The Beautiful Game

The football (or soccer if you're reading this in the United States) World Cup is nearly upon us. This is not really something that i particulalrly look forward to. i'm not a great fan of football in the first place so the prospect of a whole month of radio, tv, internet, workplace, newspaper etc, etc 'news' about the various results of 22 men kicking a ball about do not particularly fill my world with joy. Neither does the excuse it all so often provides for sections of the British media to descend to their jingoistic worst (hence secretly hoping England get knocked out quite quickly).

All the above said though, i have, since i've known Owner, probably listened to more football matches than i have done in my entire life, albeit ones in Spanish and particularly the fortunes of Sporting de Gijon, the team Owner follows. However, to make the coming month more interesting Owner has devised a little game which She is currently finishing off as i type and which may serve to increase my interest in the outcome of the World Cup matches. The game is as follows.

 i have been asked to randomly draw out of a hat the name of one team from each of the eight initial group stages of the World Cup. The teams i have drawn are;

• Group A = South Africa
• Group B = Greece
• Group C = Slovenia
• Group D = Serbia
• Group E = Japan
• Group F = Paraguay
• Group G = Brazil
• Group H = Chile

Then, depending on whether these eight teams win, lose or draw each one of their three group matches i will be asked to do as follows;

• a win = do nothing
• a draw = pick a random challenge from a hat to complete 'at home'
• the team loses = pick a random challenge from a hat to complete 'in public'

i make that a maximum of 24 potential challenges i may have to complete depending on the vagaries of the results in the group stages. Owner has already advised me that i will not like some of these challenges ;o). A quick scan through the team that i picked out the hat suggests that, with the possible exception of Brazil, i may end up having to complete a lot of challenges as they do not appear to be country's anyone is expecting to do that well!

Once the group stages are completed and the competition moves onto the quarter, semi and finals Owner will increase the potential severity of the challenges. It looks as though i may become a lot more interested in the outcomes of these World Cup matches than i ever envisaged! It may never become, to me at least, the beautiful game but it will certainly be the'challenging' game.

Talking of challenges i have now also ordered the 'SLUT' t-shirt Owner instructed me to buy and wear in public as one of the challenges that followed on from the outcome of Her previous Eurovision Song Contest challenge. i think this Summer could go down as one long run of challenges for me to to complete