World Cup in Brighton Observations (Day 2)

England rode their luck and are now placed on top of their group which makes qualification almost a certainty due to Sweden and Trinidad & Tobago’s 0-0 draw. The second half was very disappointing but I do think the heat played a part. England will not have to play another 2:00pm match again now so we won’t have the weather to blame if we’re lacklustre next time.

I watched the match round a friend’s house with a Freeview box and 4:3 CRT and the picture was really good. The Robin Hood pub had a 42″ widescreen Plasma which has a relatively good analogue signal stretched to fill the 16:9 and they played the audio too. The Hampton were willing to show the Trinidad match but the badly placed TV had a fuzzy and distorted analogue signal with no audio and loud music in the background. The Windmill’s new LCD TV was looking very good and is the best positioned set I saw that day. They have a SkyBox I believe but it’s still outputting 4:3 on a 16:9 TV – hopefully its a few setting buttons away. They promise the play audio for about half the group stage matches.

With this heat there was always a chance of some trouble occuring in Brighton when you add alcohol and football. I wandered past Gemini’s on the seafront yesterday to see some brilliant human beat boxes peforming to a very lively crowd. The whole of Gemini’s was up on its chairs dancing with the performers. From what I gather about 5 minutes later some guy decided to throw a chair onto the crowd and all hell broke lose. I’ve heard verbal reports of over 20 people arrested and tear gas or pepper spray used by police. Walking back again half an hour later gemini’s was empty with just a few police hanging around taking statements. I’ll check tomorrow’s dire local rag the Evening Argus to see if it gets a mention.

I also missed the World Naked Bike Ride in Brighton yesterday but for those of us missed out go and check out Fred Pipes’ and Shiny Sixpence’s Flickr photosets.