A country mile

In spite of the rampant greed and corruption at its heart, the football World Cup just kind of draws you in until you find yourself emotionally invested in a plucky Cape Verde side playing in a 4-4-2 formation on a balmy Tuesday night for reasons that you can't quite fathom.

This time around I've watched matches with both Spanish and English commentary and the difference between the two never fails to amaze. On the one hand, we have the phlegmatic, semi-detached British commentators leaving lagoons of silence when they don't have anything particularly interesting to add to proceedings (often). Meanwhile, in the Spanish commentary box, there's a relentless torrent of adjectives being bellowed into the ether as if even a nanosecond of silence might bring the wrath of Armageddon down upon the world.

Over thirty years ago, on a bus from Alicante to Malaga, I dozed fitfully while the driver listened to a football match on the radio. At one point just south of Granada, the commentator yelled loud enough to stir me from my reverie. In very broken Spanish I asked the driver if Real Madrid or Barcelona had just scored a last-minute winner in an 'El Clásico' title decider. He smiled. “No, it's a throw-in for Alavés on the halfway line.” This was one of the many cultural differences that struck me in those first few years in Spain.

Another was prams. More specifically, the fact that it was the men who pushed them, not the women like in the UK. This looked very odd indeed at first - but not as odd as the age of some of the children sitting in them. Some of those chaps looked as if they might be on their way to fill out their university application forms.

Another eye-opener was television adverts, or rather the length of the breaks. I remember distinctly watching Cool Hand Luke on Antena 3 one lazy Saturday afternoon and being able to pop out to the supermarket for a basketful of goodies and still get back in time to see Paul Newman eat a thousand hard-boiled eggs. A ninety-minute film could last three hours quite easily.

Other stark cultural differences? Well, big groups socialising. The first Spanish girlfriend I ever had invited me to go out one evening with 'a few friends'. Blimey, it was like being introduced to all of the extras from Gandhi. Probably the reason such large social gatherings aren't as popular in the UK is that by the time you've met everyone, they've called last orders.

Last, but by no means least, on our grand tour of differences that really strike you when you first move to Spain, comes the decibel level of everyday conversation.

It's reached the stage now that when I return to the UK, there often seems to be a pervasive melancholy present in the hushed tones and whispered conversations. Mind you, that's not to say the tympanic membrane-busting volume of old people discussing their medical history on the Malaga train ever gets any easier to bear.

Well, there's always a happy medium to most of these things, I suppose. Some might even call it the sweet spot between 'One-nil' and Gooooooooooooooollllll!!!!!!'

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