a place that’s seen so much hardship.

My World Cup enthusiasm lasted from the opening ceremonies until about halfway through the second match. It was at that point that I realised that the horrible, annoying buzzing sound threatening to drown out the commentators wasn’t the fault of saboteurs – it was those infernal horns that each and every spectator sitting in the stadium in South Africa has insisted on blowing each and every second of every
single match.

From start to finish, throughout national anthems and injuries and commercial breaks, those horns haven’t rested for a solitary second, and I just can’t understand why. Surely creating the sound of someone kicking a hornet’s nest at a diabolical decibel level can be funny and entertaining for only so long. Even my three year old gets bored with blowing raspberries eventually.

So to the organisers of the World Cup, I am writing to officially say good luck with the rest of the tournament, but you’ve lost one viewer in Abu Dhabi. I really wanted to get on board, but as long as those maddening horns are blasting, personally, I’d rather go get a pedicure.