What's funny is that individually, those things don't sound anything like bees in isolation. It's the group sound you get in aggregate on TV -- a sort of communal South African bagpipes as it were.
Word from the South Africans I work with is that it is actually pretty cool when you're at the games because the noise is so immense and not as whining as it is on TV. I'll be the judge of that in a few weeks. But this does raise the usual question...
I think it s the TV viewers that are complaining the most. Everyone one is doing it at the stadium, so obviously they aren't bothered, otherwise you would see the masses moving away from it.
Precisely. And every step this sport takes to cater to remote fans sitting on their fat asses, watching the match from another continent by putting restraints on the people actually at the match -- the more this sport loses and just becomes a TV spectacle.
This is why I don't like the idea of instant replays in football: it's more for TV viewers than people at the stadium.
And every World Cup that isn't in CET, we have to put up with the whining, beyootching and moaning that the locals don't play matches at 3am to make it convenient for TV viewers in Europe, etc. It was insufferable at WC 2002, and it will certainly be another annoying whine at 2014.