Afternoon everyone, and a happy Youth Day to you crazy, crazy youth.

Let’s have a quick chat about vuvuzelas.

They’re loud, really loud. In fact at 131 decibels, they’re louder than:

1. A screaming baby
2. A chain saw
3. A starting gun
4. A jackhammer
5. Most taxis in Woodstock
6. Gareth Cliff
7. The Mouille Point Foghorn
8. The Noon Gun
9. Hugh Bladen when Bobby Skinstad scored
10. Your conscience

So it’s pretty loud. In fact the term “ear rape” has been bandied about fairly liberally. And when one considers that exposure to anything over 85 decibels can cause permanent hearing damage, ear rape might not be too far off the mark.

But I’ll be damned if they’re not South African. So with health stats in mind, and hands on our patriotic hearts, what do we make of the vuvuzela?

Some local 2oceansvibers, like Eric Edelstein of Springleap.com fame want the vuvuzela banned. In fact, a designer on Springleap has gone so far as to design a “Vuvuzero” graphic tshirt in support of snuffing out the horn.

Here’s a few good reasons why Eric is both a nice guy, and completely wrong.

Eric’s main complaint is that he can’t hear most of the game on television over the buzz of the vuvuzelas. This from his blog post:

I’m watching the Algeria versus Slovenia world cup match, and i’m frustrated! Why? Coz, instead of watching the world’s best soccer players and listening to world class commentary on the TV, I’m listening to a swarm of bees – ANGRY BEES! (aka. the VUVUZELA)

He then goes on to offer his top four practical solutions to the “vuvuzela problem”.

Here are my Top 4 PRACTICAL solutions to the Vuvuzela problem:

1. Ban the vuvuzela’s from being brought into the football stadium’s – even if everyone doesn’t obey, it would still reduce the number significantly

2. When the game is about to begin, the announcers request the vuvuzela’s NOT to be blown during the match – this works for Tennis, so why not for Soccer?

3. The TV commentators sit in a SOUND PROOF booth, so the vuvuzela noise doesn’t interfere with their commentary

4. The TV studio’s use some software to block out a “B Flat” (the sound of the vuvuzela) when they broadcast the games.

Unfortunately for the television-watching vuvu-haters out there, commentators already sit in sound-proof boxes. The “b-flat torture” you’re experiencing is lifted from pitch mics and engineered in to the final broadcast mix in those bloody great vans you see parked outside the stadiums.

The fourth point is actually an option. That monumental bunch of whingers, the BBC, are already thinking about it.

Funny thing is, Vuvuzelas are proving to be an international hit, and our Jewish friends are leading the global re-selling stakes.

Could it be that some people have figured out that the vuvuzela is actually an effective sporting weapon?

Forget the stats, forget the international rankings – our guys are used to this glorious din, the other teams are not. Before the World Cup kicked off, punters understandably used stats and facts to make their predictions. No one factored in the plastic horn. And it has a genuinely unnerving effect. Ronaldo, the world’s most loved and hated footballer, had a little gripe recently about the horn’s ability to shake his on-pitch concentration and mess up his hair.

The only bummer is that Brazil is used to equally-noisy supporters, so no dice there.

Consider this, if (a massive if) we had to win, how completely hilarious will it be that rival nations blame a cute little yellow horn for our victory?

I feel your pain, Eric. My ears are bleeding. But how about we man-up a little bit for the rest of the tournament, and see how far that cheap plastic toy gets us?

Brazil and Bafana for the final, anyone?