Something that I learnt last week - the best place to learn how to swear is in Argentina, at a football game.

I didn’t realise just how much I would pick up when I went to the River Plate game (arguably one of top two football teams in Argentina alongside Boca Juniors, not that I know much.)

The Stadium was a huge concrete bowl, absolutely buzzing with energy and testosterone. The southern stand was clearly for the biggest fans, a huge sea of red and white bodies jumping up and down, singing songs involving lots of interesting and rude expressions.

I sat away from the south stand, though still in a mob of people all waving their arms around, every so often climbing onto their seats to shout an emotional “RIVEEEEEEEEEEEEEEER!!!” wildly at the pitch. When the team finally ran onto the pitch, the noise was phenomenal, and the wave of people in the south stand looked like they might fall over into the grounds… meanwhile the concrete seems to be cracking beneath my feet.

Only when River started to play badly (in the first 10 minutes) the swearing start to flow. The two men behind me clearly weren’t fans of a player, no.21 who was running along the wing. They yelled at the pitch inches from my ear, a whole rainbow of curses flowed, followed by more colourful use of language from the men in the row in front. This soon escalated into a chant of swear words, which actually turned into half the stand singing a song about someone’s mother. Worldly as I am, I was left gobsmacked with my eyes wide in surprise.

Finally River scored a goal at the end of the first half – well, this encouraged an entire wave of new swearwords of delight… which I have had difficulty in forgetting. The chants are still singing around my head, it’s impossible to forget the words after the endless mantras of naughty words during the whole 90 minutes. I just have to be careful when I’m humming to myself at the checkout desk when I leave.