Drink drank drunk #2

“How did you quit?”

My friend, who is addicted to the treasure trove of videos on YouTube, puts a question to me, the Mike Ho-YouTube addict apparently on the mend. Actually I am not. I didn’t quit. All I have done is give up one addiction for another, to the World Cup.

Mike, for all his marvellous mischievous qualities, is one boy. The World Cup is many boys – and men – on the pitch whom I watch with the boys in my living room. I am not a natural football fan. Footwear, not footy, is more me. But once in four years, it is just a joy to be drunk on the World Cup with my brothers.

And to be united not only in our love of the beautiful game but also in our dislike of, say, Australia’s Socceroos. They play such a physical ugly game they should have signed up for rugby, really. Mr T, the professional football fan, calls them Planet Of The Apes.

How do we dislike them? Let me count the ways.

Last Monday night, I gave up the press preview of Superman Returns. Because I had to be home for Italy vs Australia, because I wanted to watch them lose. (Don’t ask me which them.)

Minutes after I made up my mind to give up the preview, my brother, Fei, SMSed to remind me: We had to be home for the match, we wanted to watch them lose.

We wanted it so much, we even bet on them. As he put it to me, “We want Italy to win right? We are willing to lose money for them right? It’s investing in Italy right? If they win we will be glad to lose money, if they lose we will be si beh sad but we will win $60 right?”

Right, right, right, right. His plan made perverse sense to me. We bet $10 each on Australia. So Italy won, Australia lost and in China a CCTV commentator went into a crazy pro-Italy anti-Australia rant, “Goooooal! Game over! Italy win! Beat the Australians! They do not fall in front of Hiddink again! Italy the great! Left back the great! Happy birthday to Maldini! Forza Italia! The victory belongs to Italy, to Grosso, to Cannavaro, to Zambrotta, to Buffon, to Maldini, to everyone who loves Italian soccer! Hiddink…lost all his courage faced with Italian history and traditions…he finally reaped fruits which he had sown! They should go home!”

He is a man after my own crazy heart. Me, I got a great kick out of losing $10.