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?