La Goutte D'Or - Ghana vs Uruguay

I don't remember where the restaurant was, except that it was somewhere around Chateau Rouge or Barbes. A little side street, anyway. I'd tried to remind myself by looking at a map just now and for a moment I thought it could be the Rue Eugene Sue - he wrote Les Mysteres de Paris, after all - but that's too far up towards Simplon. So call it La Goutte D'Or.

No one talked to me at first, though when he saw my uncertainty about eating with my hands the man next to me told the proprietress to bring me a spoon for my meat and rice. I relented in the end though and did as the others were doing. Food in the right hand, of course, beer in the left. There were surprised, warm glances when I cheered Ghana's goal as much as everyone else, and at half time my neighbour asked why I was supporting Ghana.

By the end of extra time and penalties I was still the only white man in there, though no longer the only non-Ivorian. Some arab teenagers had joined us and were more blasé about Suarez's handball, more inclined to blame Gyan for his miss. The biggest man, wearing a yellow red and green string vest, was in a rough mood after the game and it suddenly wasn't a happy place. But I remember him standing in the street at half time when Afrique was winning 1 -0, ignoring the cars, smoking hard from one hand, clutching a mobile, shouting down it "le monde a changé, le monde a changé, le monde a changé!."