BADEN-BADEN - Steven Gerrard was clearly unaware of a little bit of local difficulty brewing back in his home town over Liverpool's snub in the Queen's Birthday Honours list.
There is apparently a renewed outcry on Merseyside that another round of gongs have gone by without Gerrard or Liverpool being rewarded for the Champions League win against AC Milan last year.
KAISERSLAUTERN – The streets of this are filling up again ahead of tonight’s match between Italy and the US.
Whoever’s in charge of the music pumping out from the loudspeakers is obviously keen to keep all comers happy - at least until the final whistle – with an unusual playlist combining Italian folk music with Springsteen’s Born in the USA.
MUNICH - As we travelled south this morning I pulled up at traffic lights on the outskirts of Stuttgart.
Another camper van stopped alongside me. The driver, resplendent in orange, turned towards me so I said "hello" - what I did not expect was his reply.
Before I left for the World Cup our departmental administrator Kofi chucked some packets of earplugs my way.
LONDON - A colleague had the luxury of watching the first half of the Argentina game in a London pub, where they had subtitles on the telly (it was full of old blokes). Chris writes:
Not that I want to have a laugh at the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s expense, but there were some absolute classics. Being an old school journalist, I happened to have pen and paper on me and took them down....
BERLIN - I've already alluded to the unofficial World Cup which is taking place - when work commitments allow - in our table football area. Well, not so much an area as a gap between the water cooler and the photocopier but you know what I mean.
Yesterday, a match of simply epic proportions took place between Ian Wright of England and Leonardo of Brazil.
ON THE MOTORWAY HEADING TOWARDS MUNICH - The Dutch are here in Germany in force, that much I can confirm.
The thousands upon thousands without tickets for the Ivory Coast match in Stuttgart crammed into the city centre's Schlossplatz and partied hard once qualification for the second round was assured.
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