World Cup 2006: it's back on!
Feels weird not to have watched a single international football tie for the last couple of days, but the quarter finals are go, and I made sure I was finished with the Radio Times piece I'm writing by 4pm. Actually, I didn't finish it, but there's always tomorrow. It was a boiling hot day.

Germany 1 Argentina 1 (4-2 on penalties)
"It started like a game of chess . . . " said David Pleat. Well, Gary at 6 Music reckons it's going to be an England Germany final. I certainly wanted Germany to win: they're the cleaner side, and they have the prevailing wind of local support behind them. But the two teams were locked together in the first half, neither of them able to make a run for it and break out of midfield. It seems ungrateful to say, but it was quite dull. However, in the 49th minute, it all changed when Ayala converted a corner with his head - the first time Germany had been behind in this World Cup. This put a rocket up their arse. And, notwithstanding the championship-standard timewasting Argentina indulged in from thereon, it was Klose who headed one off a Borowski header to equalise, after which, with both sides locked once again, the play was only enlivened by some ducking and diving, and Michael Ballack spending a lot of time on the sidelines. You just knew it was going to extra time, and during that grim half hour, you just knew it was going to penalties. It started like a game of chess, stopped being one, turned back into one, and, to complete Mr Pleat's assessment, "it ended like blood and thunder." It was sweet to see the German team with their arms round each other, and the coaching staff and subs too, as they waited their turn in the shootout. Quite touchy-feely the Germans, maybe it's Klinsmann's Californian influence. In penalties, there was what can only be described as a lot of German efficiency on display. Argentina's Esteban Cambiasso was the Gareth Southgate, the David Batty, the Stuart Pearce, of the proceedings, missing the fourth Argentine penalty and guaranteeing himself a Pizza Hut (or Offal Hut) advert, while the Germans missed not one. Four out of four. Peter Drury went as wild as the German fans, declaring Berlin "Party City!" and falling over himself in an effort to express the joy of the home nation. "Never has Germany been so unified," he burbled. "Never have the German people been so universally smiling and cheerful." (That's "universally smiling".) And then one of the Argentines, Heinze, seemed to launch himself at a German player after an altercation and a proper scuffle broke out, with officials involved, amid much gesticulating and "He's not worth it" intervention, when it should by rights have been all handshakes and shirt-swapping. In this, Argentina let themselves down, they let the school down, they let football down. (They didn't actually let the football down, thankfully.) Ah well, an "intriguing" game, as Ally McCoist said, if not a particularly brilliant one, but when the team isn't yours, penalties can be exciting, in a reduced-down-sauce sort of way. Gary could still be right.
Italy 3 Ukraine 0
What a performance! I'm talking about Martin O'Neill at half-time. (Yes, it was back to the BBC, mercifully, with a gorgeous sunset behind our team at the Brandenberg Gate.) O'Neill actually went mad live on telly, firstly imagining the Ukrainian plane already revved up on the tarmac (they didn't exactly give it their all in the first half, you see), then criticising the Ukrainians for being in second gear, actually, for being in first gear, then saying he loved the Italians and that they were good looking so perhaps, in fact, he hated them, then he imagined Caesar and Nero and Crassus inventing the offside rule in Ancient Rome, and finally, he said, "What are we on about?" Never mind "we". Terrific telly, which is more than we can say for the first half of the match, in which, what a surprise, Italy scored an early first goal (Zambrotti) and then protected it for the remainder. Defenisively, even in first gear, even parked, they are unbeatable. I have learned very quickly that this is what Italy do. Are 1-0 leads easier to fix or something? The second half saw Ukraine putting the effort in. They were never going to win, too many long balls, not enough movement, Shevchenko's bad knee, but a couple of consecutive shots on goal in the 58th shook the Italians in to action and Toni went down the other end and made it 2-0. Then again, ten minutes later, both short-range goals, both sweet as a nut. (It was Jonathan Pearce who had begun the game by saying, "Lovely, Totti!" - which just sounded like, "lovely Totti!") I still like the way that when Italy are passing and the commentator gives out their names, it sounds like he's ordering food: "Luca Toni . . . Perrotta . . . Zambrotta . . . Cannavaro . . . Gattuso . . . and a bottle of the house red please."

So, Italy play Germany on Tuesday. And, according to Gary, Germany will win, facing us in the final. I don't believe him.

The Day The Day The Music Died Opened Its Doors To The Public
Having been thoroughly reenergised this series ("the difficult fifth series") by our excursions into interactivity and self-imposed spontaneity, and having amassed a network of 355 friends on MySpace (at last count), we decided to do call their bluff, and see if any of them wanted to come in and join us for a recording of the programme. Many of our so-called "friends" made excuses. Some, like Markie B, were almost prepared to give up their jobs to get into London on a Thursday morning. But two - that's Kat and Clare - actually made it, and were shoehorned into our tiny studio yesterday to witness, and contribute from the sidelines to, a hot hour of banter and forced unscriptedness. Clare, a sixth former, turned 18 on Wednesday and was sensibly accompanied by her mum, Kerry, a teacher. She goes to church. Kat is 25 and from Preston. She likes wallpaper paste and The Killers, or at least that's what it says on her MySpace. Their presence added to the creeping "zoo" format that's taking over TDTMD, much to the distaste of one of us (it's Robin), as we handed out Radio 2 merchandise, like Steve Wright towels and Chris Evans chopping boards, and tried to involve our friends in the tapestry of the show, all the while hoping that the trip was worthwhile, and that the peek behind the screens was instructive and not too disappointing. (What? They read from scripts? And Andrew has to retake the whole of the first link at the end? And Robin really is that grumpy?) Whether the end result will include much of Kat and Clare and Clare's Mum remains to be heard, but it was nice to meet our public. (This time last series we didn't even know we had a public!) And if Russell Brand can do it . . .

Oh, by the way, a debenture is a bond, or a certificate proving a debt. Doesn't help that much, does it? Anyway, thoughts turn back to the job in hand today: filling a twelve-yarder skip.



I filled a ten-yarder around this time last year, mostly crap from the garage and the shed and the ad hoc tip beside the shed. It was therapeutic beyond belief. Not just moving things that are not needed into a large yellow steel container, there to be removed and taken to a place we must not think too hard about, but the physical act of lifting and chucking and in the case of some old bits of furniture, breaking apart. Sometimes you have to climb in the skip, which is tremendously exciting and vital. Same drill today, except a lot more sorting this time, as we're dividing up that which never made it into the house after the house-move into four piles: keep (the smallest pile of all, as how much do we need something we never ever decanted from the box into the house?), recycle (those magazines, the boxes themselves once emptied), donate (the charity shops of Reigate are in for a bonanza in terms of books, videos and a backgammon set in a little case) and dump. This in itself is invigorating. Today was even the day for the recycling lorry to come, so we were able to make a hell of a lot of cardboard disappear just like that. The skip itself is not exactly full to the brim, but you wouldn't be embarrassed about having it taken away. Plus, it's here for another four days, so if we have any bright ideas . . .

Because garages are where spiders live I spent a lot of the day encouraging them off the things I was throwing out. It's like a Hammer horror film in the darkest recesses of the garage, with cobwebs that look like they've been sprayed on. I had to pull down some knackered old shelves and break up the workbench, all of which had become home to entire extended spider families. I harmed not one of them knowingly. Indeed, I gently nudged or carried them off the doomed bits of wood and set them free. Just because I'm clearing my life out, doesn't mean I shouldn't respect the creatures that are living theirs behind and underneath and inside my junk. I feel bad for breaking up their webs. But that's the main drawback of the itinerant spider lifestyle.

I ran out of things to smash up and throw into a large yellow steel container by about 3.30pm, so I showered (always weird to shower at any time of the day apart from the beginning of it) and wrote reviews of Syriana (DVD) and Equilibrium (Film Of The Week) for Radio Times, which was a lovely contrast to throwing rubbish into a skip. It was a beautiful day. No sitcom.

World Cup 2006
There is no World Cup 2006. First quarter final is on Friday. I can't wait. Of all the quarter finals, only one seems a foregone conclusion - Italy Ukraine - the rest are all up for grabs. As a refreshing change from watching football, I watched two Channel 4 lifestyle programmes, Property Ladder (new series), which continues to follow the exact same script every week, despite new property developers, and The F Word (new series started last week, like we noticed), with Gordon Ramsay swearing too much. I am not offended by swearing, but now that it's his gimmick, he does it too much. This is a bit of a mish-mash format, with bits of all his other formats lobbed into a pan, and it has no real narrative arc. Man swears at camera, man swears at amateur chefs, man swears at celebrity diner (Cliff Richard), man swears at pigs, man swears at ordinary member of public, man swears at second celebrity in kitchen (Janet Street Porter), man swears at camera. Won't be sitting down to that again, but I will not miss a single Property Ladder - it's compulsive. Amateur developers fail to budget or plan their development, Sarah Beeny tells them what to do, they ignore her, go over-budget, spend too much on a kitchen, forget what they're doing this for, design the house or flat for themselves, Sarah tells them it's a lovely finish but the wrong thing to have done, the estate agents value it at less than they expected, nobody buys it, the amateur developers move in and wait for next spring.

Tired. The proper kind you get after manual labour.

Wimbledon 2006: out!



The Debenture Adventure

Now here's a turn-up. Yesterday I had a call from Lesley Douglas's office. She's the controller of Radio 2 and 6 Music. She's my boss twice. She had two complementary BBC tickets for Wimbledon and would I like them? Now I'm not bothered about tennis, but Julie is tennis mad, and I could see the appeal of being at this most iconic of tennis venues on the second day of the grand slam, so I jumped at the chance. (Plus, it's almost local, and we can fill the skip on Wednesday.) Thus did we set off in the car this morning with our waterproofs packed and a faxed confirmation of our tickets to hand in at Gate 4. (It transpires that a batch of BBC tickets "went missing", so Wimbledon provided letters to cover duplicates, as the originals had to be voided.) Now I know it's suicide to try and park in Wimbledon during tennis fortnight, but even though I say so myself, we know the backstreets well, and had identified a residential street without restrictions or police bollards that was in 30 minutes' walking distance from the All England Lawn Tennis Club, so we parked and strolled. It was a breeze. And free. Just like the tickets. We were saving money with every minute that ticked by, which was lucky, as we shall see . . .

First, the venue. What a fabulous place to find oneself on a sunny day, so familiar from the establishing montages on the BBC and the view from the window behind the bit where Sue Barker and John Inverdale sit for the duration. It's huge. And even though you kind of know this stuff, it's still amazing to find yourself surrounded by so much tennis being played at one time. Never mind Centre Court, or Court One (where our seats were), there are courts everywhere! You can just wander into them. Not so the big two, where somewhat overqualified members of the armed services act as stewards and only allow you in or out between games and sets. This is very strict, but I like it - it's respectful to the players. Once you have established which "gangway" you're supposed to use, you get ushered to your seats by a sailor or an airman (green, plastic, fold-down, I've sat in bigger ones, but they could be worse), and the atmosphere is amazing. Our seats were at one end of the court, which was great, as it looked like it does on telly, and no turning your neck left and right to follow the action. (Though on a smaller scale, it reminded me of walking into Wembley Stadium for the first time when I was about 14, to see an England qualifier.) Heaven knows how exciting Centre Court must be! Even though I'm not interested in tennis, I was, by the time we sat down, really interested in tennis. How could you not be?



Our tickets. Once we had handed over our fax at the ticket office, all the while chaperoned by a young man in a blazer, it became clear that our tickets were debenture tickets. I don't really know what this means, but I know it's good. We got special depenture badges to pin to ourselves, and quickly sought out the special places where only debenturers can go. We only had an our hour before the first game started on Court One, so we flashed our paperwork and entered a pleasant looking debenture-only restaurant, already abuzz. We were, it should be stated for the record, wearing normal clothes: t-shirts, hooded top, long shorts and trainers in my case, cords and sandals in Julie's. However, we obviously didn't look like debenture people. The restaurant staff behind the desk tried to talk us out of going in there by explaining that they only served a fixed four-course meal with a fixed price (forty-nine pounds). Because we didn't have enough time to eat one of these big meals - and because it cost forty-nine pounds! - we didn't actually mind being advised to try the debenture lounge next door instead, where they serve normal food. We did mind the self-defeating nature of a restaurant where you can't eat as much or as little as you like, despite being rich enough to fork out fifty quid a head, but perhaps real debenture people like this kind of restaurant, and don't really want to watch the tennis. We did.



We flashed our badges again at the lounge, feeling a bit like first class passengers at an airport (ie. defiant but unwelcome). The restaurant serving normal food was on the first floor, and to gain access to it we had to show our debenture tickets again, this time to a woman at a lecturn, who looked us up and down as if perhaps we were wearing chimney sweep's clothes but kept on smiling. She regretfully informed us, as if perhaps breaking the news that a relative had died on the operating table, that jeans, trainers and shorts were not allowed in the restaurant. Then she read the backs of our tickets and established that it didn't specify this anywhere on them, so she reluctantly agreed to let us in. (Neither of us was wearing jeans. One of us was wearing cords, which are not jeans) We hid our indignance and thanked the lady kindly for her benevolence. Already this was feeling like the worst of England, which is a shame, because people come from far and wide to visit Wimbledon, thinking it a beacon of what this country is good at - lawns, politeness and fair play. But here's the punchline: the no-jeans, no-shorts, no-trainers restaurant for debenture holders only on the first floor of the exclusive lounge is ... a fucking cafeteria. Oh, a cafeteria that charges twenty quid a head, but no better than Cafe Revive at Marks & Spencer. In fact, worse, as, despite its mouth-watering menu of dishes as various as coronation lamb, rib-eye steak and smoked salmon, it actually only had cold, ready-plated food. The coronation lamb, which I chose, was cold, and it was meant to be! Never mind how smartly dressed the patrons of this cafe were, they still had to slide wooden trays along a rail and pick up plates from a chiller cabinet like ordinary mortals at a service station on the M1. Some of the people in there were wearing blazers and pressed shirts and shoes (stupid clothes for a hot day watching sport), but some of them were in comfortable footwear that could easily be described as trainers - and polo shirts are t-shirts with a collar. It's such a lot of self-aggrandising, know-your-place, tell-it-to-the-tourists, theme-park Upstairs Downstairs bullshit. We ate our substandard cold food, which we had carried to our own table, having paid almost forty quid between us, with the sour taste of the class system in our mouths. It didn't in any way spoil our day though. We were better than them. We knew it was an illusion of class, and not real class. Real class is to serve decent, fresh food at affordable prices to people who appreciate it. No wonder so many Wimbledon regulars bring packed lunches anyway.



Thankfully, our debenture tickets didn't mean special seats in a special enclosure with insecure people. They were normal seats, from which we thoroughly enjoyed the next three and a half hours of nailbiting tennis from Tim Henman, who's so famous, I've heard of him, and the much younger Swede, Robin Soderling, whose t-shirt might prevent him from getting in the debenture lounge as it had no collar. I used to watch the Wimbledon finals on telly as a teenager when Bjorn Borg was still in the frame and John McEnroe was coming through, but I've never really fancied it as a spectator sport, allowing Wimbledon to pass me by. Well, how wrong I've been. It's compulsive, especially courtside, as you can see every shot so clearly, where it's going, where it lands, and it's impossible not to get sucked in, even if you accept the received wisdom that Tim Henman is what's wrong with the sport: he's a boring, ungrateful, loveless bastard. Nevertheless, I found myself rooting for him over five sets, even when he pretty much gave the fourth one away. I was soon ooh-ing and ahh-ing and tutting as he hit the net or allowed Soderling to ace him. (See how I use the terminology now.) The crowd were mostly as quiet as a theatre crowd, and it was encouraging to be amongst. The occasional mobile phone beeped, but it was frowned upon, and when two ladies got up to leave, mid-game ("Seats please. Play continues!" grumbled the American umpire, who sounded like Stephen Hawking and pronounced "fifteen" in a special way that made it sound like "thirty"), everyone in the court looked at them disapprovingly. You see, that's about manners, not class. I liked it liked when certain vocal Henman fans called out, "Come on, Tim!" between points. It was oh so polite, as if perhaps they were saying, "Come on, Tim, come and have your photo taken!" or "Come on, Tim, pull yourself together!" The crowd seemed right behind him, although the Henmania of a few years back has abated. Flags are no longer waved in his po-faced honour. A couple of contested line calls had him giving evils to the line judge in question, which was rather childish. But anger is an energy and he was bristling in the fifth set, and deserved his hard-fought win.

Oh no, I like tennis, and it's all Lesley Douglas's fault. I haven't got time to watch Wimbledon!

We had a fantastic day. Even the debenture thing was an education. Wimbledon is a fine place, with lots of fine things going on within its barbed-wire perimeter, but good food isn't one of them. (Never mind Centre Court, you should see the Food Court! What an unholy scrum for plastic-packed sandwiches and fizzy drinks! Thwack! Advantage, processed food!) Probably an excellent place to get pissed on champagne or Pimm's, if you have the money. Best thing about Wimbledon? Lack of gaudy sponsorship on court. This is refreshing. All you get is a little Rolex logo on the clock, a little IBM logo on the computer that tells you how fast the ball is going (127mph at one point!) and two tiny Slazengers, which are behind a net. And that. apart from what's written on the balls, is pretty much it. Long may it remain in the hands of the BBC.



Sad tale: a lovely, polite, elderly German couple shuffled along our row just as Henman came on to rapturous applause, claiming to have tickets with our seat numbers on. The lady showed them to me and indeed, their tickets did say Row Q, Seats 242 and 243, Tues 27 June, Gangway 20. How could this be? And then I remembered why we had exchanged a fax for our tickets in the first place - the originals had "gone missing". I went down and checked with a nearby soldier and he confiremd that our duplicate tickets "had priority". He told me to send the Germans down to him, which I did, with some regret, as it was clear that their tickets must have been purchased from a tout, or a disreputable source, even an internet auction site. As it said on the back of our tickets, "Anyone attempting to use the original ticket should be escorted immediately to the Championship Ticket Office and will be liable to be ejected." Moral: buy your Wimbledon tickets from source, even if it involves camping on the path. (I hope the staff were nice to the German couple, whose day was ruined.)

Numb from three and a half hours of sitting on green plastic, we made our way back to the car at about 5pm, having had a good wander up Henman Hill and past more concessions selling pricey booze, strawberries and "pies and pasties". It was a terrific game, and a unique experience (Julie hadn't been since she was a teenager and it was all fields and Jimmy Connors and lax security in those days), and what better way to finish it off than to eat Thai food in our favourite restaurant in Wimbledon village - that's hot, freshly-cooked, healthy, delicious food at just over twenty quid a head, and it was brought to our table by splendid people, and included prawn crackers. Compare and contrast. I must look up the word debenture right now. I think it might mean deluded.

World Cup 2006: in!
Back from the restaurant in time for the France Spain kick-off. Missed Brazil Ghana.



Brazil 3 Ghana 0
History made. Ronaldo became the highest-ever goal-scorer in World Cup history, bypassing Gerd Muller's tally with his 15th. Adriano's was the 200th World Cup goal for Brazil, another one for Norris McWhirter. Ghana were apparently sloppy in defence, but not a complete pushover.
France 3 Spain 1
What a show. This is how a quarter final should work: both teams fired up and attacking, a number of goals, nothing like a foregone conclusion, no need for extra time or penalties. Had it not been for the usual diving and amateur dramatics, this might have been a perfect game of international football. I like both sides, but plumped for France. I like their average age (29.5 years old, five years older than Spain), and the fact that Zidane comes with so much added drama, and I can even let them off the daft collars on their white strip. Spain took the lead early on with a neat penalty from David Villa, but the equaliser was a corker, from the skin-graft kid, Franck Ribery, who beat one goalkeeper and two defenders to slot one home, as I believe they say, in the 41st. That meant both teams came out fighting after half-time. The fireworks didn't go off though until the last six minutes. Vieira headed one past Casillas in a goalmouth kerfuffle, which actually came off defender Ramos but it was going in anyway. That was in the 84th. Then, in the 92nd, a minute after being booked, Zidane provided one of the goals of the tournament so far, for my money. And what a strange hairline he has. And stubble longer than his newly-shaved hair. L'advantage, France!

World Cup 2006: woodwork
The skip arrived this morning - a twelve-yarder, delivered to our drive by a nice bloke who checked that we weren't going to be throwing out any classic-car parts or tools, as that's his thing, and he's seen such items dumped in skips he's delivered and has subsequently had to rescure. I assured him, regretfully, that we wouldn't be. It's just rubbish from the garage. The skip's with us for a week, during which time we aim to fill it with things that we don't want but which can't be donated to the many charity shops of Reigate, or recycled in the case of my old Mojos and Qs (I've checked on eBay and nobody's buying old magazines any more). It's going to be a fabulous clearout, a real pyschological unburdening. If you're interested in a complete set of Qs, minus the first issues and the ones I worked on between 1994 and 1997 (sentimental value), and you want to come and pick them up, let me know. Otherwise, they're going to be turned into turnpike roads. Anyway, we had planned to fill the skip all day, but a surprise invitation - which I'll write about tomorrow - changed our plans, and I spent today doing the extra rewriting on the sitcom that I was going to do tomorrow. Thus, I only caught the midriff of Australia Italy, but was able to sit down, after a lovely steak, to watch Switzerland Ukraine in its entirety. Lucky me.

Australia 0 Italy 1
Another low-scoring match. They're becoming all too common at this stage. And Italy won it in the 90th minute from a nailbiting penalty. Totti did the honours (cue: close-ups of his perspiring brow) and at least obviated the need for that punishing extra half-hour. Materazzi was sent off while I was tuned in, another decision by another ref that seemed harsh. This wil be remembered as the World Cup of yellow cards. The trouble is, as I see it, once a ref has awarded his first, he has to keep up the pressure. He sets his own bar. (I know, Fifa sets the bar, and expects its refs to follow the letter of their law, but it's slowing down the play and reducing numbers all too frequently. There should be consistency. There is not.) I feel for the Socceroos. They've done so well, and they put up a good fight against Italy, only to lose this way, thwarted from potential glory by a decision that's probably still being hotly debated by bar staff and dentists all across London.
Switzerland 0 Ukraine 0
Well, it was over an hour before the Mexican ref showed a yellow card in this one, which was nice, but that's all the match had to recommend it beyond a kind of hypnotic dullness that almost became compulsive. I was actually nodding off before the final whistle, which I put down to the wet weather and the change in air pressure, but it was not helped by the plodding performance of "the two least fancied teams in this round, competing to be the least fancied team at the quarter finals" (not my words, Gary Lineker's). Little to impart. Some woeful shots on goal by both teams, very few pulse-quickening runs, one effort that shook the woodwork of the Ukrainian goal in the first half from Frei and a whole lot of solid defending from both sides that never exploded into life. If these teams were the least fancied at kick-off, they were outcast by polite society like freaks come the endgame. If ever a match was going to end in a shootout, it was this one. "Turgid," as one of the BBC team put it. "Neutral," said another, cleverly referring to Switzerland. "I wish they'd hurry up so we can all go home," quipped a third. It was a good excuse for amateur comedy from pundits if nothing else. And even in penalties, both teams were useless. Shevchenko, the most-fancied player on the least-fancied team, missed the first one for the Ukraine. How often does that happen? The keeper, Shovkoskiy was the man of the match, saving three Swiss penalties in a row, the third of which clinched it. Truly appalling, ambitionless play and yet, let me just check, and, yes, this was for a place in the quarter finals. Of the World Cup. Makes you yearn for England. Alan Hansen picked a good day to go back home.

And as if that wasn't bad enough, we had bloody Mick McCarthy explaining the Bleeding Obvious in his monotonous drone throughout. After Shevchenko's miss, he revealed, having been involved in a penalty situation, that players "want to strangle" anyone who misses, but are rather pleased when one goes in. Now that's what I call insider knowledge. Please God he's not on duty for England on Saturday.

Pardon this small plug, but it was brought to my attention by a listener on Sunday. Apparently I am available as a podcast! Not only that, but a video podcast, and it's free! On January 17, Ebury, who publish my books, threw a special evening of comedy in a basement in London's Soho. It was a private function, there to butter up the "book trade" ie. those nice people from the book chains who decide, hmmmmmmmm, whether or not to put Ebury books in their shops. Authors love these people. That's why we all turned out to do five minutes each of comedy on a stage - perhaps no surprise that I would leap at the chance, nor my friend Stuart Maconie (although he was quite nervous, needlessly so), nor fellow authors-but-not-comedians like Will Storr or Michael Simkin, but they also had Tony Hawks, Julian Clary, Rhona Cameron and Mark Thomas on the bill. Not a bad bill for a bunch of trade freeloaders! Anyway, they filmed it, and it's now being released in instalments as a podcast.



I downloaded it this afternoon and was quite surprised at how well I kept the audience fixed in my gaze, as I have a bad habit of not making eye contact unless I spot it and correct myself. You can download me, or Danny Wallace, or Tony Hawks, or Rhona. The others will be added week by week into a podcast collection that you and your family will treasure for minutes. Free binder with podcast 1.



Actually, not your family. As these casts are marked EXPLICIT. My routine, for instance, involves me saying "fuck" a few times. (Hey, it was the roar of the crowd!) This may frighten certain horses. It's also about my top ten serial killers, which some may find in questionable taste. Hey, I didn't know it would one day be available to own - nor that somebody who knew one of Harold Shipman's victims was in the audience, but he spoke to me afterwards and said he was pleased I didn't put Shipman in my top ten. He was very nice about it, actually. To sample the controversial comedy, either go to iTunes and put "Ebury" in the podcast search, or go to the Ebury Goes Live website. (The podcast of me had not been added to that when Iast looked, but it's definitely on iTunes.)

Remember: I am not a stand-up comedian.

World Cup 2006: an experiment
Having tried watching a match round somebody's house, today I tried watching one with the sound down. It's rubbish. But the England match coincided with me being on air, so I was forced to watch it on the studio telly between 4 and 5 o'clock with no sound. It's amazing how detached you feel. It's like watching a fish tank, with lots of little white fish and lots of little yellow fish.

England 1 Ecuador 0
A good day for Ashley Cole (his 50th cap, plus he received damages and an apology from a tabloid newspaper about that pixillated photo of him and the gay orgy story), and a satisfactory result for England, in that they go through, but as ever, a frustrating watch. Sven played Rooney on his own, upfront. Now, any formation that omits Peter Crouch is a good one by me, but even though Rooney played his heart out, seemingly as fit as a fiddle below-sock, he found himself on more than one occasion, well, up front, on his own. He had nobody to play with. John Terry almost helped Tenorio to score for Ecuador (we do like an early scare, England), later fouling him out of frustration, and we went off at half time the better side but only just. We do make it look like hard work, this "job" people keep prosaically talking about. It was down to Beckham in the 60th minute, apparently feeling a bit dicky, to fall back on his own thrilling stereotype and bang one in from a 30-yard free kick, over the wall and just inside the post. He deserves his new badge: first English player to score in three consecutive World Cups. (And one of only five players ever to have scored two World Cup goals from a free kick.) Pity the heat caused him to spew up on the pitch. (They think it's all over the grass. It is now.) Selfishly, I'm glad the goal came in the second half, ie. with the sound up. Today I appreciate the sensory multiplicity of watching football. You don't just watch. You listen. You give yourself over. Oh, and poor old Frank Lampard, my boyfriend, who continued to whack balls in the general direction of the goal, causing commentators everywhere to mutter, "He must score at some point." Or not. Aaron Lennon, pronounced by John Motson as "Aron" (as opposed to the correct "Arron" or "Airon"), showed good form, and Carrick seemed dependable in the middle, but it was Rooney's show. I do love the knock-out games, although if this had gone to extra time, I would have been cross, as the restaurant was booked for 8.30.

Here we are, Mark and I, watching the first half on the studio telly while a record, possibly Summertime by Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince or High by the Cure is playing. It's just not the same, we're both thinking.



I took a register in the last hour of the show, to see who was still listening. This was good fun, as a large handful of listeners, including a couple in America, took the trouble to email in and "put their hand up." Lesser broadcasters than myself would have sneakily pre-recorded the last hour of the show. And it would have sounded rubbish.

Portugal 1 Netherlands 0
Another low-scoring match and one that we missed entirely, opting instead to explore the world outside and eat a Thai meal in Wimbledon. We passed two bars where the game was showing on big screens to packed houses (presumably those who had pitched camp for the afternoon game and were too sozzled to move), once on the way to the restaurant, 30 minutes into the match, by which time it was already 1-0, and once on the way back, when it was all over, and it was still 1-0. Actually, the game seemed to be going on for almost seven extra minutes! What value for the fans!

The crap woman who presents the ITV news said it all when she said, "Job done," about England. Imagine that being said about Argentina or Brazil. Had another sprited conversation about the World Cup with strangers, the two guys who work on a Sunday in EAT on Portland Place. Heartwarming. On a less jolly note, as I write this draft, my website is down, and has been for most of Sunday. It can't be any more if you're reading this, whenever you are reading it. I can tell you, it's a horrible, frustrating, disconcerting feeling. And I've no idea what happened. Apologies to any of you who tried to get in and couldn't.

World Cup 2006: a field day
For the first time this World Cup, I watched a game round somebody's house. Mary and Steve's in Ewell. They have a massive telly, which really brought the Argentina Mexico match alive, I must admit. It was rather idyllic. Steve was outside manning the barbecue, while I sat inside, keeping him abreast of developments.

Germany 2 Sweden 0
Watched this one at home. This was what I believe they call a rout. It could have been a much higher score for "the host nation", as we must respectively refer to them, were it not for some steadfast work throughout by Swedish keeper Andreas Isaksson, who kept about three dozen likely shots out of his goal using all the tricks in the goalie's book, most of them from Michael Ballack, who looks a bit like Ziggy from Grange Hill. But it was all over from the 4th minute, when Lukas Podolski converted a splendid set-up from Miroslav Klose (they're a bit like Beckham and Owen used to be in the good old days), only to galvanise the lead in the 12th: same duo, same hit. Actually, even if it wasn't all over for the off-form Swedes in the 12th, it was again in the 35th, when the Brazilian ref seemed to smile as he presented Teddy Lucic with his second yellow card and off he went, for brushing past Klose's shirt. Bad decision, but worse facial expression. It's not quite Graham Poll, but grinning can't be good form for a ref surely? I expect Lars Lagerback drained the spare tank of hope at half-time and sent them back out with a "You can do it!" - but holding England to a 2-2 draw is easy, and Germany are literally in a different league. Sweden were given one last chance, when Larsson stepped up to the penalty spot with a near-certain equaliser in his sights. But Lagerback decided instead to commit tactical suicide and made a substitution at that very moment, thus delaying Larsson's penalty and making him "sky it", as commentators like to say. Then, it really, really was all over. The Germans spent the rest of the match passing the ball about, testing Isaksson occasionally and dreaming of the real version of the plastic trophy one German fan was seen waving about. Sweden deserved to go out. That may sound harsh but I'd have been saying the same thing about England, had they drawn their nemeses.

Argentina 2 Mexico 1
Well, the best goal of the World Cup so far, from the boot of Maxi Rodriguez, in the 98th minute. It really was a wonder, and nice to see a goal actually scored by an Argentine at last. Mexico went one-up just as the smell of sausages started to waft in through the patio doors: Marquez, 5th minute. Then, five minutes later, Mexican defender Borgetti equalised for the other side with his head. To be fair, it would have gone in off Crespo's left foot without any cranial assistance, but let's chalk it up as a Mexican own-goal for the pure melodrama. Actually, after this barnstorming start, the game settled into a kind of highly-charged, international-level stalemate for the remainder, with only a disallowed Argentinian offside goal by Messi to enliven things, leading to a 1-1 final score and the first instance of extra time this World Cup. Both teams visibly tired, but once Rodriguez had done his bit, there was no way back for the North Americans. I think I prefer the golden goal option. At least it didn't end on penalties.

So, Germany had a "field day", in the words of Martin O'Neill. "A shooting session," in the words of Alan Shearer, whom O'Neill called "the England No. 2", just to break his balls, which it seems to. And Argentina, still capable of genius, play Germany. Our minicab driver tonight was Italian, and said that if you cut his veins he would "bleed blue". We had a throughly nice, animated chat about international football all the way back to Reigate and the fate of the three Italian sides caught up in the corruption business. Our driver doesn't think Juventus, Fiorentina and Lazio should be kicked out of Serie A, just have their points docked so that they have minus points at the beginning of the next season and have to claw their way back up into the league. A very wise plan, I think. Football: it's social glue.

Well, it makes a change from DVDs in stupid cardboard sleeves



The Guardian are giving away free wallcharts again. I was suspicious of the first batch in May. The actual charts themselves seemed oddly reprinted and murky, and the garden birds one featured birds that are simply not common to British gardens (the linnet anyone?), while missing some really obvious ones out (where was my lovely nuthatch?). This, it turned out, is because the charts are produced by a Danish company, and make no claims to be about British anything. Clearly, the Guardian have done some kind of deal with The Scandinavian Fishing Yearbook (the curious name of the company - they started out producing just that in 1955, but moved into educational wallcharts and lithographs, now CD-ROMs) - the newspaper get the free gifts, the company get a free plug. I can mither all I like - and I'm about to - but it worked. The Guardian was the only quality daily to increase both its month-on-month and year-on-year circulation in "a steady market" in May. They shifted 381,188 copies a day, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations (a "month-on-month" rise of 1.76% - oh how such figures suck the life out of me: a grim flashback to the days at Q when I had to worry myself sick about such pathetic increments). During the week of the wallchart giveaway, sales were up by 130,000 in total, which averaged out at an extra 3,000 copies a day across the month. Hence: batch two.


This is what they look like if you buy them. All the Guardian does is add the newspaper's logo and redo the heading in their own typeface

Guess what, today's wallchart, Birds of Sea and Shore, is no better than the garden birds one. The illustrations still look like they've been colour-photocopied (unless the originals are just as washed-out, in which case, good luck if you're thinking of sending off and paying nine-Euros-plus-shipping for one) and the spread of birds is skewed towards the Arctic.

There's no Lapwing, one of our most common waders. No Canada goose, again one of our most common geese. They've spelt Greylag as Grey lag (clearly the poster was not subbed by a birdwatcher). The Pochard pictured is a speckled-looking female (good luck spotting the more distinct adult male, with its beautiful chestnut brown head and pale back and flanks). The only breed of swan is the Whooper swan. The only Eider is the Steller's eider, found in ... Scandinavia (no sign of, say, the Common eider - clue's in the name). The Long-tailed duck, the Velvet scoter, the White-fronted goose, all breed in the tundra or the Baltic. And if there's one thing anyone who's seen the super-common Mallard will tell you, is that it has a rich, velvety green head; not on this wallchart, where it looks black. Not much sign of the green head of the male Shoveler either. Green is obviously a very tricky colour to reproduce. (I know I'm nitpicking. I enjoy it. If you feel my nitpicking is in any way inaccurate, please nitpick back. We could start a nitpicking club.)

Still, it makes a change from free DVDs in stupid cardboard covers. There's no such thing as a free anything. If somebody's giving it to you, it's not free. There's a catch. In this case, it's a clever way of making you "sample" (that's what the marketing people say) a newspaper you presumably don't usually buy. Now, I happen to think that the Guardian is a very good newspaper, the best in fact, but I wish it didn't have to play the dirty game of free gifts. Shouldn't the quality of the journalism and comment be enough? (I know, what a happy bubble I live in.) At the end of the day, these wallcharts are not much good. They're dated-looking, geographically irrelevent and muddy. But, hey, say the Guardian, they're free! So stop complaining!

A disclaimer now appears on the charts, which I don't believe was there the last time: "This is a selection of species and not a definitive collection. It may include species that are not or no longer indigenous to Britain." I hope the schoolchildren read that when it gets blu-tacked up in the classroom.

World Cup 2006: go west
I've had enough of these four-game days. I'm glad the groups are over now. Too much action to miss. A similar day to yesterday: I was at the read-throughs for Not Going Out and was thus Not Going Home. Because the last episode we wrote, Stress, comes in at a swollen 40 minutes, we have much to trim, and I wasn't on the train home until 8pm. Home at 8.30, heard a little of France Togo on the radio in the cab again, then caught up with it while I ate my dinner in the kitchen (steak and salad, with a lemon and oil dressing, my favourite summer meal). Moved to the living room, but I went upstairs to check my emails and was thus away from the screen for the exact six minutes during which France scored both their goals.

Ukraine 1 Tunisia 0
Unless otherwise stated, I missed all these games. Ukraine come second in Group H. Not much of a performance, by all accounts (ie. by the account on the BBC World Cup website). So the ex-Russians meet Switzerland, although it could so easily have been South Korea, had it not been Vieira's birthday (see: below).
Saudi Arabia 0 Spain 1
The Saudis had needed four goals to stand a chance. It was never going to happen. Spain's victory, not spectacular on paper, means that this is the third time they have won all three group matches in a World Cup, and are unbeaten for 25 games now. This was a walkover for them. They win Group H and meet France (see: below).
Switzerland 2 South Korea 0
A fairly decisive victory. One Swiss goal per half. I know why these matches are played at the same time as each other but why are they played at the same time as each other?
Togo 0 France 2
The one I saw, albeit in chunks, and with the added distraction of a family of foxes fighting over the bones of yesterday's chicken in the back garden. (Coincidentally, the BBC's Marcel Desailly described Trezuguet as a fox at half time.) You might have expected France, even minus their other birthday boy Zidane, to have fared a little easier against a side with their bags already packed, but Togo did some good work in the first half, and the French went off with little rainclouds over their heads. Whoever was commentating on Five Live said that, for the French, it must have been like watching Doctor Who from behind the sofa. They needed to win two goals ahead to qualify. And, in a reenergised second half, they got them. Notwithstanding some muffed shots by Trezuguet (whose name always makes me think of that poncy shampoo Tresemme) and Ribery, and one offside goal that might not have been, it was Vieira, 30, who proved essential to both of the French equalisers in the 55th and 61st minutes, curling one into the top pocket himself and heading the set-up for a calm and collected Henry - who has thus far lacked va-va-voom, but has cleared his name, which I've always thought should be spelt Henri. At least Sunday wasn't Zidane's last World Cup match then. He is 70 today.

Alan Shearer, who was revealed in the papers this morning to be joining Steve McClaren on the England coaching team as soon as he takes over, revealed from behind the BBC pundits' coffee table that he won't be joining Steve McClaren on the England coaching team as soon as he takes over. The press never lets you down. Unless he's tactically denying it and holding out for more cash, but he's got honest eyes. I like Shearer as a pundit, he's pretty eloquent for a player, but he really should have it written into his BBC contract that he doesn't appear when the German sun's setting behind him. Backlight isn't kind to his hair.

World Cup 2006: Gerd Muller look out!
It's amazing how much football you can miss simultaneously at the end of the group matches. This afternoon, whilst attending read-throughs and rehearsals of Not Going Out at the rehearsal rooms, I - and indeed we - missed Czech Republic Italy, and Ghana USA. Lee put a small portable on between episodes, for a couple of minutes, but spent most of those fiddling with the aerial. It wasn't happening and we had to banish thoughts of football altogether. We finished the final, invited-audience read-throughs at 7.30, which meant I wasn't home until 8.30, but at least I caught most of Brazil Japan, which was one I'd hate to have missed.

Czech Republic 0 Italy 2
21 unbeaten international matches for Italy, who did all they had to do to sit on their win, so it seems. The Czechs went one man down, which didn't help. Totti was top.
Ghana 2 USA 1
Nice one. Good to see America out. (Don't tell Megan, the American lead in Not Going Out that I said that!) But better to see one of the African sides through to the magic 16. They play Brazil, which is a blow, but that's still going to be an entertaining one. They have my full support, especially once England are out. (Don't tell any of my English friends that I said that!)
Japan 1 Brazil 4
Japan put on a good, consistent show, but nothing can beat the 2006 Brazilians for peaks and troughs, with Ronaldo providing most of them: forgive my oversimplification but he pretty much missed any chance that involved him running very far or jumping off the ground, and potted two that found him standing in the right place at the right time, dreaming of his next helping of rice and beans. He is only fat in footballing terms, and there is something a bit sad about seeing him lolloping around the field, but what drama there is in a national hero proving the naysayers cheap and wrong by overtaking Pele and Just Fontaine to equal Gerd Muller for most goals scored at a World Cup - that'll be 14 then. I'd rather see Ronaldo than a leaner, fitter player just doing their job. "A joy to watch," is how Steve Wilson described him. Alan Hansen is right to downplay and say that Brazil were funtional rather than scintilating, and that they must pull up their yellow socks to win the tournament, but they have improved match by match, unlike, say, England. Sorry, should I have mentioned England? Sven's expected to play Theo Walcott on Sunday. That's the act of a man who's painted himself into a corner, especially after Alan Hansen pointing out the risk in such a novelty strategy, when "every second counts". So Sven made a tactical error with the squad, not bringing Jermain Defoe in favour of a teenager, a lad with a bad foot and a ready-to-snap Michael Owen - what's he to do to dig himself out of this mess?
Croatia 2 Australia 2
How exciting are the end-0f-group matches though? With two crucial results playing out in parallel! Each time Australia or Croatia scored, thus altering the balance of the table, the BBC split the screen. Japan were one up when Austalia equalised in the 38th minute, thus edging ahead of them. It was a nail-biter. Harry Kewell, with his tremendous name (a Liverpool player, I have learned from the ponce's Guardian guide, now well-thumbed), scored the second Aussie goal. Both teams went down to ten men, with more than one player yellow carded for disagreeing with the English ref. Simunic was given his third yellow card, which has to be historic, just before the final whistle. Well done, that English ref! At the end, Croatian players were just strewn like bodies across the pitch, dejected rather than dead.

Thanks for all the info on Go West. I know too much about it now. On a pundit note, why is Leonardo's hair like that? He looks like he's running even when he's sitting down, which he mostly is. Julie's theory is that it's simply a bad haircut. Or perhaps he wants that brunette Trisha Yates look. Can somebody in BBC makeup not give him a decent blow-dry?

World Cup 2006: A series of very, very good players, playing the game very well
I'm afraid to say, the least actual football I have seen since the start of the competition due to stuff that needed doing in the afternoon, plus an ill-timed trip into London and back to witness a read-through of two episodes of Not Going Out before a small, invited audience at the rehearsal space to see if the laughs are actually laughs. (They mostly were.) I heard part of the first half of tonight's non-clash between Argentina and Ned on the radio in a cab home from the train station (I was able to ask the manly question, "What's the score, mate?" of my driver). This was my first experience of the much-loved Five Live: a commentator I didn't recognise who said, "the beat continues relentlessly", which I liked, plus Graham Taylor, who still sounds a bit like a patronising geography teacher. Saw the remainder on TV. For the first time this World Cup, I have been truly grateful for the highlights on BBC1 at 10.50.

Portugal 2 Mexico 1
Behold the winners of Group D. I was sorting things out in the garage when this one played. Trying to find the electical fittings that were never fitted to our downstairs sockets and light-switches. That's my excuse. It's pretty frustrating that a huge tournament like this should be so inconvenient for people with jobs, or things to find in the garage. Simon Hattenstone in the Guardian wrote about being a World Cup addict in the paper today. Yeah, well, he's a journalist. He sits at home for a living.
Iran 1 Angola 1
One of those matches where news from the simultaneous tie (see: above) filtered through on mobiles. If Angola had beaten Iran and Portugal beat Mexico, they could have gone through. Not to be.
Ivory Coast 3 Serbia & Montenegro 2
First win for the much-loved Africans, and with S&M (ha ha) two up within 20 minutes. I wish I'd seen this one. Both teams were down to ten men by the end. Serbia go home [almost - Maths Ed.] goalless, and the Coast do so with a lot of new fans.
Holland 0 Argentina 0
Peter Drury said the thing about the "very, very good players" quoted above, and he's right, but it was David Pleat who brilliantly described this one as "a game of chess." Two sides spying on each other. That was about it. Despite a team with holes in it, Holland still wanted to win, purely to topline the group and play the least fantastic team from Group D, which turns out to be Mexico, but, like an Angolan win, it was not to be. Argentina, hairy bastards that they are, still look like the team to beat, or not beat, but didn't score goals tonight - why waste them? Messi, whom you have to call the new Maradonna by football law, shone in the half we saw. As did Cruz, whose name is surely pronounced "Cruth", but that would slow down the English commentators, who go for "Cruise". It was nice to see two teams playing in their first strip. And to see the symbolic possession graphic pop up, informing us that it was split 50:50, which you rarely see. That says it all.

Nobody's explained what the version of Go West they play at the end of all matches is. It's not the Pet Shop Boys' version, nor Village People. It sounds choral and classical. What is it, football fans?

Not Going In



Lee Mack and I first stepped foot in Room 405, Gainsborough House on London's busy Oxford Street on Tuesday 3 January, 2006. We left yesterday, Tuesday 20 June, 2006, 24 working weeks later. We were there to write five episodes of Not Going Out, a sitcom commissioned by Peter Fincham, controller of BBC1. We have, to all intents and purposes, barring a few uncrossed "t"s and undotted "i"s, achieved that thing. Yesterday, along with Paul Kerensa, a writer drafted in full-time to work with us on the final episode, we bid Room 405 farewell, as it was handed back to the company who run the building (interestingly, not the company who ran it when the lease started, as they went into administration last week).

During those 24 weeks - which can be measured out, Prufrock style, in post-it notes, coffee cups, cans of Coke (him), mugs of mint tea (me), glasses of water, takeaway organic camargue and wild rice salads with mint and raw broccoli (me), sushi trays (him) - we roadtested a number of different working methods. The first two episodes were written entirely within those cream walls, Monday to Friday. This was tough going, especially for those of us with a radio show to do every Saturday and Sunday, and those of us on tour (which Lee was for six week in January and February). The next episode, we experimented with taking occasional "writing days" away from each other, me at home, he in the office alone. But however we did it, all roads led back to Room 405, where the storylines were thrashed out, sometimes for days on end, until we had the post-it note murals up, and scenes were finally "nailed", as we always liked to call it. (Then Lee would have a brainwave overnight and we would "nail" them again the next day.) One episode spiralled out of control and, after a BBC read-through, had to undergo major surgery, which took a week in itself, and was our lowest ebb. An intensive working method, but this is a sitcom with a punishing gag-rate, and although we won't know until these episodes are rehearsed, blocked and filmed, the finished scripts came out in pretty good shape. Both Lee and I had days where we would rather be anywhere else, doing anything else. Some days, he was somewhere else, doing something else. Some days, I was. On points (which I'm not), we have been living the sitcom for six months. But we've fucking done it.

Here is the nice calendar I made in February, when we decided to map out what needed writing by when:



And here it is at the end of May, when we had realised, the hard way, that we hadn't given ourselves enough time:



As the hot weather moved in, we bought a desk fan, which kept us cool but also irritatingly rustled the post-it notes as it revolved. The office started to stink, which I put down to the smell of men at work, but turned out to be the remnants of an unloved latte Lee had left inside a Starbucks cup on the top of the filing cabinet in March. I finally traced the smell to the source and threw the cup out yesterday, our last day. A symbolic cleansing. I learned many things about sitcom-writing in that room. I will keep those back for when it's actually in the can at the end of August, ready for apparent transmission on BBC1 in September, but that could change. After all, Top Of The Pops was a long-running TV programme on Monday; not any more. Likewise, They Think It's All Over (it is now!) was cancelled yesterday, something which impacts on Lee rather more than it does me. He's OK about it. But it does go to show what an unpredictable world the BBC can be. Let's keep our fingers crossed that the work we have done gets turned into a fantastic six-part series by all concerned, that it goes out and it gets another series and that nobody even thinks about booking Room 405 again.

World Cup 2006: dispossessed
It's here. A historic day. Our last in the sitcom office on Oxford Street. We've been encamped there since January 3, ground into a daily routine as demoralising as any office job (and I should know, I've had a few in my time). Today, the lease finally ran out, after a two-day extension due to Lee's essential research trip to Germany last weekend. At 5.30, we tore all the colour-coded post-it notes down, and the big calendar, and cleared the desktop of the PC we've been using. It would have been a sad day had we not been so overjoyed to get out of that sick building. I'll write a separate entry about the progress of the sitcom. By the way, does dispossessed actually mean "robbed of possession of the ball", as used by commentators? I think not. Someone look it up.

Ecuador 0 Germany 3
Been spelling Ecuador with a "q" for the whole of the World Cup. Someone could have told me. I wouldn't have minded.
Costa Rica 1 Poland 2
Played simultaneously with the Germany match, presumably to avoid any tactical play due to foregone conclusions. Not much fun for us all the same. (Not that I would have been watching it, as we were at work - did I mention that?) I'm glad Poland don't go home without a single goal scored. They seem like a nice bunch. And they're great builders, so I'm told. Not the actual team, the nation.
England 2 Sweden 2
Excuse the sweary headline, by the way, but that's what the English players always seem to be shouting to one another on the pitch. That or "fucking wanker", or "what did I do?" And it's what England fans must shout, when the team nudge us to the edge of our seats and the end of our tether once again. (Enjoyed seeing the shots of Cologne before the game, as it's where we memorably saw Arctic Monkeys at the end of last year. A happy occasion. But would tonight be happy?) With Owen self-injured in the first minute and replaced by the flailing spiderman, Crouch, we were robbed of that promised Owen-Rooney partnership. (And you don't want to see one of your star players literally crawling off the pitch.) Rooney himself seemed fit enough, but it was our proud midfield who paved the way for a psychological 1-0 victory at half-time: Cole, Lampard, Beckham, Hargreaves, indulging in one too many a long pass, granted, but the occasional burst of energy from Rooney and Joe Cole gave us hope. The Swedes didn't get a single shot on our goal all half. We saw one or two sail over theirs, but it was Cole, with his perfect centre of gravity, who took a wild shot from outside the area after a couple of rebounds - to which Clive Tyldesley commented, "Why not?" - and brought it home. A simply poetic piece of physics, with the ball curving into the top right hand corner. After this, Rooney had a go at one from an almost identical spot, as did Lampard, but neither made that contact with the netting. Who cares? We might have lacked actual magic, but we went to the dressing rooms one up, and it's marvellous to see that surge after a goal. Would that the second half yielded such relief. Sweden, looking as ever like ten Ikea logos, equalised from a corner in the 53rd, put away by Marcus Allback. Our defence had been so solid up to that point, with Terry as tough as always, but something went wrong. Sudenly the Swedes looked dangerous and we lost the advantage in an all too obvious way. Crouch was pointless. Rooney came off ("He looks like he's been called in for his tea," joked Gareth Southgate, in a rare burst of wit), to preserve his foot for Ecquador, and he behaved like a child, chucking his boots and his bandages on the grass and sticking out his bottom lip, petulantly. Highly entertaining. Replaced by Gerrard, holding up five fingers to indicate the new number in midfield, he ended up scoring in the 85th, clinching it for England (who were going through whatever happened, but pride was at stake, not having beaten Sweden since 1968, before the England squad were born). So what did we do? We relaxed. Only for either Mellberg or Larsson to equalise again in the bloody 90th minute. So we went off the victors of Group B, avoiding an early clash against the hosts, but frankly limping. No Owen. Half a Rooney. Useless Crouch. And, judging by the two Swedish goals, an off-form Ashley Cole. Fuck's sake.
Paraguay 2 Trinidad & Tobago 0
An own goal from T&T. Sad to see them go, as is everybody.

Can someone run up a strip for Peter Crouch that fits him? I know he's tall and long and army and leggy, but why does his shirt have to flap around his frame like it once belonged to a six-foot seven-inch fat man? It's so not a good look. Nice gold lettering on the red strip though. The rest of them wear it well. Surprised how good Rooney looked without his shirt in that Nike ad that's been splashed everywhere today. Mind you, they had painted him. Lampard took his shirt off at the end of the game. You know what I think about him.

I must say I disagree with Tyldesley's summary that England are "contenders".

World Cup 2006: rain starts play
We were out at the cinema for the first match, and watching a DVD for the second. Hey, it was only Saudi Arabia, Ukraine, Togo and Switzerland. I miss my films.

Saudi Arabia 0 Ukraine 4
Suddenly, we have our "dark horses" of the competition.
Togo 0 Switzerland
Ah well. Togo to go.
Spain 3 Tunisia 1
As Jonathan Pearce pointed out from the BBC commentary box, we've had four goals per match in Group H (Spain 4 Ukraine 0; Tunisia 2 Saudi 2; Saudi 0 Ukraine 4), although this one looked like it could be a dogged 1-0 win for Tunisia in the first half, with the North African side energised after their draw with the Arabs, keeping the Spaniards at bay, putting one away in the 8th minute. But that doggedness could only get them so far, and the rains came down hard in the second half, making the pitch slick, causing Ukrainian coach Roger Lemerre to put his unfetching hood up (well, he was 65 yesterday) and ruining the elaborate Hoxton fin of 22-year-old Fernando Torres. This did not dampen his skills though, and with no-first-name Raul on, the two Madrid players pulled Spain's shorts up and eventually, put them back on top, with a Raul goal from three yards after one clumsy deflection too many from Ali Boumnijel, who likes to punch the ball away, volleyball-style, thus putting it back in play. He did some very fine saves too, inbetween shouting his head off at the other Tunisian players. This animated Spanish coach Luis Aragones, who was glimpsed at one stage reading a book. Torres scored two, one a dainty tap off the right side of his right foot, the other a powerful penalty. Spain deserved to win. Tunisia clearly only had one half in them. Hats off to Jonathan Pearce for pronouncing Garcia the Spanish way, with a "th". I doubt Motson does.

Being a coach, doing all the emoting and shouting from the sidelines, especially in middle age, must be a dangerous job. Mind you, better to let it out like the Mediterranean coaches do, than bottle it up for later like Sven. I understand England are playing tomorrow. Our fate also rests with Germany and Equador, who play in the afternoon. It's all a case of do we meeet Germany now or later. Or not.

No, I mean an actual spoiler. We went to the Wimbledon Odeon to see the tobacco-lobby satire Thank You For Smoking, starring Aaron Eckhart and written and directed by Ivan Reitman's son Jason, and 10 minutes before the end, the projector in Screen 11 broke down and the lights came on (automatically, I assume - it's all automated now, none of your Cinema Paradiso). There were only eight of us in there, and the bloke nearest the front went out to inform a member of staff. After five minutes, during which the genial, apologetic manageress waited with us, in constant contact with the projection room, order was restored, the lights dimmed and the film came back on. Then, three minutes later, it stopped again. I went out this time, and called her back in. More consultation by walkie-talkie with the projectionist until he finally admitted defeat ("It's a right mess up here," we heard him say). She offered us all a refund and we were also given vouchers for another film. It was disappointing, as all eight of us were really enjoying the film, but you couldn't fault the reaction time, the attitude or the official response of the Odeon staff. It's not as if it was a cliffhanger in the action-movie sense - this was a smart but talky film about liberty, lies and big business - but it was a shame nonetheless to be robbed of the climax. It's clearly not worth going back just to see the last 10 minutes of Thank You For Smoking. So I actually don't know how it turned out. (Actually I do, as Sight & Sound print full synopses and I looked it up.)

Our trip to Wimbledon was made interesting by two other things: one, in parking underneath Ely's, I drove over a sharp piece of metal and got a flat tyre. (We heard hissing, like a snake, when we got out of the car. It went down in a matter of seconds.) So I had to prove my masculinity by changing it after the film. Despite not having done this on the Toyota in all the years we've had it, this proved remarkably easy, so I can't really take any credit for my achievement. What a wonderful invention the jack is though! That tiny thing with a little crank handle and it lifts a car! Anyway, it's good when you're basically a media ponce by trade to get your hands really dirty and do something physical.

The other point of interest was seeing yet another speed camera burnt out on the A217.



Who does this? I mean, who gets sufficiently angry to go out by the dead of night with a can of petrol and set fire to an inanimate object? In Surrey? This is the second time this one has been burned and replaced. There's another one near Banstead (Banstead!) which has been torched, and the latest replacement on Reigate Hill is surely living on borrowed time. Is it the same man? (It has to be a man.) Are they not worried about being caught by the police? On camera? (Oh yes.) And how do you actually set fire to a metal box on a long pole without a flamethrower? I must admit, I see no revolutionary heroism in burning speed cameras. It's not quite throwing yourself in front of the King's horse in the name of universal suffrage is it? The sort of person who gets uptight about speed cameras obviously likes to defy the speed limit, and the phantom camera-arsonist must have been caught out. Hence: the reckless revenge. It's obvious what the limit it on the 217. It's not as if they've been caught out by poor signage. And the cameras are not exactly concealed in the bushes. They're bloody yellow, and signs warn of them all the way into London. Surely there are better targets for this kind of Daily Mail rage? I'm perplexed by the whole thing. I know Ken Bruce hates speed cameras. I'm not saying it's him. I'm just saying he hates them and moans about them on Radio 2. Perhaps he and his disciples would prefer cars to bomb down the A217 at 60mph. No wonder there are always dead foxes on that road. What chance do they have? I blame Top Gear - that's always a safe bet.

Bad Food Britain by Joanna Blythman
I love Joanna Blythman. Never mind The Dice Man or Catcher In The Rye, her 1996 book The Food We Eat literally changed my life. (I guess it arrived at precisely the right time for me, just as my Old Life was running itself into the ground and I jacked in my day job at Q before it killed me.) As a convert to nutritional self-help since 1998, I have found the basic home truths Blythman delivered about the shit we buy under the ragged umbrella "food" to be ones that I simply cannot ignore. It's more than just a case of reading the ingredients on the side of a packet, it's not buying the packet in the first place. I daresay I have the irritating evangelism of a former addict, but I did used to eat a Burger King breakfast and a McDonald's lunch when I was the editor of Q, just like so many other overworked Metropolitan suicides-in-waiting, washed down with beer and tea, so I know of which I speak. The thing with opening your eyes to the truth about food is that you can't close them again. Which is why I loved Shopped too, Blythman's look at bad supermarket Britain, which took apart the system rotten piece by rotten piece, and even though I top up in supermarkets, I don't rely on them, and - very healthy, this - I hate myself for even giving them money for kitchen roll, even Waitrose, who are the least bad of the bunch.

Yes, I'm hooked on this subject. Which is why I devoured Bad Food Britain in a matter of days. It's her angriest yet, and the indignation makes it fly. The picture she paints, from food-ignorance and food-incompetence being handed down from generation to generation (kids don't know where chips come from; they have no idea how to make a pie; they think food is eaten on laps, separately from the rest of the family; they think Dairylea Lunchables are food), the ever-tightening grip of the food multinationals (Walkers owned by Pepsi and so on - how big can some of these companies get before someone steps in?), the opiate lure of supermarkets (shopping? a pleasure? no, it's just a chore, and food is just fuel), the parlous state of school and hospital food (the avergage cost of a school meal is less than that spent on an army dog or someone in prison - and these are our children!), our appalling reputation for eating on mainland Europe (hear the comparison of Banbury town centre with Gioia Tauro in Southern Italy and weep), the masochistic attitude to snacking (buy a newspaper, buy choc bar; buy petrol, buy pasty; rent DVD, buy big bag of crisps owened by Walkers, owned by Pepsi), to the Big Punchline, ie. the failure of government to take anything like a useful stance on this most fundamental of all public health and sociel cohesion issues (what? and upset some big businesses?), is as depressing as hell. And a page-turner.

Highly recommended. And if you have a child, teach them how to peel a potato and thell them where carrots come from. It could save the country.

World Cup 2006: watching ITV1 at the BBC
The talk in the Sunday papers is of Sven putting Rooney on in place of Crouch on Tuesday against Sweden. That would surely be preferable, at least aesthetically, although it relinquishes the shot-in-the-arm effect of putting the boy on midway through the second half, when we're flagging because Fifa have made the games 90 minutes long. Sven's also considering taking either Gerrard or Lampard out of the midfield mix, to avoid having them booked and suspended in a match we don't need to win. (He secretly wants Sweden to win, of course.)

Japan 0 Croatia 0
Well, I was reading the Sunday papers in preparation for my show. The Japanese keeper saved a penalty early on, which must have been exciting.
Brazil 2 Australia 0
I actually watched the first half in the vacant studio 4B at 6 Music, being unable to get the telly in the tumbleweed-strewn office to come on. (I was meeting Julie in Wimbledon for a Thai at 6.45, so had an hour in hand after the show.) It was quite strange, sitting in the DJ's chair in a radio studio, behind the desk with my bottle of water and a banana, alone, watching a wall-mounted "HD-ready" flat-screen telly, better than the one at home. "There's money and there's hope for football in Australia," said an ITV1 commentator I didn't recognise, having informed us the Aussies had only been in one previous World Cup, in 1974, when they were semi-professional. Whoever won this was assured a place in the next 16. Australia blocked well. Ronaldo got himself a card to go with his yellow strip in the 30th by stupidly kicking the ball out of play when caught offside. No, it hasn't been a great World Cup for the chipmunk-faced tubbo; his place in the fabled "Fab Four" may be in doubt. "A degree of style and a great deal of efficiency," was the unknown commentator's summation of the Aussies. (I don't think it was Peter Drury.) At least it looked as if the Brazilians were actually trying this time, but even Kaka couldn't cut through the defence. At half-time, when I had to leave it, Australia seemed the stronger side. Who'd have thought it? Ronaldo was quick to get down the tunnel. Missed the second half due to tube journey south for fabulous Thai meal of Gai Pak Prik, Pad Pak Namman Hoi and brown rice. Clearly, Brazil rediscovered their fire while I was underground.
France 1 South Korea 1
Missed the first half, including Henry's early goal and Vieira's disallowed one, but home in time for the second half. I quickly gathered that an unsatisfactory stalemate had been reached, with France hanging on to their lead but doing nothing with it, while Korea battled back but couldn't convert. Even though I have no vested interest in France not sailing through (I like the fact that they are the Dad's Army of the competition), it was terrific when Park Ji-Sung popped one over Barthez in an 83rd-minute goalmouth muddle and equalised. I like an upset. After this amazing flashpoint, it seemed as if all of the star French players took turns to miss a goal, or contribute to a missed goal: Henry, Vieira and Zidane, who's retiring after this World Cup and, thanks to a booking for a daft barge, missing the next match - which means, if France really do "blow it", in the words of commentator Steve Wilson, we may never see his bald head in action, or inaction, again. They had the points in the palm of their hand and pissed them up the wall. Franck Ribery was interesting to see when he came on, to much cheering, as he is called Scarface due to a facial injury suffered as a kid and seems to have skin-grafting on one side of his head. It's the scars on the inside that will be hurting coach Raymond Domenech; he'll be "vilified and castigated" by the French press, according to the hysterical Steve Wilson. And he looks like Paul O'Grady from the side.

Strip notes: Angola's strip is my favourite; it's like a licorice allsort, dark orange, yellow and black. It's great to see th