Back in 1981 the German band United Balls did a song called Pogo in Togo.

Although hardly high art it was fun and catchy. As a good European, I like to keep an ear open for the best of mainland music as once you get beyond the generic Euro-pop there is some interesting stuff out there. (Ojos de Brujo from Spain, Manu Chao from France and Joachim Witt from Germany for example.)

Anyway, back to United Balls. A sample of the lyrics is:

aruba in Kuba
hey
only banana in Ghana.
Samba in Uganda
samba in Uganda -
pogo in Togo
pogo in Togo -
Coca-Cola in Angola
Coca-Cola in Angola.

A good verse to quote as it mentions three of the teams who have qualified from Africa for next year’s World Cup finals in Germany. Only Côte d’Ivoire is missing.

Having known someone from Togo and plenty from Ghana, I know what a big deal it must be for them. You only have to hear reports of the total warfare at Ghana/Côte d’Ivoire matches to know how seriously they take it. It must have been particularly satisfying for Angola to see off Nigeria.

So I bet there is some serious pogo-ing in Togo right now, much more than Coca-Cola being drunk in Angola and a lot more than bananas in Ghana. It may be difficult for the average Angolan to be able to afford to travel to Germany for a football tournament, but there are enough Ghanaians in Britain and Togolese and Ivorians in France to make it a lively place.

And England are through too of course, but I’m not getting my hopes up there.