Wednesday

Tonight K feels the full force of just how boring I can be when not only is there a World Cup Semi Final on TV, but when I also have a new toy to play with. After work I fanny around with DoubleTwist - which is a Mac OS way of getting music and videos and the like onto an Android phone (something Mac OS really, really doesn't want to let you do, it seems) - which works, but is incredibly slow at importing my playlists, podcasts and bits of music from iTunes. I suppose this is the price I pay for trying to escape Apple, while remaining a faithful OSX user. I'd still rather struggle through with this than use Windows though, for sure. I get enough of that at work.

When K gets home and cracks on with with some really rather delicious-smelling sausage and mash for dinner, I move to the other room to watch the beginning of Spain v Germany. This is the game that really should have been the final, had that been possible. Spain are, without doubt, the best collection of players at the tournament and probably the only team that can boast world class footballers right through the squad. Germany, though, have probably played the best football of any team in South Africa, and without any real pre-tournament star players to speak of.

The game begins much as both of these teams have played in their previous five games; Germany using the pace of their youthful team to try and exploit weaknesses in Spain's careful passing play. As with a lot of matches this year though, this one really fails to ignite - and it falls to Carles Puyol to score a header from a set-piece (of all things) to settle the game 1-0. Spain are through to the final and will meet Holland, meaning a number of things. It means that there will be a new name on the trophy, with neither of these big European sides having won it before. It also means that, for the first time, a European team will win the World Cup outside of Europe. And finally - and most inexplicably - it will be the first time Spain and Holland have ever met in a World Cup Finals or a European Championship! How on Earth has that happened!?