Surely the constant blurt of the vuvuzela would add nothing positive to the experience of watching the game in the stadium.

I've been watching the occasional World Cup game on TV here in the east of Australia and, because of time zones, I turn the sound way down in order to preserve marital harmony. I hear minimal game commentary (that's bad), no vuvuzela (that's good) and no complaints from the other part of the house (that's excellent).

It's drawing a very long bow to suggest the vuvuzela, in its current plastic incarnation, is a newly emerging folk instrument and an ethnomusicologist's delight. I read somewhere that the vuvuzela was drowning out the sound of singing from the terraces. If that's the case it's unfortunate and yet another reason to have the things either taken away from, or inserted in, the "musicians".