Neville Dalton is a journalist and a Portsmouth fan of more than 40 years.
Nearly a week into the finals, and already there have been joy and despair, dramas and crises, inquests and recriminations.
And that's just in the offices of ITV HD.
On the field, it's been maybe a trifle disappointing as the whole world watches on expectantly, if somewhat deafened by those vuvuzelas.
The opening few games were conspicuous by their lack of adventure - and by and large, the ball control and shooting have been rather short of what one might expect from supposedly the best players in the world.
Maybe the new type of "rounder" ball is to blame. Maybe it's the altitude. In the very first game, featuring South Africa on home soil, I suspect nerves had a lot to do with it.
But luckily there have been a few signs that we could still be in for a treat, and as the tournament progresses, we can hope players become more expressive as well as more comfortable with the conditions.
And who knows? Maybe England will win a match and we can all get really excited.
Acknowledging that I haven't seen every game so far, here are my highs and lows for week one:
WORLD CUP WILLIES
Polished forwards - Lukas Podolski, Miroslav Klose, Mezut Ozil may have links with other countries, but they showed their value to Germany as they set the right attacking example during the resurgent nation's impressive start to the tournament.
Argentina's Lionel Messi and Carlos Tevez, and our own Glen Johnson also shone in their opening fixtures.
Tutonic verve - Germany's performance against Australia, full of flair and attacking intent, has proved a welcome antidote to the many insipid, over-cautious starts by countries in other games.
Ghana and, to some extent, South Korea, also showed bright, positive attitudes that have been all too rare so far.
It's a rollover - Mercifully - and surprisingly - there has been far less feigning of injuries in these early days of the competition than we might have been led to expect by our experience of previous tournaments - and every Premier League match we've watched in the past decade.
... But then along came the Portuguese.
Hold on - Referees have been refreshingly alert at corners and free-kicks to the shirt-pulling and holding that goes on in the penalty area.
While it's going to be difficult to eradicate completely something that has always been alien to the rules of the game yet appears to come naturally to nearly all its players these days, the officials have been pretty good so far at picking it up and delaying flag-kicks while warning the chief culprits.
I look forward to seeing the first penalty-kick awarded and red card produced as a result of this insidious behaviour. It might just help drive it out of the game.
Play up Pedro What a pleasure to see my favourite Pompey player of all time, Pedro Mendes, strut the highest footballing stage at the back end of a career that has been cruelly punctuated by deliberately inflicted injuries.
Unfortunately, time and the legacy of those injuries have robbed him of much of the sharpness that bought him space to produce his neat shimmies and wondrous passing that so lit up Fratton Park and many other Premier League grounds.
But his play against Ivory Coast was still neat and tidy. I'll treasure seeing him perform on the world stage after all he did for Pompey.
WORLD CUP WALLIES
Never mind the quality - As I've already alluded to, the bulk of the opening games so far have been disappointing, featuring an over-cautious, tentative approach, despite the calibre of player participating.
Nobody wants to lose their opening game, so maybe it's just an inevitable consequence of that fear. But I sincerely hope that players and coaches will shake themselves out of their torpor, ignore the fear factor and start to entertain with flowing, attacking football, much as we've come to expect at Fratton Park!
Pick of the pundits - What is the point of them? Most of us know enough about the game to make judgments on what we see. The commentator is supposed to be there to fill in the gaps and maybe describe what is not necessarily clear to us when real-time action is condensed into a screen a metre square.
Almost all the summarisers I've heard have been unnecessary, either stating the bleeding obvious or the patently inaccurate (stand up Jim Beglin and his favourite friend, Annie Way), and they all provide their fellow commentators with the ideal opportunity to engage in inane conversations (often excluding the viewer entirely) that merely distract from that little incidental in front of us - the football.
Commentators must take their share of the blame. I know the art has evolved since the days of merely mentioning a player's surname each time he kicks the ball, but sometimes less is more.
As a bit of a statistics fan, I like a fact or two. But I don't really want to know the ins and outs of Benfica's season or what the Greek left-back likes for his dinner while I'm trying to work out who's done what in front of me.
One useful innovation I would like to see at this World Cup, where - like many other fans, I suspect, I don't know every player, still less am able to recognise him on the small screen - is for commentators to, well, er... tell me the names of the players who have just kicked the ball.
Back to basics, maybe. But it would jolly well help.
Incidentally, I notice Mick McCarthy has been particularly criticised for his performances. I have to say he's probably the best I've heard so far.
Admittedly, his blunt northern drone doesn't exactly invite you to stay awake or suggest to you that he's enjoying what he's doing. But I've found his comments relatively incisive and helpful.
Relatively, that is.
Repeated repeats - Still on the subject of television coverage, the South African broadcasters have produced some excellent slow-motion replays that have cleared up or clarified many an incident for me.
And by golly, they're quick off the mark, often showing them within seconds of their occurrence.
But therein lies the problem. OK, ITV HD viewers may have missed a rather good piece of action in the England v USA game, but how long before the rest of us also miss something critical because we're watching the 41st repeat of an incident that happened several minutes earlier?
I don't think we saw any of the play in the three or four minutes after Steven Gerrard's goal, as we were being treated to playback after playback of how he adeptly flicked the ball past Tim Howard and then went on to celebrate with his team-mates.
Most of them are good; some of them are useful. But please, TV directors, pick and choose your moments to show them.
Ball control - The controversial Jabulani ball had so much criticism from goalkeepers before the tournament started that I feared we were going to see games so full of bendy goals that we would lose count.
Instead, the ball has not appeared to deviate anywhere near as much as we were led to expect.
However, something is going on. Time and again world-class footballers are striking the Jabulani from way outside the penalty area in the same way that they do each week for their clubs - and more often than not, the ball has gone flying high, wide and certainly not handsomely into the stands... even non-moving balls at free-kicks.
Maybe it's the outfield players who should have been paying more attention to the ball change. They've all had the opportunity to practise with it.
Yet hardly anyone has managed to keep his long-range shooting on target, which may well explain the dearth of goals so far.
Of course, it may not be the ball at all. Many of the games are being played at an unfamiliarly high altitude - and perhaps it is that which is playing tricks with the ball.
It may also explain why some players appear to be weary long before the end of what after all, are only the opening bout of games.
Green defending - Yes, Robert Green's appalling error had to appear on the hit-list. It was obviously a genuine mistake, and he is not going to commit such an error in every game.
But it was a howler - and potentially a very costly one. And as such, he deserves all the criticism (though, if it happens, not abuse) he is getting.
The fact is, in many people's opinions he should not have been in goal for England. He may not have made too many Category A howlers before the USA game, but he has always looked shaky at international level to me, and he certainly doesn't appear to inspire confidence in his defenders.
Yes, we all know David James has made the occasional ricket, too. But he has performed at a consistently high standard for much of the past three years - and in the last couple of months of the season, bounced back from a worryingly indifferent spell to play as well as at almost any time in his Pompey career.
Saying that, I thought he was less than totally convincing in his half against Mexico just before the tournament, and despite his inexperience, my choice to keep goal against the Americans would have been Joe Hart, who actually did do well in the pre-tournament games - and appeared to enjoy the confidence of his defence.
James, Hart. Anyone but Green.
And as for those in the media and on message boards who immediately jumped to the West Ham man's defence: you're wrong. He should not have been there - and when he was, he made a hash of it.
We're not calling for him to be shot; just to be dumped. The mistake was unforgivable - and potentially very expensive.
Sub-standard goods should not be acceptable at a World Cup. (So while you're at it, take Jamie Pick-and-choose-when-I-play-for-England Carragher with you).
And finally - Yes, those vuvuzelas. Actually, watching from the comfort of my home with control over the volume, I don't actually object to them. They do become little more than an annoying backing track to the annoying main track (see Commentators above), although it does make it hard to assess the atmosphere in the stadiums, and the degree of support for each side.
But they must be bloody annoying for anyone within earshot of them (so, about a mile and a half, then). And they must detract from the experience of actually watching the football match live, inside the ground (assuming you're there for the football rather than just the atmosphere).
And according to some scientists, they are an effective spreader of airborne diseases. Most useful in this day and age.
Most importantly, though, they are likely to be seized upon by the not very bright among us who think they will be a great gimmick at the English game, much as those not interested in watching football did with the Mexican Wave a few decades back.
Vuvuzelas in the background on the telly - OK. Vuvuzelas at Fratton or Wembley or Glanford Park, for that matter - no thank you!