Warm-up: England vs. USA. our friend David appears to have scored a ticket. [Update]One Contrarian reader doesn't like the horns: Dear Sepp Blatter, Day 2 and I am happy to say that the sound level from the mics catching those damned horns has been dialed down a little by the broadcasters. It is the World Cup not the South Africa Cup. I want to hear supporters from around the world singing, chanting, dancing, booing, hissing, whistleing, banging drums (not continuously), lauging, moaning, oohing and aahing. Stuff your 'cultural' BS as the reason for inflicting a steady droning noise on billions of viewers around...

12 June, 2010

A resident of England, who spends much of his time in Nova Scotia working on Seaside's rural high-speed Internet project, writes from Tel Aviv, where he is attending a wedding: An Irish fiddle band is providing the music for the wedding. The band members are all Israelis. I was chatting with one of them, and he asked what I did. I told him about Seaside and spending half my life in Canada. "I'm going to Canada in the autumn," he said. "I'm going somewhere called Cape Breton, for a festival called Celtic Colours." So a Londoner visiting Israel meets an Israeli playing in...

21 May, 2010