The World Cup 2010 has been taken over by a onemetre-long blowing horn called the vuvuzela.
With thousands of South African spectators blowing vuvuzelas in every stadium where World Cup matches are played, the cacophony has been compared with the stampeding of noisy elephants, the deafening swarm of locusts and the angry buzzing of a billion bees.
Leading players like Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo, Argentina's Lionel Messi and Spain's Xabi Alonso have stated that the non-stop noise makes it difficult for teams to concentrate and communicate. The noise has been described as irritating by matchcommentators like BBC's Ian Dixon who covered England's opening tie against the USA.
Dutch team manager Marwijk has called for a ban on vuvuzelas. French captain Evra has attributed his side’s poor performance in its opening game against Uruguay to the vuvuzela.
However, the international football federation (Fifa) has refused to ban the vuvuzela. Fifa president Sepp Blatter says that the blowing of the vuvuzela is an integral part of South Africa’s football-watching culture. South American fans, particularly in Brazil which has won the World Cup five times, also blow something similar to the vuvuzela, called the corneta.
It has even acquired overtones of voodoo, with South African football fans blowing vuvuzelas to finish the opposition! German engineer Clemence Schlieweis says that fans watching telecasts of games can cancel out the noise of the vuvuzelas by creating a sound wave of the same amplitude but with the peaks and troughs reversed and playing it in an MP3-file form on a computer or iPod kept near the TV.
However, the British newspaper The Telegraphhas quoted University of Salford professor of acoustics Trevor Cox as saying that this might not work since the thousands of vuvuzelas are not being blown at exactly the same time. Meanwhile, back in South Africa, manufacturers of plastic vuvuzelas are now also selling earplugs. Simultaneously marketing both the problem and the solution is good business, if nothing else!
With thousands of South African spectators blowing vuvuzelas in every stadium where World Cup matches are played, the cacophony has been compared with the stampeding of noisy elephants, the deafening swarm of locusts and the angry buzzing of a billion bees.
Leading players like Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo, Argentina's Lionel Messi and Spain's Xabi Alonso have stated that the non-stop noise makes it difficult for teams to concentrate and communicate. The noise has been described as irritating by matchcommentators like BBC's Ian Dixon who covered England's opening tie against the USA.
Dutch team manager Marwijk has called for a ban on vuvuzelas. French captain Evra has attributed his side’s poor performance in its opening game against Uruguay to the vuvuzela.
However, the international football federation (Fifa) has refused to ban the vuvuzela. Fifa president Sepp Blatter says that the blowing of the vuvuzela is an integral part of South Africa’s football-watching culture. South American fans, particularly in Brazil which has won the World Cup five times, also blow something similar to the vuvuzela, called the corneta.
It has even acquired overtones of voodoo, with South African football fans blowing vuvuzelas to finish the opposition! German engineer Clemence Schlieweis says that fans watching telecasts of games can cancel out the noise of the vuvuzelas by creating a sound wave of the same amplitude but with the peaks and troughs reversed and playing it in an MP3-file form on a computer or iPod kept near the TV.
However, the British newspaper The Telegraphhas quoted University of Salford professor of acoustics Trevor Cox as saying that this might not work since the thousands of vuvuzelas are not being blown at exactly the same time. Meanwhile, back in South Africa, manufacturers of plastic vuvuzelas are now also selling earplugs. Simultaneously marketing both the problem and the solution is good business, if nothing else!
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