One of the lowlights of the matches for me was the brief coverage of the early games by TVNZ. My boys the Socceroos were drawn in the Group of Death against Spain, the Netherlands and Chile and had little hope of getting through to the final 16.
That didn't stop TV One host Martin Devlin slagging them off before a ball was even kicked. That was enough for me, switch over to Sky coverage - a decision I didn't regret with independent commentators who know what they are talking about. I suppose one of the highlights of the tournament was not having to listen to Devlin again!
Another lowlight was Brazil's propensity to dive for penalties - but another good point was how that ploy failed dismally and karma came back to bite the hosts and so called stars of the beautiful game. Brazil also featured in my highlights package being thrashed 1-7 by Germany and then 3-0 by the Dutch in the third-place playoff. The scenes after those matches proved my saying that no woman ever looks attractive crying - even Brazilian ones.
After Australia and England bowed out I was just looking forward to watching some good football and was thrilled with the performances of Chile, Costa Rica and Colombia. All played stylish, attacking football and I would have liked to have seen them advance further, although in Colombia's case that would have denied me the thrills and sheer joy of Brazil vs Germany.
So as the strains of the Deutschland Uber Alles anthem fade I now set my sporting radar on to the upcoming Commonwealth Games where I'm expecting to hear Advance Australia Fair at a majority of medal ceremonies.
In the meantime it's late nights and highlights packages of the Tour de France, a magnificent sporting contest filmed beautifully amid some truly stunning scenery.
Ah, the life of a sporting couch potato.
I GET a little fed up at times having to explain to some people why I drive a 4WD vehicle.
Gas guzzler, they charge.
But it's comfortable, I respond, and drives so beautifully.
On a trip around the Coromandel a few years back my daughter was horrified at our vehicle - which I have had almost as long as she has been around - and announced: "Why do we have it - it makes us look like Aucklanders?"
Sigh, provincialism had got to her. I sat her down quietly and stared into her beautiful blue-grey eyes and said.
"Sweetie, I drive a 4x4 because I like looking down on people and sneering at them."
She was too young to get the classist humour in it.
Anyway, this brings me on to a breed of person who definitely deserves to be sneered at - the criminal class.
Just recently from Hawke's Bay comes the almost unbelievable tale of a truly stupid criminal who thought he'd pop down to the DVD store and, on the spur of the moment, nick a charity box sitting by the till. Clearly it was a good part of town as the owner had velcroed the donations box to the counter and when the guy went to grab it it came unstuck but then smashed down on to the floor.
So he nicked a second, unfastened one.
The owner said: "I think his idea was to take them out of the store, hoping I didn't notice they had gone missing, but because one was velcroed and he dropped it, he realised he was sprung and took off."
The problem for our cretinous crim was the fact he was a customer of the store and soon all his details were available to the police.
He also left his three kids in the shop ...
A DOZEY American baseball fan caught snoozing on TV at a game is suing the network for making him look an idiot.
The $11-plus million lawsuit is for the emotional distress it caused 26-year-old Andrew Rector.
I'm surprised the players involved in the match between the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox now don't sue Rector for suggesting their play was so boring it sent him to sleep.
Richard Moore is an award-winning Western Bay journalist and photographer. Richard@richardmoore.com.
