Not good enough, I'll try to do better - and there are some replies below. My only excuse is that I've been away for a while. Indeed for most of this time I was in South Africa on a Fifa Venue Tour.

On this trip, coachloads of the world's broadcasters were taken around each stadium to see the TV facilities available - positions of the commentary boxes, interview areas, camera locations, length of cable runs, truck parking areas, etc.

It's the first time any of us had seen the facilities that will be provided and it was very useful and interesting to see the contrasts around the country.

I saw some of the best stadiums I've ever seen and, combined with the warmth of the welcome awaiting us wherever we went, this really led me to believe the ingredients are there for a great World Cup in South Africa.

People, though, need to go into it with their eyes open and realise that they shouldn't be narrow-minded and expect everything to be the same as it is in Europe. It won't be and this is what makes this first World Cup in Africa such a unique and exciting event.

Each of the 10 stadiums is very different, so to prevent a blog of 'War & Peace' proportions I'll start by looking at the three where England start their campaign.

Royal Bafokeng Stadium, Rustenburg, is where they will play the USA in their first match (and potentially Germany in the last 16). As you can see from the photos it is an open-sided stadium with an athletics track around the pitch. There is one main stand where, amongst the spectators, the commentators and the main camera platform will be situated. Something could possibly be lost in terms of the atmosphere generated, but everyone will have a great, unobstructed view of proceedings.

The main stand at the Royal Bafokeng Stadium

For those players used to the tight grounds of the Premier League, with the fans close to the action, it will certainly be a different experience. It has turned out to be a ideal draw for England as their chosen training base is only a few minutes down the road.

The stadium is very different from compact Premier League grounds

Rustenburg is a quiet town. It is situated to the north west of Johannesburg and I'd expect most fans to fly into there and then drive the two hours or so out to Rustenburg stadium. A platinum mine is nearby as well as a huge game reserve (Pilanesburg) - how long until we get the first shot of an England fan with three lions?

Cape Town Stadium (where England play their second game against Algeria) has the picturesque backdrop of Table Mountain and the Atlantic Ocean, but internally it's also stunning. One of the brand new stadiums, all of the broadcast facilities are conveniently located and so should make for an excellent TV spectacle. This venue will host eight games (as many as Soccer City) including a semi-final - England v Brazil?!

Located in the district of Green Point I'd imagine most spectators will either walk from the centre of town, which would mean crossing the Fan Mile, or catch one of the buses which are being laid on. Very close to the stadium complex is the Waterfront, the tourist centre of Cape Town with its array of shops, bars and restaurants. On matchdays I'd imagine this will resemble Trafalgar Square or Princes Street on New Years Eve.

Cape Town Stadium has a picturesque backdrop of Table Mountain

Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium, Port Elizabeth (where England play their last group game against Slovenia) looks really unusual from the outside and is impressive and modern within. Port Elizabeth is one of the biggest cities in South Africa, nicknamed "The Windy City", and the wind has been a major factor in the design of the stadium, hence the curved design of the exterior.

The stadium is also close to the port area, as in Cape Town. The city has a mild climate and, being situated at the eastern end of the Garden Route - the famous tourist trail - I suspect will prove a popular venue.

The Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium has an interesting design

It was a fascinating experience seeing the stadiums, and all of the ongoing work, and it really brings it home just how close the World Cup is. If it is of interest I'll give a brief insight into the other venues in due course.

As promised (at last) here are some thoughts on a few of your comments from my previous blog:

Murray (Comment 1) and others - you will now have seen that the split of games with ITV has been done.

In response to a few queries it is definitely our intention to showcase the whole country of South Africa, not just Cape Town and Johannesburg. This was really brought home to me just how important this will be on the venue tour.

We will have a bus touring the country, carrying TV, radio and online journalists, which will visit every host city as well as landmarks of political, historic and cultural interest. It will appear on a daily basis in our TV coverage, on 5 live and also online.

Fifa are also sending out up to 10 "feature" crews to cover things around the event rather than just the football. Added to this there will be city guides online and we will also use various devices in the presentation studio to highlight the various host venues.

Mike Martin (14). I hope you enjoy your membership of the Woodland Trust, a fine organisation. Your comment has kept my work colleagues and family entertained for hours, so thank you for that!

As far as your queries go: as you rightly point out John Motson will not be commentating on these finals for the BBC. That said don't be surprised to see him appearing on various BBC outlets in June/July. We'll have a team of five commentators - Guy Mowbray, Jonathan Pearce, Steve Wilson, Simon Brotherton and Steve Bower.

5 live will provide commentary on every game and will also be doing the usual phone-in shows, with the likes of Danny Baker on board.

Clartmaster (17) asks about HD. It's worth pointing out that the BBC was the first to transmit football in high definition when we did the 2006 World Cup. It is something we will continue to do whenever we can. This World Cup will therefore again be in HD (as was Euro 2008). All the Carling Cup live games we covered this season were also in HD and as an industry standard it's something the BBC is committed to going forward.

As I explained previously the main issue is around the infrastructure at BBC TV Centre which means Match of the Day cannot be done in high definition currently and is one of the reasons why presenting the World Cup from there would have been problematic. It is something we are working on and, by the time BBC Sport moves to Salford in 2011, I am confident we will have found a solution.

Brekkie (18) asks about the studio. "Everything else the BBC covers has studio arrangements in place". I'm afraid this is not the case. Whether we locate ourselves at the International Broadcast Centre (under the jurisdiction of Fifa) or attempt to find a suitable location elsewhere, we still need to build a studio.

Nothing is provided for us to use and certainly nothing is delivered as part of our TV contract. Each broadcaster makes their own editorial choice based on programming needs and the budget available to them.

Consequently, wherever it is, a studio needs designing, constructing and provided with the necessary technical infrastructure and connectivity. By retaining the studio we will use in Cape Town, the aspiration is that at future events, should a remote studio be required again, we will have one readily available for use at much reduced cost.

As Cape Town 2020 and others rightly point out, all of the main match coverage is provided by Host Broadcast Services for Fifa. It would be totally untenable for each national broadcaster to put in their own facilities to provide the main coverage.

Countries have greatly differing styles (and quality) of coverage and by providing a uniform, neutral feed of the highest quality with some of the best people in the business everyone should be satisfied with the match pictures. The BBC and ITV, like other broadcasters, will add on facilities in the form of studios, commentary, unilateral cameras, interviews, etc.

And a couple of other things to, hopefully, whet the appetite: our pundit line-up is still being resolved, but aside from our regulars you'll all be familiar with (Hansen, Shearer, Dixon, etc) we'll be making an announcement soon about some exciting additions for 2010. Watch this space!

In terms of things like shows on the BBC HD Channel, our opening titles, new analysis tools and additonal programming around the matches it's all starting to come together, but isn't all there yet. All being well I'll be able to update you on these plans in the coming weeks. And yes, Fedster, I promise to respond more quickly next time.

I know that some of what we do on TV carries an element of mystery with it, so I hope to use this blog to explain what we're doing, why we're doing it and to answer your questions along the way.

This year's World Cup is the first to be held in Africa and will be a truly historic event. We'll be doing our best to cover both the tournament itself and the diverse cultural and political aspects of Africa. World Cup 2010, like no other football event before it, is about more than just what happens on the pitch.

We are less than 100 days away from the big kick-off, but my planning began in 2007, working throughout with our editorial, production and technical teams.

We try, where possible, to present from the host country because feedback tells us that our audiences expect this kind of closeness to the action and that it adds to your enjoyment of the whole event.

Past studios - remember the Brandenburg Gate in Germany 2006 or the one in Paris for France 98 - helped us to create programmes that left TV audiences feeling immersed in the tournament. I believe this will be more important than ever in South Africa.

One option was to broadcast from Television Centre in London. This would have detached us from the action and would have diminished our ability to cover stories on the ground. Programmes would have arguably not been as engaging and would have been devoid of the atmosphere that is so crucial to a World Cup. I felt we had that issue in 2002 when much of our early programming came from London.

As importantly, however, our studio in TV Centre does not have the facilities to broadcast adequately in high definition, which I think would have disappointed a lot of people, given the profile of the event.

So to maximise audience engagement and enjoyment of the tournament we agreed that we should be based in South Africa.

But where?

Table Mountain will provide a spectacular backdrop for the BBC's coverage

The huge distances involved made the prospect of hopping from ground to ground impractical and ridiculously expensive. So we opted for one fixed base and it came down to a straight choice between two cities: Johannesburg or Cape Town.

After much debate, we went for Cape Town and our studio will be on the roof of a hospital, with great views of Table Mountain.

Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela was incarcerated for so long, is also visible and downtown Cape Town, where Mandela made his historic address from the balcony of City Hall following his release. This year is the 20th anniverary of that address.

We chose those views because we believe they are the ones that will resonate most with UK viewers. But we are perfectly placed for the football as well. Cape Town Stadium (formerly Green Point) is just a few hundred metres away. As many games will be played there as at the venue for the final, Soccer City. England will play there against Algeria and could potentially return for a semi-final (here's hoping!).

This one venue ticked all the sporting, political and cultural boxes we felt needed ticking. No other location came close.

We thought long and hard about hiring a main presentation studio at the International Broadcast Centre (IBC) in Johannesburg, but Cape Town's backdrop won the day. The IBC is sited near Soccer City stadium, in a former mining area with the city skyline in the far distance.

Once the competition is over, the Cape Town studio will be flat-packed with a view to reusing it at other events.

As far as staffing goes, I'm pleased we have been able to reduce numbers compared to 2006. In terms of TV Sport, we'll be sending a total of 190 to South Africa compared with the 210 staff who travelled to Germany. For Radio, the numbers are 48 compared to 69 and News will also send fewer staff than the 57 they had at the last World Cup. This is despite the fact our output will have grown since then and we will be working in a much more logistically challenging environment.

We will be on air for many hours on TV and, as you'd expect, will be offering extensive services on radio, online and on the red button and across the BBC's News outlets.

We will be covering 32 games live on BBC TV and showing highlights of all the others and will have around 110 hours of domestic World Cup coverage across BBC1, BBC2 and BBC3. There will be over 100 hours of red button coverage and also over 100 hours of content on the BBC Sport website.

The website team in South Africa will also be providing live text commentaries, match reports, blogs, interaction with site users and also hosting Q&A's with BBC Sport pundits.

Radio are covering all matches live and total radio hours will be above 250, taking in all the 5 Live programmes being presented from South Africa during the World Cup. News will be providing coverage from 5.00am until at least midnight each day across all its outlets and platforms.

Current holders Italy begin their defence against Paraguay in Cape Town on 14 June

I'll go into more detail about scheduling in a future blog, but it is probably worth noting that a number of the people working on these services will be returning early or staying for a short duration.

We are satisfied that this number of staff is not large for an operation of this scale, in a country this size and with issues around transport and security.

The UK is regarded as one of the major World Cup players in broadcasting terms, yet some of our colleagues from Europe and South America will send many hundreds of people to the tournament, in excess of the numbers for the BBC and ITV combined.

I therefore believe the UK broadcasters run a pretty lean operation given the complexity and enormity of the event..

Don't get me wrong, it will be a privilege for all of us going to work in South Africa and we can't wait to get started, but there's plenty to do.

Before the event I will outline the sorts of things the different areas of the operation are involved in so that, hopefully, there's more information and background available.

If you have any coverage ideas, I'd like to hear them and if you have any questions, I'll do my best to get answers.

Next time around, I'll update you on how the host nation is preparing itself and what the stadiums are looking like......