Pe­ter Ray Blood

As the cur­tain falls on yet an­oth­er ex­cit­ing edi­tion of the Fi­fa World Cup on Sun­day, long af­ter the event peo­ple glob­al­ly will be talk­ing about the ups and downs of the tour­na­ment. No oth­er sport­ing event has seen an in­tense and dy­nam­ic ad­ver­tis­ing cam­paign like the one mount­ed for these South African match­es. Let me say right off, the best TV ad I've seen for this World Cup is by Nike and it has been shown ex­ten­sive­ly on the USA ca­ble chan­nel. The ad fea­tures some of the tour­na­ment's main stars and its us­age of state-of-the-art tech­nol­o­gy is sim­ply awe­some.

The ad fea­tures Nike sig­na­to­ries Ronald­in­ho, Di­di­er Drog­ba, Franck Ribery, Fabio Can­navaro, Wayne Rooney and Cris­tiano Ronal­do. Fill­ing the run­ner-up berth is Pep­si with its ad, seem­ing­ly shot on the Serengeti, and fea­tur­ing Thier­ry Hen­ry, Li­onel Mes­si, Frank Lam­pard, Di­di­er Drog­ba and An­drey Ar­shavin. Pep­si ran in­to some prob­lems with World Cup or­gan­is­er Fi­fa over its ad. Fi­fa warned Pep­si Com­pa­ny not to con­tin­ue in­fringe­ing the com­mer­cial rights of law­ful spon­sors by us­ing mis­lead­ing ad­ver­tise­ment be­fore the 2010 World Cup. Pep­si set a ques­tion–"How many in­ter­na­tion­al foot­ball play­ers are signed up by Pep­si to spon­sor World Cup?"–on a Chi­nese web site in April, which is con­sid­ered as a "mis­lead­ing ref­er­ence" by Fi­fa.

In a lawyer's let­ter to Pep­si, Fi­fa re­mind­ed Pep­si that it was not a spon­sor of the World Cup and there­fore the ref­er­ence to the spon­sor­ship to the event was in­ap­pro­pri­ate and mis­lead­ing. The Co­ca Co­la tele­vi­sion ad has al­so gen­er­at­ed its fair share of com­ments. In this one, African mili­tia com­man­deer a soft drink van in dense African ter­rain. The com­man­dant of the troops, who put out the Coke staffers to oc­cu­py the truck to drink Coke and frol­ic with the World Cup tro­phy, is Pe­ter Men­sah who starred in ac­claimed movies 300, The In­cred­i­ble Hulk, Hi­dal­go and 2003 flick Tears of the Sun, op­po­site Bruce Willis.

Spec­ta­tors cheer dur­ing a live 3-D broad­cast of the 2010 Fi­fa World Cup soc­cer semi­fi­nal match be­tween Nether­lands and Uruguay on Tues­day, at Re­gal's Ed­wards 26 movie the­atres in Long Beach, Cal­i­for­nia. Na­tion­al Cin­e­Me­dia Phan­tom is show­ing for the first time the 2010 FI­FA World Cup live in 3-D in se­lect­ed US movie the­atres.

Balls and kits

Nike has re­ceived a lot of pips for its de­sign­ing the tour­na­ments "most styl­ish shirt," as well as for de­sign­ing "the ugli­est shirts," the lat­ter worn by team USA (the blue kit with a di­ag­o­nal white sash). Adi­das, which seems to have a mo­nop­oly on de­sign­ing tour­na­ment balls, al­so de­signed this year's much talked about and con­tro­ver­sial Jab­u­lani ball. Goal­keep­ers through­out the tour­na­ment have com­plained about the er­rat­ic nu­ances of this ma­ligned sphere. Nike al­so ran away with the top prize for footwear in this tour­na­ment, hav­ing come up with four, eye-catch­ing dif­fer­ent de­signs, and putting main ri­val Adi­das in the shade.

Fi­nale on Sun­day

And so, we move on to Sun­day's fi­nale be­tween the Nether­lands and Spain. Who­ev­er wins it would mean that Eu­rope has re­tained the world's most pres­ti­gious lau­rel for foot­ball, "the beau­ti­ful game." In spite of gal­lant ef­forts by na­tion­al teams from Africa, Oceana, South Amer­i­ca and Con­ca­caf, peren­ni­al gi­ants Ger­many, Nether­lands, and Spain suc­cess­ful­ly nav­i­gat­ed all threats to emerge on top, with on­ly South Amer­i­ca's Paraguay mak­ing it to the quar­ter-fi­nal. On the lo­cal front, Wa­ka Wa­ka fever reach­es its peak on Sun­day as there are count­less "limes" in homes, clubs, pubs, even cor­po­rate of­fices. While An­gos­tu­ra is host­ing an all-in­clu­sive lime on Sun­day, as well as the diplo­mat­ic mis­sions of the fi­nal­ists, Hilton Trinidad has re­dec­o­rat­ed it's Lob­by Bar to im­i­tate a foot­ball field, with its green, marked grass-type car­pet­ing, life-size goals and fea­tures a 10" x 10" pro­jec­tor screen which has been an ir­re­sistible at­trac­tion to in-house and in­tran­sit guests alike.

Hilton Trinidad's re­dec­o­rat­ed Lob­by Bar cap­tures the Wa­ka Wa­ka vibe.

Sel Dun­can in mas

Trust a mas­man to come up with the most unique of ideas for a pre­sen­ta­tion. With de­sign­ers like Pe­ter Min­shall and Patrick Roberts com­ing with some doozies through the years, main­tain­ing this tra­di­tion in 2011 is top south­ern de­sign­er/band­leader Dawad Phillip. Come Car­ni­val 2011, Phillip has come up with a most orig­i­nal theme, con­cept, and name for his pre­sen­ta­tion–Sel Dun­can at Palms Club. Ac­cord­ing to the pro­lif­ic south­ern de­sign­er/band­leader, the idea is a fol­low-up to last year's pre­sen­ta­tion–A Mur­al by The Sea: A San­do Sto­ry–in that it is thor­ough­ly in­dige­nous but with a broad­er sen­si­bil­i­ty. The mas takes in Sel Dun­can's play­ing hey days, and the ex­cite­ment gen­er­at­ed any­time his leg­endary band per­formed in Palms Club, San Fer­nan­do.

Quasar flies T&T flag high

Known in ca­lyp­so cir­cles as Quasar, Christophe Grant con­tin­ues to fly our na­tion­al flag through the re­gion in the realm of ca­lyp­so. The man who penned Singing San­dra's win­ning Voic­es From the Ghet­to in 1999, and No Ink last year, vot­ed the Best Po­lit­i­cal Ca­lyp­so 2009 in An­tigua/Bar­bu­da's Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Awards for 2009, is back again this year. Again work­ing with pop­u­lar An­tiguan ca­lyp­son­ian Richie Fran­cis, Grant has com­posed The Suf­fer­er's Psalm, al­ready de­scribed as "a kaiso to make politi­cians cringe."