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Fans get into the RWC spirit at Eden Park - Source: Photosport
Have you noticed it feels a little bit like Christmas? It does eh?
Not in a stressful-shopping-and-binge-eating way, but in a everyone-seems-a-bit-cheerful-and-silly-maybe-the-world's-not-so-bad-afterall kind of way. It's everywhere.
Every city, every stadium. Even in Christchurch there's a concerted effort to muscle up a festive atmosphere. Cynicism is stifled. It's nice.
Oop.
Oop, sorry. Just got distracted there for a second. An overweight man dressed as Obelix the Gaul is wrestling with his friend about twenty metres before me. You know Obelix?
He's the plump friend of Asterix in that wonderful old French comic. Our Obelix is wearing pants with white and baby blue vertical stripes.
The waist is high up around his belly button and he has braces reaching over his exposed bare chest and shoulders.
He has a fake moustache, and a bright orange pig-tailed wig that could probably double up to work as for a Pippy Longstocking outfit on another day or occasion. Obelix is quite a sight.
Anyway, I can't be totally sure but I think the friend pinched Obelix's (Rather large and exposed) nipple and now Obelix has him in a headlock. They're laughing. The people in the seats around them are too. They're all taking photos. The crowd is entertained.
Eden Park is humming tonight.
From high above we can spot only four empty seats in a stadium of sixty thousand. The majority of the crowd are dressed in their colours, jovial and merry. The French are particularly impressive.
Two hours before kick off they poured into Eden Park, proud and loud. I saw rooster hats, beret'ed babies, a dozen or so Frenchies dressed up as mimes and even another Obelix.
Their patriotism is endearing and admirable.
I hope this continues. Not the game, the atmosphere. This blend of people and culture and colour that has gently swept us. I wonder if it might shift, if this silly season will become a serious season as we approach the sudden-death stage. It'd be a shame.
A shame to lose the colour, a shame to lose the flags and facepaint and silly hats. It'd be a shame for Obelix to not bother dressing up only to have his nipple pinched in front of a sold out Eden Park.
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