How Many World Cups in a Lifetime?

(above - selling smokes to the World Cup fans)

The blast of the South African vuvuzela is almost upon us, and for soccer freaks who mark out their lives in four-year blocks, the question is this - how many World Cups can you watch in a lifetime?

20 - if you always ate your veggies, totally avoided gin and tonics, used your spare time raising your butt in yoga class, and spent weekends deciphering the New York Times crossword puzzle.

15 - assuming you sometimes ate a carrot, kept the drinking for the weekend, avoided cable news television, occasionally mowed the grass, maybe smoked it once in a while at sophisticated parties and occasionally read a book recommended in your Sunday New York Times.

10 - if you smoked twenty cigarettes a day, knew the clerks by name at KFC, watched Sean Hannity on Fox News every night, thought yoga was yogurt, and hated waddling to the kitchen from the sofa unless it was to the refrigerator for full fat Ben and Jerry's Magic Brownies ice-cream at 2am.

3-5 - if you got a horrible disease or died young like James Dean.

0 - if you preferred baseball.

If you fancy it, The Glorious World Cup is out now.