Malta’s Great Result and Football Video Highlights on the Web

September 8th, 2007, 3 Comments »

I’ve just returned from the local pub, where I watched Malta and Turkey play to an exciting 2-2 draw in Euro 2008 qualifying. I’m not aficionado of Maltese international play, but given the difference in populations (400,000 and 71 million) and FIFA Rankings (115 and 22), I assume this must be a historic result. Unimportantly, Malta’s squad may also be the baldest team in international football.

It’s extra sweet, because today is the 442nd anniversary of the lifting of the Siege of Malta, when the Ottomans were sent packing by to what’s now Turkey.

Hopefully some highlights will be available tomorrow on FootyTube, my newly-discovered source for football highlights on the web.

We don’t have a TV, so it’s nice to be able to get my fill of goals and incidents from the English Premier League and international play. The site is unquestionably illegal, so we’ll see how long it lasts. If anybody knows of similar sites (besides good ol’ BitTorrent), let me know.

I’ve also got a question for my Maltese readers: during the game, I saw that some people in the crowd were wearing black t-shirts with big white Maltese crosses on them (and no text, as far as I could see). Do you know where I might procure such a shirt?

UPDATE: Here’s the second Malta goal. Unquestionably, it’s the ugliest goal scored last night. But, as the saying goes, they all look the same on the score sheet:

Here’s a complete set of highlights, should anybody be interested.

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The Cypriot Ghostown of Varosha

August 28th, 2007, 1 Comment »

I’m currently reading Alan Weisman’s excellent The World Without Us, a thought experiment that imagines what the Earth might look like if all of us humans instantly vanished. Weisman discusses the case study of Varosha, the tourist neighbourhood of Famagusta in Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.

Varosha enjoyed a development boom in the late sixties and early seventies, with the usual beach front of hotels and restaurants. The region aspired to be a sort of Cypriot Riveria.

Things changed, though, with the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974. The Turks captured this part of Turkey, emptied out the population and sealed off Varosha. For the past 30-odd years, only Turkish military personnel and UN officials have visited the region. It’s an older, more Mediterranean Chernobyl.

I went looking for photos of the abandoned seaside town, and came up with these:

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