Football highs and lows

I hope your national team has done well in the World Cup so far. Here in England it has been a very mixed experience.

England has played two matches in the past week. The first, against Algeria, was so bad that the country was in despair, even though the end result was a draw. This terrible game was followed by a little rebellion on the team and some stern words from the manager, Fabio Capello.

The Wednesday match was England’s last chance to stay in the World Cup. Amazingly they played much better and beat Slovenia 1-0. Now they go through to the next stage, playing Germany.

Ten million people watched the game, even though it was played in working hours. Lots of people took the afternoon off work. While the game was being played shops and streets were empty.

Many newspapers are saying the team did better because their manager allowed them to drink beer the night before the game.

Doom and gloom

The UK’s new Government has been explaining how it plans to tackle problems in our economy. It has presented an emergency Budget. And it has talked about other things which will probably happen.

The changes will include a rise in the rate of VAT from January 2011, and a freeze in pay for state employees. It is also likely that the age at which people can be paid a state pension will rise.

Record-breaking tennis match

Men’s tennis matches sometimes seem to go on forever. The game between two players at London’s Wimbledon tournament almost did go on for ever.

American John Isner and France’s Nicolas Mahut first walked on to the tennis court on Tuesday, but stopped after two hours when it got too dark to play.

They returned to continue the game on Wednesday, spending the day playing until it was too dark to play. The score stood at 59-59 in the final set. The match then went into Thursday. It was finally won by Isner, with a score of 68-70.

The final seven-hour set is longer than any match ever played. Both players broke records for serving the most aces (Isner hit 112 and Mahut 103). Commentators say it shows how fit tennis players are now.

Isner said: “He’s serving fantastic. I’m serving fantastic. Nothing like this will ever happen again.”

Glastonbury festival starts

Glastonbury is the most famous of the UK’s music festivals. It is held on a farm in Somerset, and this week the 40th festival opened its gates.

Big names in pop music like to play at Glastonbury because of its atmosphere. All 140,000 tickets sold out quickly. U2 were booked to play but had to pull out because lead singer Bono has badly hurt his back. Instead, Gorillaz will play, with guest musicians including Lou Reed.

Most people camp at Glastonbury. Often the festival is famous for its mud, which happens if it rains. Lots of people have arrived with their Wellington boots – but the weather is set to be sunny all weekend.

by Susan Young
susan@englishuk.com