Culture, people, culture

1. I might get to go see the Ashes in Nottingham! Yay. Though the first 4 days of the match to take place in Notts were sold out 3 months ago, the tickets for day 5 were still up for grabs (since a match doesn't always go to day 5), and for cheap! So, Martin snapped some up for us, and if it goes to the 5th day, we are so there! It is no longer possible that we'll see England win (hence, no Sam hurling himself onto the frenzied pitch and embracing as many complete strangers as possible, whilst making himself hoarse with joyous screaming), since the last match drew, but we at least won't see them lose the Ashes. In any case, if we end up going, it will be such a good time! I'll get to see the big names in real life, woo!

2. On Saturday, I saw my first instance of football (i.e. soccer) Hooliganry. That is, as we were coming home from Lincoln at about 5.30ish, a group of Lincoln City fans (the Lincoln City firm, we presumed) who had been at the football match between Notts County and Lincoln City were being heavily escorted by the police onto their train back to Lincoln. It was really interesting, though. There were about 50 of them, and they were dressed in plain clothes and caps, as they do, and there were so many policemen around them. The police had, presumably, escorted them all the way from the football grounds to the train, so that there wouldn't be any trouble. We were being guided around them, up the other side of the platform. I didn't see any actual trouble, of course, but it was still tense, knowing that they were intending trouble, and everything was so eerily quiet. Football firms are quite the interesting phenomenon.