In Buehlertal, high above the vineyards that tumble down the valley towards Baden-Baden, only one language is spoken, the press corps's favourite tea is shipped in from England and endless supplies of British crisps and biscuits are on offer.

While in cities like Stuttgart or Munich, sun-bleached fans in T-shirts boasting "I'll show you my Australian if you show me your Brazilian" have turned each game into a multinational frolic, the England party has created and retreated into its own little island.

Flat screen televisions broadcast the news from England on British channels unavailable in local hotels, but ensure that soccer reporters -- of all nationalities -- who visit England's World Cup camp are kept up to date with the latest score in the cricket series against Sri Lanka [Images].

Of the World Cup, beyond this delightful, flower-scented and pastoral hamlet of natural serenity in southern Baden-Wurtenberg, there is scant evidence.

For visitors from Portugal, England's opponents in Saturday's quarter-finals, not to mention any German media interested in seeing what their old football enemies are up to, it is akin to arriving at the wrong wedding reception.

England's base is not only difficult to reach up winding roads through heavily wooded and steep hills, it is also accidentally both forbidding and hilarious.

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The enormous marquee-style structures in which the media centre has been accommodated are tailored for English-speaking media only and are packed with British journalists fighting for their exclusive rights.

The facilities on offer are sumptuous but, unlike those at other team camps, there are no translators available to look after German-speaking and other visitors.

Even Togo laid on interpreters who worked from French into German and English.

Sweden conducted their pre-second round clash news conferences in Swedish, German and English while Paraguay always made everyone available in any language that could be mustered.

On Thursday, two days before England played Portugal, several Portuguese visitors sat dumbfounded as David Beckham [Images], Gary Neville and then Steven Gerrard were escorted in for group interviews with the media.

Not just one interview, however, but at least three -- one of which is supervised in such a way that certain agency reporters may only ask questions and report the answers taken from the opening five minutes.

The rest, to suit the workings of the British dailies, may be used but must be held until an agreed embargo later that day, night or even the following day.

Portuguese reporters were told -- in English only -- before Gerrard began his news conference that all material must be held back from publication until Friday evening at the earliest.

In a bizarre twist, one English reporter innocently asked Beckham how he reacted to a statement Gerrard had made earlier in the same room.

The reporter was admonished by another journalist because he had asked a question 'out of turn' by using a Gerrard answer that, in Planet England's news-managed time-line, was not to be used until the following day.

Outside, England's manicured training pitch, with turf imported from the Netherlands and laid early in May, glistened in the morning sunshine.

Compared to the dry, difficult surfaces used for the finals, with longer coarser grass, it was like a billiard table, watered and cut for the England players, who descend from their nearby luxury accommodation at the Schlosshotel for training.

For 15 minutes, their stretching and warming-up exercises are examined by the media and then the gates are closed.

The real World Cup work, tactical and technical, is to be done in private and so the pack, politely moved on by security officials, return to their marquee headquarters and the sumptuous hospitality, and check the cricket scores again.