Game over for England...

On Sunday I had the choice: to work more on my latest music project, or to watch as history would be re-written at the football (soccer) worldcup game England-Germany. Since the weather was unusually good - temperature up to 27 deg C, blue sunny sky - I decided it might be ok to give Gustav Mahler a rest and instead drive to the East coast, to Filey, and have a dip in the water. On the way everywhere the George-cross England flag. The fans clearly were looking forward to this game. The press in the UK did have its usual headlines full of pun, when it came to talk about the upcoming match: "Herr we come again" and similar. I guess this verbal German-bashing is part of the local folklore here - without it a match against the German team would just be half the fun. Interesting is that this agitated attitude that can be seen in the press is not at all present in anybody I spoke to: all the English people I know had a quite differentiated attitude, being critical about the performance of their team, and admiring the success and strength of the German team.

I was looking forward to this game, especially because I could be happy either way: it really did not matter to me if Germany (my home country) would win, or England (my host country, which pays my wage). I even had both flags, still left over from the last world cup in 2006. Well, deep inside I probably would root for the German team...

Many pubs on the way had signs outside stating "World cup game on big screen", so one could watch inside. Also at the beach in Filey there was one opportunity to see the game - with a window view over the water. The beach was, as expected, relatively empty. But there were still quite a few people who clearly were not interested in football: they were just strolling along the promenade, some of them mumbling something about football being the most boring thing in the world. But this attitude here in the UK is clearly in a minority.


10 minutes before 15:00 I headed to the Coble Bar, which had the sign outside that there would be a TV for viewing the game. I got a Shandy and a Sunday roast (for an incredible 4.95) and sat down. There were several beach goers who starred at the 32" screen. Strange atmosphere: no Hooliganism, but silence, like in a church, as everybody was watching the initial minutes. A unisono "ouww" at the 1:0 for Germany. Another one at the 2:0. One woman said that England will loose 0:6, and that these guys are way overpaid. Then a loud cheer when the 2:1 happened, and another one at the 2:2. That one turned into a disappointment, as it was not awarded, and from then on it went downhill. I must say that not awarding this goal was a stupid decision - it should have been counted after the video replay. Well, I am sure that the rules for this will be changed soon.

The mood in the Coble Bar was somber at the end when the official score was 4:1 for Germany. I would still count the score as 4:2, which is also quite bad for the English team. Germany won deservedly: they had a great team play, with some text-book-like goals. The English team was not working well together, although they did have some good chances and were playing aggressively.

I really feel sorry for the English fans. They are truly committed to their team, and were so looking forward, in a way in self-denial of the overall bad performance in past games. On the way back from Filey there were much fewer flags on houses and cars.



On Monday one of the newspaper headlines had something along the lines "If the defence in WW2 had been like this, we would speak German now". (They just cannot stop here with references about the World War, but that is ok - part of the folklore here.)

Earthquake!

This night, at 0:56, an earthquake could be felt in England. Turns out this was a 5.2 earthquake with some damage, and it could be very well felt here in Leeds. First there was a little shaking, then it became stronger, lasting for about 10 seconds, then again fading away into just slight vibration.

Interesting - this is now the strongest earthquake I ever felt. While living in California, I only once felt a comparatively strong quake: in 1997 there was a 5.0 quake - it felt stronger, but I was also closer to the epicentre (10 miles). The epicentre of the quake now in the UK was approx. 50 miles away from Leeds, in Market Rasen.

Germany - England soccer game: 2:1 !!

A nice soccer game tonight, in the Wembley Stadium. I was thinking of hanging a German flag out of a window of the cottage, just to "show some flag", but I guess this would have been treated like a sacrilege here in this country where the passions about soccer are an essential part of many people's life.

This seemed to be an important game, even UK's prime minister Gordon Brown and Germany's chancellor Angela Merkel attended.

The German team won. And the mood among the reporters here in the UK who have to comment on this is quite muted.

Torrential Rain

The weather forecast looked bleak - more rain coming. And it came today. Lots of flooding in East Yorkshire. 900 people trapped at their work places in Sheffield.
A man dies due to the flood.

Here in Leeds, some parts of the areas near the docks in the vicinity of the city centre (south of the train station) are flooded. Fortunately, our cottage is at the side of a hill, where the water can flow down... but there is some water seeping through the old walls.

This June had the most rainfall since they kept metreorological records.

Lots of rain lately...

View from my office on Caedmon Hall.

The month of April has been extrodinarily warm and sunny. But May and now June have been much wetter, with many days of rainfall and generally cool temperatures. Last week was basically constant rain, and on the night from Thursday to Friday there was such a downpour that the whole Yorkshire region suffered a lot of flooding. Many houses had their cellars under water, and people said that they had not seen such rain in the last 30 years, or even since the 1950s. This means there was some rain like this already at that time in the past...

Only on Sunday there was some sun which we used for a short hike in Ilkley Moor. Yesterday night was some thunder and flashes of lightning, something that is relatively rare here up north - at least during the last year I had not seen many thunderstorms here in Leeds.

Winterly scenery in the Peak District of the Pennines. 

Steam in Northern England

Here in North England is basically the birthplace of the industrial age. James Watt invented the steam engine, and George Stephenson built railways. Here is a lot of cultural heritage in this area, with many stream trains running on schedules during weekends.