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 the Mexicans using the same typeface as the Mexico 70 logo. Holland's is a classic, uncluttered strip, despite the "futuristic" numbers; likewise either the white or yellow version of Ghana - so clean-looking. USA's assymetric stripe is stylish. At the other end of the scale, France's second-strip shirt is way too fiddly, with that stupid, affected half-collar arrangement. (Like they need any more criticism!) Any thoughts, fashion police?

World Cup 2006: a wet November evening
Another hot day. On Saturdays, I leave home at 1.10pm, a Vitamin D-enriching walk to the station (glorious today under the lunchtime sun with my arms out, basted in Green People sun cream, and my new iPod playlist in my head), catch the 1.48 train to London and get into Victoria at 2.20, leaving me enough time to detour via Planet Organic off the Tottenham Court Road to buy organic food to put in the 6 Music fridge for tomorrow's lunch: salad, wheat-free pie, apple and pomegranate juice, bananas. Then it's an hour of prep for the chart, two hours of radio, train back to Redhill at 6.32 and arrive back home, via a taxi from the station, just after 7pm. All very routine, but it means I missed the first and second games. It's not so bad on a Sunday, as I get home at 6pm, which means half a match left. Ate gorgeous dinner on the patio, lamb and roasted vegetables (artichoke, aubergine, red onions, red pepper and mushrooms), in time to catch the start of the third match, Italy versus USA.

Portugal 2 Iran 0
Ronaldo scored from a penalty in the 80th minute. I know this because I read about it on the BBC website. I liked Portugal against Angola last Sunday and wanted them to win. Missing this one means I have yet to see Iran, which seems careless.
Czech Republic 0 Ghana 2
What an upset! We put this one on in the studio at 5pm, with the sound down, and I saw the first Ghanaian goal, which went in within a minute and a half (a record for this World Cup). I wish I'd been able to see the rest but, with the best will in the world, there's no point in watching it with the sound down, when you're doing a chart rundown, so we switched it over. I'm chuffed for the African team. I'd love one of them to go through.
Italy 1 USA 1
Unbelieable. What a game. I'm so glad I saw this one in full, even though, as ITV1 commentators Peter Drury and David Pleat agreed, some of the incident that made it so enthralling and mental brought shame upon the game. All seemed well for the first 26 minutes: USA looked strong and confident after their Czech defeat, Italy seemed determined and up for it, and their first goal, a fine header from Gilardino, filled any kneejerk anti-Americans among us with hope. Then, it was as if a can of something toxic was opened. Zaccardo mis-kicked spectacularly and equalised with an own-goal, the first of the tournament unless you count the debatable intervention of Beckham's against Paraguay. Then all hell broke loose. Italy's De Rossi elbowed star American striker Brian McBride in the face, drawing blood, and was sent off forthwith. (Luckily, McBride is Dr Sean McNamara from Nip/Tuck and did some emergency cosmetic surgery on himself.) With Italy suddenly down to ten men, who was going to score all the rest of the goals? America answered this "big ask" when their own Mastroeni (an Italian, no less) kindly left the field, after sliding into Pirlo and getting his red card. Blimey, I said, at this rate, they'll be playing mixed doubles before the final whistle! And guess what, America's Pope (as opposed to Italy's Pope - ha ha) earned his second yellow card and - Fifa rules is Fifa rules - was sent to the naughty step too. US coach Brian Arena looked one step closer to his coronary. DaMarcus Beasley came on for the States, scored, and was adJudged offside. (I'm surprised the Uraguayan ref saw it, he was so busy shuffling his cards.) The two teams fought to the death, but Italy couldn't get one in, and it ended, finally, exhaustingly, operatically, as a point apiece, which I daresay America will be grateful for in the circumstances. As Drury commented midway through the second half, "There's so much space on the field!" He then compared the last act to a "socks round the ankles" game of English club football on that "wet November night" with its "blood and guts". This was a better comparison than the one he made at the final whistle about a Saturday night film with a lot of "subplots" or something. Everyone hung their heads in shame. I have no opinion on the disallowed Beasley goal, as Julie and I were distracted by a deer in the garden and we were standing at the patio doors at the time. She's got two new fawns, but I didn't see them.

Well, a game that was not without incident. Aren't the BBC showing any more matches or something?

Do other stadiums announce over the PA that they've sold all the tickets? Or is this just a German thing? Oh, and that Go West tune - it sounds like an operatic version they're playing at the end of matches. Any ideas?

A literary connection



Why was Jonathan Ross so much more bearable last night? Simple. Because none of the guests were women. Vic Reeves, John Malkovich and Peter Kay: all men. Thus, no opportunity for Ross to embarrass himself, and us, with that middle-aged lechery he had made his stock-in-trade. Anyway, both Reeves and Kay were on to talk about their autobiographies. Vic's is out, it has a stupendous title (Me: Moir) and it covers the first 20 years of his life, just like Where Did It All Go Right?, which ended when I left home, aged 19. I'd like to read it. Meanwhile, Kay's, which he's almost finished writing, seems to have been written as a direct spoiler to an unauthorised book by "some journalist".

I know that journalist. He asked me for some comments on Peter for the book, even though I have never met the man. Our tenuous link is that we were both on I Love The 80s. It seems that this journalist, a nice chap, just doing a job of work, was having trouble getting people to speak to him. No surprise, since we now know that Kay has been writing his own book, and presumably pulled up the drawbridge on friends and family. As for other comedians . . . the truth of the matter is, other comedians don't like Peter Kay. Clearly, with his huge success, much of this can be attributed to pathological comedy bitterness (they will be feeling the same way about Russell Brand at the moment, especially if - snort! - they've done more pub gigs than him), but I do get the feeling that Kay isn't quite the cheeky chappie behind the scenes and has been somewhat ruthless on his way to the top. (Hang him as a war criminal!) You'll never read this though, as it would come across like sour grapes if anyone said it on record. Anyway, that's not why I'm writing this entry. (Kay, incidentally, was a slippery interviewee, revealing little and distracted by the audience, but as entertaining and warm as ever. I, having never met him, think he's hugely and naturally talented, someone to be cherished. Most of the paying public will never meet or work with him, and they love him. I should also point out that the journalist's book, though unauthorised, is not as far as I know a stitch-up, just a sales-motivated story of his life. I thought Kay came across as very naive when he said to Jonathan, "You can't stop them! There's nothing you can do about it!" as if he didn't know that hundreds of unauthorised showbiz biographies have been written. Also, it was uneccesary, with all that love in the room, to describe his own book as "the funniest thing I've done".)

Memoirs are in the foreground because I had a tip-off from Rob Newman yesterday by email that I am mentioned in the back of Black Swan Green, the new novel by much-admired, Granta- and Richard & Judy-approved, Booker-shortlisted David Mitchell. I doubted this, as I have never crossed paths with the man. (Hey, maybe I can contribute to an unauthorised book about him one day!) Also, there is anther authorly Andrew Collins, who writes books about mummies, King Arthur and crop circles. It could be him, I thought. So I went into a bookshop, found Mitchell's book, had a look, and lo and behold, this is what it says at the end of his acknowledgments, just after crediting Le Grand Meaulnes by Alain-Fournier (Librairie Fayard, 1971) and Lord Of The Flies by William Golding (Faber & Faber, 1954):

"The novel owes debts of detail to Andrew Collins's memoir Where Did It All Go Right? (Ebury Press, 2003)"

I took it to the till forthwith, in hardback too (five pounds off in Borders). It turns out it's written from the point of view of a 13-year-old boy in 1982 (Mitchell was born in 1969, and was, hey, 13 in 1982, four years younger than me). I've only flicked through it and properly read a few pages so far, but it's done in the vernacular of a young teenager and is full of references to butterscotch Angel Delight and what's on the telly, and I can only assume he used my own memories to in some peripheral way enhance the detail of his own. How flattering is that? I finally have a connection with literary merit! What a nice chap to credit me. He would certainly have got away with not doing so. This cheers me up greatly after yet another lukewarm two-star customer review for my own book on Amazon, bringing the average rating down to three and a half, something I am learning to deal with. Mitchell gets four or five stars all the way.

The Rob Newman wasn't a name-drop. I have known him since before he was famous. Indeed, I made him famous. We didn't see or hear from each other for years, but we have recently reconnected.

World Cup 2006:
Another hard day at the office, working hotly to finish writing Not Going Out before the lease runs out on the office itself and rehearsals begin in earnest (which happen on Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively). Today, we had interruptions by the costume department (we're well into pre-production now) and we had to finish early as Lee was involved in some casting at 3.30 (Lee is executive producer as well as star and co-writer, hence his higher-than-normal stress levels). I've just realised, that doesn't sound like a hard day at the office. Trust me. I was delighted to be out of there at 3.30. One and a third matches seen, as a result. Result! Results:

Argentina 6 Serbia Montenegro 0
Typical to have missed the six-goal annihilation. Argentina are clearly in it to win it. I shall look forward to seeing them play Holland. Or is it the Netherlands?
Holland 2 Cote D'Ivoire 1
Or indeed the Nederlands? It said NED at the top of the screen. As I say, missed the first half and some of the second, so the final score didn't change, but it was stirring to see the Coast do so well, and with such determination against the boys in orange.
Mexico 0 Angola 0
Bad start. NTL box went off. This has happened before, so we tried not to panic, and did all the things you usually do (the NTL helpline, ironically named, shuts down at 8pm) - turn it off at the socket, turn it back on after 30 seconds etc. Good job it wasn't an England match. We gave up and unplugged the cable box at 8.20 and watched the game the old-fashioned way, through the aeriel. Well, after seeing off Iran in some style, Mexico couldn't get a grip on Angola, who held them to 0-0 until half time. It was on ITV1, but no Tyldesley and Southgate. It was a man called Jon Champion's job to continually advertise future matches on ITV1 and point us in the direction of the competition for phoneline revenue, while Southgate's chipping in was done in the much more condusive South-Dublin tones of a man called Jim Beglin, of whom I know nothing. But I liked his casual, sing-song style. (He might not be from South Dublin, but Julie is very good at pinpointing Irish accents.) Did you know, because I didn't, that Angola are semi-professional? Some of them have other jobs, or are unemployed. This makes their performance against Fifa's fourth-ranking side all the more impressive. Here's another fact: the Angolan goalie, Joao Ricardo - by a mile the man of the match, executing a "Pat Jennings" one-handed save at one point, and "unattached" to any club - is 36 years old; the average life expectancy of a man in his country is 38. Gulp. So let us join the pocket of home fans in their red, black and yellow, outnumbered about nine to one at Hanover's Neidersachsenstadion, and cheer Angola back to the dressing rooms. For they held that 0-0 scoreline right to the end. The Mexican coach, Ricardo La Volpe, whom Jon Champion likened to Captain Pugwash with his little goatee, is apparently not well liked at home. He's argumentative, combative and thinks he's always right. Oh, for such an interesting coach here! Anyway, he barely speaks to Fonseca, whom he put on in the 73rd, to much Mexican cheering. Not that it could break the Angolans, who were down to ten men, after a Macanga red card, for the last ten minutes. So, another goalless draw, but what a thrilling match. Just goes to show. (By the way, Beglin, who continued to charm, used the phrase, "It's a big ask." This is a crime against English, but I'll let it go.) My brother and his family used to live in Hanover. I went to visit them once, but, apart from a trip to Belsen, we stayed on the army camp where he was stationed.

Incidentally, doesn't the law of averages state that one or two of the Angolan fans must have died during this match?

I've realised, of course, that if England win Group B, whomsoever they play, they'll play on a Sunday afternoon, when I'm on air. I can't get out of the Sunday show, so my only option is to video the match and watch it the minute I get home at 6pm. This is a radical response to an insoluble problem. After that, should they win, their quarter final falls more accommodatingly into my work schedule, and all the big matches from thereon, including the final, are on in the evenings.

I have recorded the first part of China on BBC2, by the way, but I suspect we won't be watching it for a couple of weeks. Normal service will then be resumed, as I have no interest in tennis.

The honeymoon is over
This must be a common tale. When I started my MySpace page up, all of three weeks ago, I was thrilled every time I received a New Friend Request! flashing in my inbox. I accepted everybody, keen to build up my friend portfolio and genuinely flattered that anybody had bothered to request my friendship. After two weeks, when it emerged that Richard Herring had doubled my friend total in the same time, I began to realise that accumulating random friends is without in-built merit. Without making a decision to do so, I started to consider new requests with more rigour. If the "friend" was a struggling indie band I had never heard of, and who appeared to have no other friends in common with me, I put them into a holding pattern. Equally, I started to do rudimentary credit checks; if I didn't like the look of the person's MySpace page, I put them into the holding pattern too. One girl, for instance, seemingly harmless, had used the c-word a lot, which put me off. I sometimes use the c-word in speech, but not in mixed company, and I didn't think it was big or clever to actually put it in your MySpace description, however light-hearted - hey, you've got to have a system. Another boy had a picture of someone, not himself as it turned out, dressed as Hitler. I found this in questionable taste and put him in the holding pattern too. I did not have the guts to actually press "deny". (What happens when you do? Does a big denied! flash in their inbox, Wayne's World style?) Anyway, over the past week I have collected almost 40 would-be friends whose requests I have not approved. And today, I denied somebody. She seemed odd, so I looked her up and all her Top 8 friends were current Big Brother contestants. I don't want to get involved, even on a superficial and virtual level, with somebody like that. Let us not completely devalue the word "friend". I stupidly accepted "Noel Edmonds" during that first flush of enthusiasm, not really thinking it was him, and then I checked his page and it strikes me as so dim to start an account just to pretend to be a celebrity, no matter how humorously, and so I deleted him from my friends. Now does he get notification if that happens? Anybody know? Perhaps I can do a deal - if someone here who's also a friend on MySpace could volunteer, I'll delete you and see if you get notified. Just as an experiment. Then you can reapply and I'll reaccept. Hands up.

Nothing more to report really, other than I expect everybody goes through this. It makes accepting a new friend more meaningful.

The New New Statesman
Just to say, the relaunched, "taller and wider" New Statesman, a magazine I have subscribed to for the last nine years, has survived what for a 25,000-circulation concern is a fairly high-profile facelift. (Media Guardian rather desperately tried to sell the story as lefty-rag-goes-all-comedy because they've taken on Julian Clary as a regular columnist, even though regular readers will know that Clary has been writing for them for quite a while, filling in as theatre critic and for Rory Bremner, whose rather forced column has been a fixture for ages. Still, at least they wrote about it.) I don't need this all-headline cover design style. I preferred the single image for impact. The new style suggests desperation. It says, "Look, we've got all this stuff inside, please buy it!" That said, there appears to have been no cut in word-length, the usual casualty in market-led redesigns (one of the reasons I stopped buying Q), and nor does the design involve too many "box outs" and gimmicks. It's mainly still intelligent pieces written from the left, with photos next to them, and with some pages on a blue tint. Surprised to see a couple of unfanfared sackings in the arts section though: Portillo dropped as theatre critic, Victoria Segal as film critic . . . mercifully, they have retained Rachel Cooke on radio and Andrew Billen on TV. My subscription remains safe.

World Cup 2006: our gangly fool
Shouldn't you be at work? Industry ground to a halt this afternoon as England played their second Group B match and the media went into Rooney meltdown. Having risen with the birds at 5.30 so that I could catch the 7.18 train into London, I was in Regents Park recording the final part of The Day The Music Died jigsaw at about 12.30 (it'll all become clear when you listen to the show on Saturday), then back in the sitcom office by 1.00 for an intensive two hours, before we adjourned for football-related self-flaggellation in hilarious plastic German helmets.

THURSDAY
Equador 3 Costa Rica 0
This put the tin hat on it for Costa Rica, if you'll pardon the off-colour war allusion in the presence of our sensitive hosts. If Equador draw against Germany they will win the group, which would be an upset. It would also mean that if we win ours, we'll play Germany, but that's all pointless speculation as yet.
England 2 Trinidad & Tobago 0
What agony they put us through. For the best part of 80 minutes this was a hard slog, a trial at Nuremberg, watching Lampard miss chance after chance, while Owen remained invisible and Crouch looked for all the world like a waste of space (and he takes up a lot of space). Only John Terry, who kept a header from Trinidad's brilliantly-named Stern John out, and David Beckham, setting them up, were anything like heroic. Elsewhere it was a familiar story: poor passing, muffed shots from good crosses, general lack of cohesion and not enough energy. One apparent "shot" at goal by Peter Crouch looked more like the ball had simply hit him on the top of his head. If this medical giant can't win in the air, what is the point of him?, you might have asked. We did. Clive Tyldesley, in the ITV commentary box, would not shut up about Wayne Rooney ("the missing piece of the jigsaw"; "Our Freddie Flintoff . . . etc." - hopefully not as pissed though). Gareth Southgate, who sounds like a man who wouldn't pronounce his "t"s but does, would not stop apologising for England. This was not commentary as I understand it. The first half was a write-off. What did Sven say to them at half-time? Probably, "Don't worry, I'll put Wayne Rooney on, 13 minutes in." What a talisman the chunky little fellow is. And to be fair, the moment he replaced Owen (at which we were screaming, "Take off Crouch!"), along with the fleet-of-foot Aaron Lennon for Carragher, events picked up. Rhythm entered the side, previously dancing like a dad at a wedding. Energy fizzed. But no goals were forthcoming. By the 83rd minute, we were starting to calculate what a draw would do for us, and then, Crouch scored one off his head, thanks to the latest Beckham cross off the conveyor belt. He didn't even get chance to do his Shalamar dance, he was instead covered in relieved teammates. (Nice moment caught on camera: the hug between Becks and Rooney.) Next, out of nowhere, this bloke called Gerrard (where had he been?) powered one off his left foot and sealed our immediate fate. ("I caught it nice," he said, humbly, after the match.) But Trinidad were valiant and strong once again, having already supplied us with one of the best games so far against Sweden. If they do go out, I hope Dwight Yorke smiles all the way back to Sydney.
Sweden 1 Paraguay 0
Olof Mellberg's men had just as much trouble in the first half as they had against Trinidad & Tobago. The Paraguayans essayed some nasty tackling from the off, but still kept the blondes out of their goal. It was another lastminute.com clincher, this time from the hairless head of Freddie Ljundberg in the 88th, by which time mental permutations about who would go through with how many points and who would play whom in the next round had to be rapidly recalculated. It's a mindfuck. England are currently winning the group and definitely go through, but whether we play Germany, or Equador is still up for grabs. Equally, who goes with us. I've remembered why I love these competitions so much. It's the intricate web of possible outcomes, and the knock-on effect of each game played.

Here's today's talking point: who do you think is the most attractive England player? I'm plumping for Frank Lampard - good bone structure, very well proportioned face, nice eyes, slightly curly mouth. Beckham's not in the running - he's all squinty and oblong - and Owen, although not bad looking now that he's grown up, is a little dull on the eye. Not much going on. Crouch, Rooney, Cole, gawky Neville, nothingy Carragher, forgettable Downing, even the charismatic Ferdinand, all on the subs' bench. John Terry has a reliable, trustworthy face, but he's also a bit hard, with a hint of ruthless. And Ashley Cole is handsome enough and kind-looking, but a little shifty. Both Lennon and Walcott are pretty, but not fully formed yet. Your thoughts? (I sort of can't believe I've written this down, but it keeps me amused.)

The Franken-Stadium at Nuremberg recycles all its rainwater.

Beyond Belief: The Moors Murderers by Emlyn Williams
And in break from the football . . . As I've stated before, I have a particular fascination with serial killers and those who methodically kill. I have read so many books on the subject, it proves I am not one, as only in Hollywood films and episodes of Messiah do serial killers show a morbid fascination for the work of other serial killers. Phew, that's my alibi then. Seriously, I find the extremes that men (and women) will go to, for whatever warped reason, compelling. You can't call it evil - that's too Old Testament for me, and it doesn't help. Even though they often exist on the outskirts of mental stability, repeat killers do so with the same will and thought processes that you or I might apply to picking up a date or putting out the washing. In many cases, the desire to kill is an extreme reaction to a broken childhood, a quest for power denied the killer by circumstance. Sex is more often than not an engine. It's silly to generalise, but we are so often looking at men of a certain age, loners, repressed homosexuals, or just highly sexed. They are usually intelligent, too, and though cruelty to animals can occur in childhood, it's not unusual for a serial killer to have a dog that they love. Dennis Nielsen loved his dog and when he was caught, his one concern was what would happen to his dog. (Then again, Hitler also loved his dog, one he rescued in the trenches of the First World War.)

After watching ITV's See No Evil, I realised I had never read a book about Ian Brady and Myra Hindley (remiss of me, really), so I made up for lost time and ordered two online. The first, a lovely ex-library copy which came from a second hand bookshop, Brady And Hindley: Genesis Of The Moors Murders by Fred Harrison, is the perfunctory telling of the tale, published in 1986 after the author had gained rare access to Brady. This was the book's main selling point, and as an account, solid and factual, it provides useful groundwork, albeit badly punctuated. I'm glad I read it first, as Beyond Belief by Emlyn Williams is the masterwork.

If you read the customer reviews on Amazon, you'll see how it divides readers. As non-fiction crime literature I believe it is in the same league as In Cold Blood, which was only published a year before it. Whether Williams, a playwright, read Capote's classic, either in serialised form in 1965, or in book form in 1966, is unclear. He will have been researching his book at the time - the Brady and Hindley trial at Chester Assizes took place in '66 - so it's possible Capote's novelistic style fed into his own. This, at any rate, is what makes Beyond Belief so special, and what must still infuriate "proper" writers about criminology.

It's written in an impressionistic style, full of phonetic reported (and imagined) speech, and run together like conversation, bitty and without formal punctuation. You'd think this would annoy me (I still hate it when journalists patronisingly use phonetics when quoting people with an accent - see: most Arctic Monkeys articles), but it doesn't. Williams has spoken to many witnesses and is almost fanatical in his research. One of his cleverest coups is to constantly refer to what's showing at the local cinema as he tells the story ("Queens Feb 20 VIOLENT MOMENT, Kings Apr 10 GUNMAN'S WALK. Then the red-letter week of May the 15th: Kings, Return of THE THIRD MAN!!! Dum da de de DUM da DUM . . . ") - this adds spice to the story, and important cultural context, the kind missing in many more sober crime books. Gordon Burn used this approach, albeit less playfully, in Happy Like Murderers, another descendant of Capote.

The Moors Murders is a tale that needs telling, how a weak mind (Hindley's) combined with a strong one (Brady's) can make a hideous combination. I suppose you've got to watch a couple whose pet names for each other are "Hessie" (after Rudolph Hess - that's her nickname) and "Neddie" (after the Goons character, someone Brady did a nifty impression of, apparently). Williams even divines black humour from the murder of Edward Evans, the decisive one that finally got the pair caught: "This must be one of the few indoor murders witnessed by two dogs, and surely the only one ever attended by a budgerigar. There is no record of any reaction from this last. An excerpt from Joey's limited vocabulary would have been, in that silence, impressive." On describing the dead body of Evans, he turns to poetry: "A life-loving mouth, more articulate in death than ever in Greater Manchester. And weak as a flower. But he looked inviolable . . . it could have been a torso from the Aegean Sea, perfect except for the nibblings of erosion."

It's not going to be for everyone, this book, but I was captivated. And what about this for a wise and prescient conclusion, written after Brady and Hindley were locked up and a local bring-back-hanging petition was signed by 30,000 people:

Their continued existence is indeed hard to tolerate. Public feeling being what it is - and about these two the public will have a long memory - it is unlikely they will ever be released, and it is natural for taxpayers to be incensed at the though of their being maintained, for life, by the State. But one word in that complaint does not apply. These two are no longer alive.

I don't know that Morrissey read this book when it first came out, but I'd put money on it.

World Cup 2006: it's happening without me!
Ah, the first day back at work since the World Cup started. That is, back at the sitcom-writing office on Oxford Street in London. A late start, but a 5.30 finish, which meant that I missed two out of today's three games. I feel detached, just like, hey, people with jobs feel throughout the tournament. We'll be clocking off early tomorrow to get back for England Trinidad. At least we have a football-loving boss. (And indeed, it was Lee's trip to Germany at the weekend that gave me Friday and Monday at home, so Gawd bless him for his impulsiveness last week, even though we have to deliver the last episode by this coming Monday. Which has just been extended to Wednesday.)

WEDNESDAY
Spain 4 Ukraine 0
Lee actually put Five Live on in a couple of breaks between coming up with sitcom gold in the office, and we actually heard the fourth Spanish goal. How I would have loved to have seen it. And the other ones.
Tunisia 2 Saudi Arabia 2
Are women allowed to attend football matches in Saudi Arabia? I'm instrested to know. Apparently this was a rare non-sell-out match.
Germany 1 Poland 0
The first of the second matches, if you see what I mean. This is where it gets interesting, as the intra-group and inter-group dynamic begins to appear. Germany only had to win this one to win Group A. At half time, it was by no means in the bag, as Poland held them well. It's a grudge match, but wasn't a very thrilling one at first. Supporting the underdogs, Poland, not through any residual ill-will towards Germany, I found the second half gripping, not least because Poland went down to ten men after a Sobolewski send-off, increasing their unterhunt status (that was improvised German, by the way, I didn't look it up), and a yellow card was flashed at German captain Ballock, which is when BBC commentator Steve Wilson observed, "That won't go down well locally." (Mick McCarthy was full of shit, droning on about players being "punished" and "taking the Michael", and calling one of them "brainless" during another interminable pep-talk. If only he was as charming as the poet Ian McMillan and musician John Shuttleworth, whom his voice is a direct cross between.) It looked as if Poland would keep victory out of Germany's reach, not least through sterling work from handsome-but-timewasting keeper Boruc - and a moment when it seemed as if God was a Pole and the Germans hit the crossbar twice in a matter of seconds (step forward Klose and Ballack), before the offside flag ended the scuffle. Then, in the 91st minute, when we thought it was all over, it was, for Poland. Neuville scored beautifully from a forensic Odonkor cross, finally showing the quality their team were capable of. This put Germany through.

Poor old Poles. Such good bone structure as well, despite all the cured meat.

Can anyone tell me why they play Go West at the end of matches? Am I missing something? (Oh, and I had Owen Hargreaves explained to me today. Now I know why people don't like him: he's not very good. And the other stuff. But booing him seems actually brainless. Let's hope they don't if he comes on tomorrow.)

World Cup 2006: walking football
Missed this afternoon's game, and thus Togo's dancing, which is a shame. I wish I'd seen that and worked during France Switzerland. Anyway, here's the latest for those who follow such things.

TUESDAY
South Korea 2 Togo 1
Had to sacrifice one of today's matches. I chose this one. I chose badly.
France 0 Switzerland 0
Well, at least England Paraguay wasn't the worst match of the tournament so far. This was dreadful. I liked the lettering on the back of France's shirts, but that's about it. I still can't quite work out how come their three stars players have all retired from international football, and yet all have made a comeback, Gary Numan style, for the World Cup. I'll take advice on this from those who know better, but isn't that a bad sign? They're all well over 30 and bald. Even Thierry Henry, who is spoken of in hushed tones over here, looked a bit lost over there. But Desailly said before the match that he's not such a big star in France. This game was bad enough, but it was made worse by Mick McCarthy in the ITV commentary box. I've nothing against the Yorkshire accent - my favourite band sing in one - but his is such a monotonous drone. And he actually called somebody a "wally", possibly the ref, who was just trying to win a bet and give a yellow card to everyone on the pitch. He almost did it too.
Brazil 1 Croatia 0
I was looking forward, like everyone else, to Brazil's first match, but mainly so that it would say BRA at the top of the screen, which is really funny. Their reputation and five World Cup wins precede them, but it seems that a certain insouciance sets in, one that starts to look like smugness and not giving much of a toss as long as they win. They are clearly capable of greatness, and what Mark Lawrensen called "walking football", whatever that is. You can tell they're special: almost none of their players need two names. But as Croatia battled hard and consistently (consistently missing chances but at least getting shots in on goal throughout), Brazil just pottered about, holding them to a 1-0 victory after Kaka put a dream-like shot into the top corner of the net before half time. Lawrensen said of Ronaldo in the first half, "He almost looks interested," and joked that he ran faster when he left the field to be substituted in the second half than he had done all match. This is the received view. Alan Hansen also observed of the buck-toothed superstar, "He's carrying some timber" (which means, in Scottish, that he has put on a bit of weight - but we knew that. Look at the way part of that concrete plinth crumbles away beneath his feet on the mobile phone advert.) But you can say what you like about the Brazilians. They win World Cups. This was still an exciting watch, despite the apparent lack of effort by one team. You had to admire the Croatians for their pluck and strength - the supporters, obviously, who were magnificent. Looking in their red and white check like a giant gingham picnic blanket laid out over the stands of Berlin's mighty Olympiastadion, their communal singing towards the end, when it was clear they were getting nil points, was like a warm balm washing over you. Hypnotic.

I shall miss two out of three matches tomorrow, as it's back to the office. Still, Germany Poland's got to be worth staying in for.

Misty water-coloured etc.
Is it possible to plug your own website on your own website? Let's see. The reason I started the Where Did It All Go Right? site in the first place, back in 2003, was as a place to put the happy childhood memories readers of my book had started sending me. Once there was a place for them to go, it grew exponentially from there. Clearly, the book's reached a kind of awareness plateau now, but I still get emails from people who've just read it, like Anna from Aylesbury, who got hold of her copy of WDIAGR? at a bookswap in Phuket last December: "I gave them Robinson Crusoe and The Go-between and 70 baht, and got your book. I thought it was much better than Robinson Crusoe, but not quite as good as The Go-between." God bless her. And a couple of weeks back I got another happy childhood memory, from Claire in Sheffield, which I have just posted up, due to an unexpected day off. (Thanks, Lee!) It's a laborious process, in that I have to fire up a special under-the-bonnet programme, and input the copy and edit it, but there it is, I have created a new Memories page. I know from my secret software that a lot of new people are arriving at the website blog-first, and long may they continue to do so, but if you haven't checked the Memories section out, you might like it. I can always handle new additions to what is now a vast tapestry of caravan holidays, obscure cousins, scout rituals and colloquial snacks. It's here anyway. Auto-plug over. Shouldn't I be watching some football?

How the vest was worn

It's hot. Too hot. It rained this morning and woke me up. Then it stopped and got hot again. It's well over 30 degrees in London, and too hot to play football properly in Germany, if you're England. This raises a key question, and one that needs answering: is it OK to wear a vest?



This is me on Sunday, at work. I've had this debate with listeners before, but it's a hardy perennial, as are my sleeveless t-shirts. This is not some sad attempt at fashion, as I do not believe such items are fashionable, but they are fantastic to wear in the heat, and I like them. But am I fooling myself? I went to Guildford yesterday and wore a vest, and I think I got away with it. (Incidentally, I have stopped wearing sandals in the summer now, and wear hardy, walking trainers with those tiny, invisible short socks underneath. A great invention. I saw a really hard-looking tattoed skinhead in a British bulldog t-shirt on East Croydon platform on Sunday and he had them on, and the very idea of it made me smile. Such dainty socks for such a scary looking gentleman.) Anyway, back to the vest . . .



Just a little something to exercise your hot minds while we wait for another football match to start. (Hope that small morsel of non-football-related blog helps, Graham!)

World Cup 2006: the facts
I appear to be unqualified to give an opinion (see: comments passim), so I would say I'll stick to the facts as I see them, but there may be a stray opinion in here as well, so be warned. As long as it's understood that, to an extent, I don't know what I'm talking about!
MONDAY
Australia 3 Japan 1
Too busy writing sitcom to watch this, but I gather it was very exciting towards the end when Australia suddenly scored three goals in nine minutes.
USA 0 Czech Republic 3
Absolutely terrific first two goals from Koller and Rosicky of Czech Republic (first appearance in World Cup under post-1993 name), then, five minutes before the second half, "wretched luck" to use the words of commentator Simon Brotherton (I think), as Koller pulled his hamstring and was stretchered off, leaving the Czechs with neither of their key strikers. If he had been inexplicably taken off by coach Bruckner - a lovely, white-haired old man, who likes chess - then it would have been a bit like Michael Owen's exit. As it is, it was much worse for the Republic. I obviously wanted them to win, just because I wanted the USA to lose. They are triumphalist enough already, without winning football matches against Yurp. They need some international humility. By the way, about four of their players, obviously Communists, didn't sing along to The Star Spangled Banner before the match, in full view of the camera - doesn't that mean they will be arrested and tortured as un-American spies? I wouldn't risk it. I had to go back to the computer while the second half played out (sitcom waits for no man, and Lee is on his way home from Cologne today and he will want to see my homework), but it was Rosicky who made it three.
Italy 2 Ghana 0
In the opening BBC preamble, it was sweet to see Hansen and Martin O'Neill virtually kneeling down before Marcel Desailly. The early evening Berlin sun even gave him something of a halo. Come on, chaps, there's a game about to start! Cracking first half, not least because we heard John Motson say, "Totti's in space." Well, he is a bit of a superhero and you wouldn't put it past him. Toni looked like he'd be the man to score, banging one off the crossbar in the 29th minute. Or was it Totti? Motti kept getting the pair of them mixed up anyway. You had to love the Ghanaians, who held the slightly-off-form Italians for most of the first half, only letting in a cannonball shot from Pirlo outside the box in the 40th minute that the keeper, Kingston, couldn't see, due to there being, like, a dozen players in between him and it. This changed the dynamic of the game. It was clear that Italy needed a goal to find their swagger, and what little I know of Italian football, I expected them to sit on it and protect it like an egg in the second half. This, they mostly did, but, after being stretchered off in apparent agony after a post-offside-flag foul by Samuel Kuffour, a long-haired bloke called Iaquinta made a miraculous recovery (must have been all that crossing and ring-kissing the Italians do) and popped one in after all the other players had kindly vacated half the pitch, making it an unassailable 2-0 in the 83rd. Some desperate fouling by the Ghanaians in this half merely illustrated their frustration at all the chances they had failed to finish, and all the wild shots off-goal. Mind you, the Italians did a lot of amateur dramatics. I thought it neat the way the Italian strip was designed to look as if the players had big sweat patches under their arms before they'd started playing in the heat. This gave them the advantage.

Seemed like a good day of football, from what I saw. The Ghana shirts looked like they were being worn backwards. Oh, and it was Motson who gave us today's headline, referring to the Italian keeper.

World Cup 2006: half day
They needed to show some ambition, Angola. I know this because the humourless David Pleat kept saying so. Nevertheless, they didn't show enough, and lost to Portugal. My friend Lee Mack was at this match. I couldn't see him. In fact, I missed a lot of yesterday's action, due to having to do a three-hour radio show, put in about two hours' "prep" (ie. reading the Sunday papers, going over the running order etc.), and having to travel about two and a half hours to get in to Central London from Reigate and back. That's the best part of a day. Results service:

SUNDAY
Serbio & Montenegro 0 Holland 1
Missed this. Another hard-fought victory from one of the seeded teams. The Serbs have a player called S Milosovic. Isn't that a bit like being a German called Hitler? (I said "a bit like".)
Mexico 3 Iran 1
Came home in time for the bulk of the second half, but found it difficult to get into. A clean game. At the end of the first half they had 0 minutes stoppage time, which tells you how smooth it was. As Iran move into "constuctive discussion" about their nuclear programme at home, their players put on a strong showing against the South Americans, but the two goals I saw put them in a different league. I liked the way the Mexicans use the Mexico 70 typeface for the names on the backs of their shirts. I am quite fascinated by the lettering used by different teams. Germany's is very stern. Angola's, all lower case, no upper case, is modern, but only in a 1980s sort of way. And Costa Rica looked like they'd had their strip made up at a t-shirt shop on the way to San Jose Airport - the jaunty, drop-shadowed lettering looked like the kind you'd get on the side of a mobile disco. Curious. And probably irrelevant to David Pleat. He's missing out.
Portugal 1 Angola 0
Although the politics was different, with Angola being a former colony of Portugal, this was remarkably similar to England Paraguay. The favourites got an early goal in (Pauleta, five minutes, none of your rubbish) and then spent the rest of the game clinging to it, with their star player, Ronaldo, being inexplicably taken off at the start of the second half, suitably frustrated. Enjoyable match nonetheless, as it's always good to see a smaller team prove more than a match for the favourites, and Angola had some worthy chances. What they lacked was a number of players with just one name. Even though they do actually have first names, Portuagal's Figo, Ricardo, Costinha, Tiago, Pauleta, and even second keeper Quim (ha ha) dispense with them, and like Madonna, Chico and Batman, trade without. This means their whole name is on the back of their shirt, which must be a psychological advantage. Pauleta's actual first name is Pedro.

I'm already getting frustrated knowing that work will prevent me from watching all three matches most days this coming week, except Thursday, when I suspect Lee will let us off early to get home in time for the 5pm kickoff for England Trinidad. Today, for instance, I am writing from home, but won't be able to justify clocking off for Australia Japan at 2pm. Let's see how much hilarious sitcom I can get written in this heat and aim for USA Czech Republic at 5pm. Thank God these things only happen once every two years.

World Cup 2006: vague, ill-informed ramblings of a part-timer whose opinion is worth nothing because he doesn't follow club football
I actually went to bed last night singing (in my head, not out loud), "football's coming home." Not because it is, not after England's ropey, send-out-the-wrong-message second-half performance against Paraguay, but because it got into my head and refused to leave. Just as the football itself got into my body and refused to leave. I have watched five full games of football in two days. The opening five of the World Cup. I am more self-conscious writing about them after the dialogue with Alfie on here following my report on the Hungary friendly. He made clear that I am not to have an opinion, as I don't follow football as a lifestyle choice, and, for instance, had never seen Peter Crouch in my life until he came on at Old Trafford. I am better informed now than I was then, as I have the Guardian's excellent pull-out guide at my side, already well-thumbed for information on who the players play for the rest of the time (most of Argentina play for Spanish clubs, that type of thing), how old they are (Shaka Hislop, the superb Trinidadian goalie, is 37, the oldest player at the tournament) and, if they were a shoe, what kind of shoe they would be (Saudi Arabia would be a pair of flip-flops given away free with a women's magazine). So here goes:

FRIDAY
Germany 4 Costa Rica 2
Goal-filled opening match (a World Cup record!), always a happy occasion for greedy fairweather football fans, and one at six minutes in. Good start. Germany the better team, but heartening to see Costa Rica give them a run for their money. You kind of have to support the underdog, don't you? It's nothing to do with any stupid, baseless, anti-German feeling. Oh, and if anyone uses the phrase, "German highlights" they're not talking about the coverage, but about their hair.
Poland 0 Equador 2
Now we're in. Second match featuring two teams that aren't England, getting a feel for the shape of Group A, no particular favourite, but thrilling to see a surprise win for the outsiders, Senegal style. (Hark at me with my back-reference to a previous tournament!)
SATURDAY
England 1 Paraguay 0
Truly excited when I woke up yesterday morning. Unlike the previous day's games (around which I was dashing back upstairs to write the sitcom), I sat down for this the moment BBC1's coverage began, to wallow in the build-up. A good juncture to state that the BBC pundits (Hansen, Shearer, Wright, Motson, Lawrensen) easily outshine the ITV team (Venables, Pearce, Allardyce, Tyldsley, boring Southgate). Also, they have a much bigger coffee table. My friend Lee Mack was at this match, but I couldn't see him. Having said that, I couldn't see the match either, as the stadium in Frankfurt has a big telly suspended over the halfway line which casts a monstrous, spider-shaped shadow over the pitch, thus making comfortable viewing of the game impossible. Somehow, we struggled through, leaping off the sofa for Beckham's free-kick goal, helpfully assisted by defender Carlos Gamarra. England looked as confident and assured as everybody said they were in the first half, with Paraguay's goalie being replaced early on due to a bad foot, and Owen and Crouch looking like they played together. And then, in the second half - and I don't understand managers and tactics, so allow me this gut opinion - Sven Goran Eriksson mucked it all up by taking Owen off, leaving Crouch looking like the gangly spare part he must have looked at school, and giving Beckham nobody to pass to. Thus the second half was painful. If it really is about sending out messages, England's was: we have a strange coach and we don't understand him with his Bergmanesque pronouncements and his unknowable reactions; he is a mystery as deep as the Swedish soul. Not a nice experience, and not, fundamentally, the team's fault. And what a strange ref: Marco Rodriguez from Mexico, with his severly greased-back black hair and his eccentric decisions, usually in Paraguay's favour, getting all hot under the collar about players having a drink of water in thirty-degree heat. Don't want to draw him again. Impressed with our keeper (I think goalie is a bit of a 70s word, but that was when I really followed football so please forgive me), Robinson, described as a "big banana" by Mark Lawrensen, who I have a soft spot for, although I expect that's the wrong opinion, I don't care.
Trinidad & Tobego 0 Sweden 0
Now this was a match. Again, the underdogs holding off a more experienced side, but it was so much more restful to watch, with long, accurate passing, and, despite the sending-off of Avery John, leaving Trinidad a man down for most of the match, an even spread of possession. Sweden just could not convert, but Trinidad defended so doggedly, and what a tremendous performance from Shaka Hislop, last-minute replacement apparently. Just shows that goal-count is no reflection of a match. And how nice to see a game without shadowy diagonal lines across the pitch. I have Sweden in the 6 Music sweepstake.
Argentina 2 Cote D'Ivoire 1
And another fine display, with one of the favourites to win being held in at least a degree of check by a less experienced team (albeit top of the African qualifiers). Some very long hair in the Argentina squad. Both these matches made the England one look scratchy and frustrating in retrospect, but maybe that's just because it's England, and we care more.

Due to 6 Music, I'll miss one and a half of today's games. I'm unhappy about that, but I have to work to pay for the crisps.

By all means add your own comments on the games, but try to refrain from telling me I'm wrong. I'm having fun here.

Warning: this is a long and wordy one.


Natural's not in it
Let me tell you about Tom's Of Maine. I have been using Tom's lovely products for about eight years, in particular the excellent stick deodorant (pictured). This is a small company, based in, well, take a guess, who make natural, chemical-, preservative-, colour- and alcohol-free cosmetic products that are not tested on animals. Since ridding our house of chemical-based cleaners and cosmetics, we have come to rely on companies like this, such as Green People, Kingfisher, Ecover etc. It's good to support smaller companies anyway, even American ones, if they are ethical and care about the environment and human health and are prepared to stick by their principles.

I read in an excellent article in the financial pages of the Guardian about how companies like these are increasingly being bought out by larger, less-than-ethical corporations, and how it is affecting sales and ethical standing of the smaller companies. Green & Black's have been unapologetically swallowed up by Cadbury's. The Body Shop are now owned by L'Oreal. Ben & Jerry sold their arses to Unilever six years ago, making a mockery of the beardy stance that made them famous. And - you're ahead of me, here - as of last monght, Tom's Of Maine are 84 per cent owned by Colgate-Palmolive, who, on their own website, boast of being one of the biggest companies in the world.

This is how nice Tom and Kate, who set up Tom's 36 years ago for all the right reasons, announced the death of their company on their website:

Dear friends,

Over the years we've met many of you and been struck by our strong connection with you, and how much we have in common. We share many interests and values, like protecting the environment and giving back to the community, yet there is much diversity, too - lots of different types of people, just as we have many different types of friends in our everyday lives. Since our first letter to you on a package 36 years ago, we have shared a spirited and continuous dialogue. We want to thank you for your loyalty to Tom's of Maine, for your encouragement of us, and for your honesty in giving feedback about the products we make. We thank you also for helping us grow and succeed. More and more people are looking for safe and effective natural products from plants and minerals from a company that shares their values.

After much soul-searching, and many conversations with our children and trusted advisors, we realized that we cannot meet this growing demand alone. We decided to seek a partner to help us. It's been a quest that we entered with trepidation and excitement because we wanted to find a company that would honor our values, and we were unwavering in our commitment to stay intact in Maine as Tom's of Maine. We are happy to report to you that we did find a partner who has a deep understanding and respect for what we've done and wants to build on that with us.

Here is our good news: we have chosen to become part of the Colgate-Palmolive Company. We will keep a minority ownership in Tom's of Maine, and are looking forward to continuing as CEO and Vice President to ensure long-term sustainability. The agreement we have worked out succeeds in preserving the character, spirit, and values of our company as we grow.

What does this new partnership mean for you? You will continue to be able to rely on our tried and true Natural Care products based on our model of stewardship and sustainability. We will continue to make products without artificial preservatives, sweeteners, or dyes and without animal testing or animal ingredients. It will probably become easier for you to find more of our products in a variety of stores. You will still write or call us here in Kennebunk, Maine and we will still be called Tom's of Maine. We will continue our Common Good Partnerships, and to give 10% of what we earn to community efforts, and to support 5% of employee time for volunteering.

The things we have worked hard to create at Tom's of Maine will continue to be what makes our company tick. We can't be here forever to do this, so we look forward to passing on what we know. We will keep thinking about how to provide for you, to look for new ways to improve. Thanks again for your loyalty and support. As always, please let us know what you think.

This is what I think. I sent them an email:

This is a sad day indeed. I have just learned that you have sold out to Colgate-Palmolive and I'm afraid that after years of enjoying your products, I will no longer be buying them. I guess it happens to all the ethical companies in the end, but I had clung to the wishful notion that Tom's Of Maine would be somehow different. I was wrong.

I am sorry to withdraw my custom, as your deodorant in particular has been a fixture in my bathroom since I first banished chemicals from the house about eight years ago and embarked upon a truly ethical lifestyle. I will have to look elsewhere for a replacement. Ah well. Thanks for those eight years.

I was quite pleased with the "ah well." And this, promptly, is what somebody from Consumer Dialogue & Services wrote back.

Thank you for your e-mail. I can certainly understand your concern about our partnership with Colgate-Palmolive, and I'm glad you've provided us the chance to respond to your concern. Here are the facts. Colgate-Palmolive will own 84% of our company; but Tom's of Maine will remain an independent, stand-alone subsidiary based here in Maine. This means that we will still be doing business the same way we have for the last 36 years. Tom and Kate will continue to lead our company. Tom's of Maine products, formulations and ingredients will remain the same as they have always been. We will continue to make products that are natural, free of artificial preservatives, sweeteners and dyes. And we will continue to make safe, effective products without the use of animal ingredients and without the use of animal testing. Further, we will remain in Kennebunk, Maine, and our employees will remain in their jobs here in Maine.

So while we understand your concern, we are actually excited and confident in this agreement with Colgate-Palmolive. We see a growing number of consumers like you changing the rules of the economy and making natural mainstream. We hope you'll stay interested and in touch. Over time, we think you'll find that nothing you like about Tom's of Maine or our products has changed. As always we remain interested in hearing from you.

And this is what I wrote back:

Thank you so much for the full and prompt reply. I appreciate that Tom's of Maine products will remain as natural and ethical as they have always been, and expected as much. My problem is not about the quality of the products, it is with the fact that the company will be 84% owned by Colgate-Palmolive, which prides itself on being "a truly global company serving hundreds of millions of consumers worldwide", with "global brands sold in over 200 countries". This is exactly the kind of monolithic corporation that is despoiling the environment, filling the world with unnecessary chemicals and squeezing small businesses out of the market. Your association with them is clearly financially advantageous to your company, and I don't blame you for doing the deal. My point is that I will no longer feel inclined to support your business, as, despite your own commitment to avoiding animal-tested ingredients, Colgate-Palmolive make no such claims, and are the Ethical Consumer boycott list for this very reason. Will you still make the no-animal-testing claim on the side of the packaging? Or will you admit that your profits go to a company that test on animals as a matter of course?

If I buy a stick of Tom's deodorant, I am giving money to Colgate-Palmolive, whose products I otherwise studiously avoid. My efforts to, as you put it, "change the rules of the economy" do not include buying products whose profits go to Colgate-Palmolive. Change comes through independence (and I mean true independence), not submission.

You sound very upbeat about the partnership. I wish I could share that optimism. The fact remains, a once-proud local company is now 84% swallowed up by a huge global concern. What really irks me is the fact that, at the next Colgate-Palmolive stock holders meeting, the purchase of Tom's will be held up as advantageous in terms of improving the parent company's ethical image. It strikes me that, at the end of the day, your good work is being used to make an unethical conglomerate look better. I would be interested to hear you defend the merger on this count. Thanks again for writing back

You probably think I'm weird, I can sense it, but I can't help it. The Woodspice deodorant was a particular favourite. And the Calendula one. But the remaining two sticks in my house will be my last. It's hard to be principled, but you've got to have a go. Now, let's go and watch the World Cup ...

Oh woe is him

Some facts to chew over: Robbie Williams' most recent single Sin Sin Sin went into the Official UK Singles Chart two Sundays ago at number 22. Last week, it dropped out of the Top 40 altogether, after just one week, falling to 41. Since August 1996, when his first single Freedom went to number 2, his lowest chart placing, out of 25 consecutive Top 30 hits (six of them numbers ones), has been number 14 with South Of The Border in September 1997 (no, I can't hum that one either), which was, crucially, before Angels, when the world fell in Robbie's miserable lap. Not once has peaked outside the Top 10 since that date. To contextualise, his last single, Advertising Space (tum ti-tum ... der-der-der ... nope) reached number 8 in December, and Sexed Up (la-la-la-la) reached number 10 in November 2003. My conclusion? ROBBIE WILLIAMS IS ALL OVER.

Why aren't executives at EMI going up to the roof of the building and tossing themselves off? Robbie Williams! The man they paid fifty million quid for! The one who hasn't cracked America! The record-buying public have gone off him. Admittedly, Sin Sin Sin was shit. And I mean really shit. But so are other records he's put out and they've gone Top 10, wafted along by the warm current of goodwill that's supported him all these years, but not made him any happier. People in the country have loved Robbie. But they seem to have stopped. They heard his latest single, didn't much like it, and decided not to go and buy it in the shops. I repeat, and I do so because I haven't read this headline anywhere since Sunday: ROBBIE WILLIAMS IS ALL OVER. Knebworth suddenly seems a long time ago.

I am actually worried, because Robbie seems like a very delicate flower, emotionally, addicted to fame and yet so clearly ill-equipped to deal with it. Most of his songs are along the lines of woe-is-me-fame-hasn't-bought-me-happiness-what's-that-piece-of-fluff-in-my-millionaire-navel (latest album title: Intensive Care), but what kind of song will he write now? Are there words in the dictionary to express the kind of existential turmoil a number 22 hit and one week in the chart must spell? And can the great British public take it? The blood will be on our hands. Well, yours, if you ever bought one of his records and contributed to his unhappiness.

Did anyone else see self-loathing in all those tattoos?

Perhaps this would have made the papers if there wasn't a World War on. Sorry, World Cup.

Three-letter word reclaimed by homophobes
How do you feel about this? I don't wish to be a killjoy, but I'm uneasy. The facts are this: the BBC governors defended X Factor loser Chris Moyles' use of the word "gay" on his Radio 1 show in July last year (the complaints precedure certainly moves fast!). He described a ringtone on-air as "gay", implying it was bad. The governors, who are down with the kids, said the use of the word gay to mean "lame" or "rubbish" was widespread among young people, and it was "to be expected" that the Radio 1 DJ would use similar expressions. Groups like Stonewall and Beat Bullying don't agree that it's "expected" or acceptable. As a spokesman for the latter said: "While the BBC claims the word gay has evolved into meaning 'lame', this is only because people identify being called gay as undesirable, therefore giving power to that term." I have heard young people use the word "gay" to mean "rubbish", usually prefixed with "so" and I must admit it has always unsettled me a little. I accept that blanket usage has steered it away from any explicit homophobic meaning, but that doesn't make it any better. The new coinage still has its roots in homophobia, something I fought the Political Correctness Wars 1983-1990 to stamp out. Was it all for nothing? Perhaps I'm being very 80s about it. Perhaps gay people don't care in an age of more equality and civil unions and Little Britain, the gayest mainstream comedy ever. (By which I mean homosexual, not rubbish, young people.) But if it is expected to use gay as an insult, aren't we just ever so slightly sliding backwards, semantically speaking? What if the word "black" became twisted in the playground to mean "rubbish" and that entered the adult lexicon? Is that cool? Suppose "Northamptonian" became shorthand for "lame". That's so Northamptonian! Would I care? I sort of would, even if the use of it didn't actually injure me personally. I think I'd care in priniciple.

I know, the English language evolves and mutates the whole time, and that is a wonderful thing, but I don't think this matter is as cut and dried as the governors do. Surely it plays into the hands of those who think being gay actually is rubbish. I saw a documentary on Channel 4 the other night about a college in America for Christians who really do think it's rubbish. They think it's wrong and deviant and unnatural and dangerous. They must be rubbing their hands.

Discuss.

Other online communities are available
What have I done? At this point in my life, I need to concentrate. I have stuff to do, including a sitcom to finish. Of late, I have weaned myself off two online forums: Arctic Monkeys (now overrun by 12-year-olds who write in txt language about how how hot Alex Turner is!!!!!!!!!) and NotBBC's Comedy Forum (nobody seems to post on there for days at a time any more). I have even managed to control my own blogging habit, posting only when I have something to talk about and, more importantly, when I have time. My life was getting back on track. And then came MySpace. I know it's bollocks unless you're a band trying to get famous, and I know the word "friends" has become meaningless due to its proliferation, and I know that some people use it as a kind of dating agency, and I know this is the honeymoon period you enter in the first weeks of membership that simply cannot last for ever, but I am hooked.



Look at my friends! I have 166 friends! (It's probably more than that already.) Method Man out of the Wu-Tang Clan is my friend! (He isn't.) The Pixies are my friends! (They're not!) Morrissey has yet to become my friend! (He hasn't. And even if he does become it, he won't be.) I am friends with people I have never met! (I'm not.)



Richard Herring, my arch rival, is more popular than me. He has 352 friends! (No he doesn't. Actually, he does, in real life. He does gigs and goes out to nightclubs in Hereford and plays poker and attends parties thrown by the stupid men's magazine Maxim, so he does actually meet a lot of young women and old, poker-playing men, but are they his friends really?) Like me, Richard is supposed to be writing a sitcom at the moment, yet he's online at MySpace all the time. The reason I know this is because when I'm online, his "online now!" icon is always flashing. That means he is always online. I'm not.



The Day The Music Died - the reason, after all, we got sucked into MySpace in the first place - has 226 friends. This is actually more meaningful, as, you have to assumme, they're people who listen to and like our radio show. The page acts as a meeting point for these people, and gives us the chance to interact with them, which is great. (And something new and happening to talk about on the show.) I'm almost talking myself into thinking MySpace has its uses and that it's fine for me to keep checking for the "NEW FRIEND REQUESTS!" icon, even though I know that it means "NEW RANDOM PEOPLE REQUESTS!" At least I have now, one and a half weeks into my membership, stopped accepting every new random person request. There are two people I don't like the look of, both pseudonymous, and I haven't accepted them. I accidentally accepted Noel Edmonds, knowing it wasn't really him but thinking it was quite funny, and then I deleted him, as I decided posing as famous people, even jokily, is sad and pointless. That makes me discerning and grown-up about MySpace.

I feel better for having shared this with the group. I'm actually not having a mid-life crisis. I feel quite optimistic, I still get an enormous amount of pleasure from small things like birds and the occasional tradesman who actually turns up and does the job they have been paid to do, and I think I look alright in a t-shirt for a man of 41. Also, Method Man is my friend!!!!!!!!!

The X-Factor: Battle Of The Freaks



OK, so I got sucked into it, in the end. I'd heard that, of all people, Chris Moyles was doing well in the celebrity version of the unstoppable but easily avoidable talent show, and, during The Mummy last night, curiosity got the better of us and we switched over to see what his singing was actually like. And there he was, the wilfully irritating fat DJ doing a perfectly charming job of Wonderwall. You would need a heart of stone not to be charmed by the performance, and his dedication of it to his mum. The day the music died? Not quite.

By hopping aboard the bandwagon this late in the "journey" (oh, how they all endlessly talk of their "incredible journey"), it meant we had missed all the rubbish celebrities, weeded out early on, like the digraceful Rebecca Loos, the appalling James Hewitt and the miscast Gillian McKeith - all of whom were reintroduced in clip form on tonight's final, as well as in an excrutiating cast rendition of Thank You For The Music, a song chosen solely to supply a feed-line for self-conscious judge Simon Cowell. None of this bunch could sing. I have never watched The X Factor - it goes on for too long, and if it's anything like Pop Idol, which I have seen, and it is, then once the talentless, self-deluding idiots are dispatched in an exhibition centre somewhere, it loses its appeal. I can live without watching our next round of chart-dominating pop stars doing cover versions Saturday night after Saturday night until they're wittled down to three, then two, then one, not that it matters, as all three will have hits off the back of it. I actually do think that the popularity of this phone-vote format has destroyed the music industry and weakened the spine of the next generation. There's no mystery about where pop stars come from any more. The industry doesn't even have to bother its arse seeking them out - the ITV public actually choose them as if choosing a new pair of trainers in a shop, and will pay premium rates for the privilege. And kids tell careers teachers, when asked what they want to do when they grow up, that they want to "be famous", because it looks easy. Which is why the celeb version of the same process is less offensive. (Having said that, Dr Gillian doing It's In His Kiss looked pretty offensive from the clips. What new form of self-flaggellation is this?)

Net result: we actually sat down for tonight's final, just to see who would win out of freakish rugby player Matt Stevens and tiny ex-EastEnder Lucy Benjamin, a woman for whom I have actually written script! Not that she needs me anymore, now that she's a proper singer. (Moyles was inexplicably voted off last night. He seemed justifiably fed up and refused, showbiz-style, to cover with platitudes. He should have been in the final for, if nothing else, bringing some real personality to his karaoke. It's hard for me to admit this, by the way. I have dedicated my life to denouncing his smutty, oleaginous, self-pleasuring style of broadcasting and there he is on telly getting my vote.) So we were captive between 9pm and 10.30 and what do you know, we soon regretted this act of submission. With only two contestants left they had to really stretch the chewing gum to fill an hour and a half. By the final reckoning I had lost the will to live. JUST TELL US WHO'S WON FOR FUCK'S SAKE!

It was Lucy Benjamin, who I think said the word "journey" the most times in the course of the programme so she deserved it. Her cover of Donna Summer's Last Dance was spirited - and an unusual choice of number from her "mentor" Louis Walsh, who certainly likes a bit of gay disco - and she is three months pregnant, something we needed to know apparently. To her credit, she is not the kind of lady-shape that gets in Heat without a bitchy comment, so good on her for being glamorous against the strict codes of acceptance in our increasingly eugenic celebrity culture. And who wants a South Efrican rugby player to win? No neck, the face of a baby, nothing of note to say, never mind Matt Stevens' truly passable voice and much-better-than-it-ought-to-have-been renditon of New York, New York, he should get back to the rugby field where all the men look like that. The flaws in the X-Factor format became all to apparent by the end: the endless hawking of phone lines in order to make money for ITV (with a small sliver going to charity) and the sponsor, Nokia ("a new angle on music," or some such rot, according to Jo Whiley's voiceover); the hyperventilating audience with their "handmade" signs (I bet); the ludicrous pantomime of the judging, which has replaced wrestling as the new "fixed" entertainment of our age; and the unbearable self-promotion of Sharon Osbourne (she's there to sell the Sharon Osbourne BRAND and nothing else). It's low, noisy stuff. And if it hadn't been for Moyles, hooking me in with the genuine raw pig iron of spirit and personality he brought to bear, I'd be feeling less worn out right now.

Note to self: don't do it again.

Incidentally, she's down as "Donna Summers" on the official website. Not that it's been put together by 16-year-olds with no sense of pop history.

Pepper's in charge



No apologies. Some new photos of Pepper that show how pleased she is with her life. Seeing her flop out in a small rectangle of sunlight projected onto the carpet is so Pepper. She's talkative, playful, relaxed and, as seen playing with a small packet of Post-It labels, even kittenish.




Instant karma.

United 93: that's entertainment?
I've been looking forward to the release of Paul Greengrass's United 93 ever since I first heard about it and it was called Flight 93. As a commited fan of disaster movies, I would have been excited about any film set on an imperilled plane, but this was, of course, different: the true (or at least as true as we can gather) story of what happened to the hijacked plane that didn't hit its target on September 11, 2001. Now, conspiracy theories abound, and one of the more extreme I've picked up on the internet is that there was not United 93 (I know!), but for the purposes of this film, let's imagine there was, and that it crashed into a Pennsylvanian field, killing everybody onboard, on its way to the White House. That makes for a potentially neutered action movie, like Titanic without any room for dramatic manoeuvre. But Paul Greengrass could simply not have made a better job of it.

As covered in just about every review I've read, United 93 is a new class of nailbiting cinematic experience. It's the very fact that we know they're all going to die that makes it so compelling and, at times, almost unbearable. (And it's been made clear that the relatives of those who died have given it their blessing - albeit, you'd have to assume, a very uncomfortable one.) It's only 90 minutes long, all shot on queasy hand-held camera, as is Greengrass's stock in trade (Bloody Sunday, The Bourne Supremacy), and after the first plane hits the World Trade Center - or when it chillingly disappears from the air traffic control radar "somewhere above the city" - it's in real time, which puts you right there in the thick of the moment. If you thought you'd become perhaps desensitised to those images of the planes hitting the towers, think again. In this film, although it happens in the background, or on CNN, it hits you in the guts, because you're experiencing it with air traffic and military professionals and it's still shocking. If the military are shocked, you're entitled to be. Indeed, the response to the mounting disaster accounts for just as much screen-time as the stricken passengers on UAL93. The head of the Federal Aviation Authority, Ben Sliney, who eventually shuts down US air space, with 4200 planes in it, is played by himself - a performance that's beyond performance but fits the docudrama style. At no point does Greengrass sensationalise. Even the fabled passenger rebellion is handled with confusion, and the famous line, "Let's roll," is simply heard in the general hubbub.

I spent a lot of this film with my hands over my mouth. Right from the start, when the doomed passengers, whom we never get to know, wait in the departure lounge, the feeling is one of dread. The simple, mundane details of flying - the plastic trays the food comes on, the plastic cups of water, the unwatched safety film, the little pillows against which tired commuter heads are propped - become engorged with portent. And the four hijackers, whose whispered recitations from the Koran open the film, are presented as human beings - nervous, confused, fallible but ultimately driven. When the plane is a mere 20 minutes away from its target (did the pilot really have a small clipping of the White House stuck to the steering column so he knew what to aim for?), the authority of the terrorists, gained by shouting, sticking knives into a couple of necks and waving the detonator of a bomb, is at a low ebb. Nobody would make a fictional hijack drama like this. Too messy. Too amateurish. Too difficult. And that's the film's saving grace - whether or not it seeks to make entertainment out of a non-fictional tragedy (and the trailers are pretty disrespectful, especially the gravel-voiced radio ads), the film itself is no fun whatsoever. There were two groups of potentially noisy and silly teenagers at the Wimbledon Odeon, giggling through the ads and trailers, and even they shut up once the film started.

Go and see it. But don't buy popcorn. Then have a trawl around the conspiracy sites. If there's one thing United 93 does almost editorialise, it's the impotent response of the Bush administration. The military at the command centre, shouting out manly stuff like, "Scramble Langley, Weapons!", are also seen virtually begging the office of Bush or Cheney for appropriate rules of engagement and the authority to shoot down the hijacked planes, and get nothing. The President is literally missing. Meanwhile, when two fighters are scrambled, they fly in the wrong direction. And a caption at the end states that the White House didn't know anything about the plight of UAL93 until four minutes after it had crashed. Nothing was done. Why was nothing done?

Haircut!



I'm not putting this picture in just so that you can admire the practical new summer haircut I had on Wednesday, although you can if you want. It's there to illustrate this anecdote about the perils of having your hair cut at a reasonably trendy ladies' hairdressers with disco music playing when you are a man in his very early forties. I had my hair cut by a proper old-fashioned man's barber in Brixton for about seven years and was quite happy doing so, having had it cut by a proper old-fashioned man's barber in Parsons Green while I was at college. I drifted into having it cut rather more expensively at what I still quaintly call a salon sometime in the late 90s, I think. I must admit, I enjoy the whole pampering experience. Having my hair washed by a stranger is quite theraputic, especially with the peppermint conditioner they use at Toni & Guy in Reigate, which reminds me of my tea, and I don't object to the light head massage either. For a man who leads a busy life like mine, it is a rare oasis of calm and indulgence. (I always leave a one pound tip for the young person who washes my hair and a four pound tip for the hairstylist - I'd like to know from other people if this is mean or generous. I'd hate to stand out for either in the ritualistic world of the ladies' hairdresser.)

Anyway, I usually ask for Mel or Laura at Toni & Guy, but this week I had no such luxury of choice as I only had Wednesday afternoon to play with when Lee went to play football with other comedians, and I didn't know for sure if the game was on until the end of Tuesday. The only stylist available was James, who doesn't know my hair, but I trust the general proficiency of the Toni & Guy stylist and accepted the 4.45 appointment. James, like the other male stylists in there, is in the gender minority and looks gay and modern. He might not be gay, he just wears a tight, ribbed t-shirt and is a hairdresser. It doesn't matter anyway, I'm just trying to describe the vast chasm that existed between us when he took my jacket and attentively did up the velcro and belt of my Toni & Gay smock. (Neither Mel nor Laura do it up for me. I usually do it myself.) I am a confident human being, but I felt old and unfashionable and straight in James's presence. There is something about telling a hairdresser, male or female, gay or not gay, what you would like doing to your hair that brings me out in a rash of self-consciousnes. This is the consultation part, before the wash. At a man's barber's, you also tell him what you want, but he is not about to massage peppermint into your head, and it doesn't feel quite as vain under his big sheet and without disco music playing. (My old barber used to have Cypriot radio on.) I explained to James that I wanted a lot cutting off, short and uneven enough on top to spike up, and with a soft but uneven fringe left at the front, short at the sides but not severe. I wondered if he thought, "Why does this old man care so much about the subtleties of a haircut? Unlike me, he is not going out clubbing tonight to pick up girls or boys." He probably didn't. Surely you'd have to learn not to be judgmental in a job like hairdresser?

James also washed my hair, which was good, in that I saved a pound in tips (I just left him the stylist's four pounds), but weird in that he and were going on this hair journey together. There is a great deal of trust in this arrangement. Your head is literally in his hands. There is also the pressure to chat. I like to not chat, so that I don't have to talk about my job, which is what you usually end up talking about, but at the same time, James seemed happy to say nothing as he worked and I cracked first, making some inane comment about my hair growing fast. It broke the ice though, and he ended up telling me all about trying to order a bacon and sausage sandwich from Morrisons, which I didn't quite follow, but was glad of the relaxed nature of the chat. He also complimented me as he neared the end of my cut, saying, "They're going to be asking to see your ID." I did look a lot younger with my short hair, but this could of course mean 39. I appreciated his flattery. I should have given him five pounds.

The weird part came just before the ID comment. James was trimming my sideburns and he said the phrase I have used to headline this entry. Did I want him to tidy these up? He meant my eyebrows. I have quite thick eyebrows. I try to keep them tidy myself by plucking the longest hairs out when I am feeling up to the intense pain. I have been lax on this score of late though and they did look a bit wild. When James blow-dried my hair they actually blew in the wind. He noticed this, which is why he was offering to trim them. This struck me as a bad idea, and it was then that I realised for sure that James had cut my hair once before, about a year ago, when he asked exactly the same thing and I said no then too, as I was coming up to my 40th birthday and I felt it a milestone I was not ready to pass. My dad, whose eyebrow genes I proudly carry, has a pair of Denis Healeys, and he has them trimmed by his hairdresser. They look very neat, but trimmed. I don't want mine trimmed, like a hedge. I'd rather pluck them.

The question is: does James only ask old men if they want their eyebrows tidying up? Or does he ask young men with hairy eyebrows too? I like to think of myself as a reconstructed man who's just gay enough, but it's a fine line to tread. Is it more gay to have them trimmed or to pluck? (Both methods will cause rapid regrowth, but surely cutting is worse than plucking?)

James has that de rigueur New Wave haircut all the trendy young men have that's long on top and at the back, and highlighted. At least I don't have that. Not at my age.

(The photo, by the way, was taken yesterday morning, during the recording of The Day The Music Died at Wise Buddah studios, by Jon Holmes, who actually has a much trendier haircut than mine, but then he is younger than me. The mug next to me contains boiling water. I was about to dunk a peppermint teabag into it.)