Paperjam

This is the first year that the BBC have put the French Open fully onto their red-button interactive service, and I've been loving what little I've seen of it.

One of the noticable differences is the occasionally dizzying French camera work, zooming and panning away skywards before a crossfade into the next shot. They're also oddly keen on this (possibly vintage 80s Quantel Paintbox?) effect, where they superimpose a black and white shot of a tennis player above the court - seen above from the Massu/Federer match. It gets slightly more disturbing when, from a high aerial shot looking down on the court, they superimpose the returner's face on the court in front of the server.

However the commentary has made me want to stab myself in the ears - with Sam Smith and John Lloyd engaging in excrutiating mid-Atlantic conversation ("Thirdee-love to Federer"), and repeatedly referring to Federer as "the best player in the world" like a broken record. Well, maybe he is, but not on clay. Wait 'til he comes up against the improbably muscular Nadal.

John Lloyd is the fool the BBC get in when Becker is at home with scaffolding round his hair being serviced by young ladies. Looking forward to Michael Stich on Radio 5, and the usual Becker bizarre-ness throughout Wimbledon.

Yes, the band that launched a thousand t-shirts (including the severely faded one that I wore to play tennis the other night) are back with new single Hibernation. Judging by the amount of e-mails I am getting from them, there is something of a push to try and get this into the charts. You can try a preview over at their MySpace page or go crazy like me and splash out the four quid they are asking for the (limited edition) single at the Neds Atomic Dustbin web site. Remember, these are the people who gave the world Kill Your Television.

Sigh, going to work when the weather is this good and the world cup is about to kick off is a total nightmare. While I was in the office last week (drawing yet more diagrams involving little squares with little arrows between them on a whiteboard) my mind started to wander. Surely there must be a job where you can get out and enjoy the summer as well as watching as much of the footy as possible.

Then the answer hit me: professional gambler, I could give that a go, how hard can it be?

Anyway, in preparation for this radical career change I have set myself a challenge. Over the course of the world cup I have allocated myself fifty quid to bet on whatever seems likely to win me more money and at the end I'll know whether I have what it takes to stand in the bookies all day, smoking roll-ups and swearing at horses.

To kick things off, I've put two bets on.

1. A pound on Italian striker Luca Toni to be the golden boot at 18/1. He's scored 30 odd goals in the yawn-inducing defenders paradise that is Serie A so I reckon he should be able to bag a few against the likes of Ghana and the USA.

2. Two pounds on David Beckham to open the scoring against Paraguay. The odds were 12/1 and have since gone down once everyone saw the ball they are using bend all over the shop from long range German strikes. The logic here is that Paraguay are probably going to kick Crouch and Owen all over the park and Becks takes all the free kicks.

There will be an update soon, maybe even a chart of some decription.

Well those bastards on the FIFA technical committee certainly kicked me in the bollocks when they announced that, because Beckham's majestic freekick glanced off some Paraguayan's eybrows, it was an own-goal. Then there was the crossbar-bothering Luca Toni who falls over an awful lot for someone who is 6 foot 5 inches tall and built like a wardrobe. Still Italy are playing the good ol' USA next and they looked absolutely appalling didn't they? So some hope for Toni to progress towards the golden boot if he can stop thinking about doing his hair for a few minutes.

Oh well, hoping to recoup at least a few quid I did an accumulator (betting on a number of results to all come in) on a bunch of absolute certainties; Mexico, Portugal, Italy, France and Brazil to all win their opening games against fairly mediocre looking opposition.

- Mexico were what pundits diplomatically call "Direct" in dispatching Iran.

- Figo was excellent for Portugal as they beat Angola.

- Italy did well to put two past the powerful (i.e. dirty) Ghana, including some fantastic rolling around on the floor in fake agony.

- Brazil somehow beat Croatia, despite fielding the laziest frontmen ever seen in Adriano and Ronaldo, the latter making me feel particularly thin and quick.

Of course France messed the whole thing up by playing out the most horrific no-score bore-draw it has ever been my misfortune to catch the second half of. Apparently the first half was worse. Shudder. Even Mick McCarthy was taking the piss by saying that the French needed a "Revolution", Please Mick, no more of that.

In addition to these losses I punted two quid away on toothsome trickster Ronaldinho to score first against Croatia, but of course he didn't. Consequently I am six quid down so far and my dream of professional gambling riches is looking a touch shaky to say the least.

On the plus side the world cup has been fairly entertaining so far, especially some of the BBC punditry. Bringing in the Brazilian elbow merchant Leonardo is a particular masterstroke, he sits there looking like a very confused hairdresser, trying to understand the likes of Strachan, Shearer and Hansen. Occasionally he interjects the odd comment like "Mmmmmmm, Ronaldinho. Nice action. Very well mmmmm". Martin O'Neill arguing with Marcel Desailly the other night was ace too.

Sandi Thom's musical death sentence "I wish I was a punk rocker (with flowers in my hair)" dredges up some sort of memories over at this BBC News Magazine article, where some LSE students are interviewed and asked for their opinions on decades they didn't actually live through. The public comments are mostly as wistful, pining for those half-remembered times, viewed through the fog of thirty years and the memory pollution of TV's "I love the 1970s".

I didn't live through the 1960s either, and was only four by the end of the 70s, but I can understand how much better it was back then. What with the always imminent threat of nuclear attack. And when our car industry was merely under constant threat of closure rather than in its death throes. And those race riots, and sus laws. And three TV channels. And the three-day week. Ah, classic.

Even the terrorists generally had the courtesy to give you a ring before blowing your house/pub up.

In all the excitement of my non-stop, hedonistic, smoking crack with supermodels while skydiving lifestyle, I forgot to review this a few weeks back. Brick is a "Just how much more black could it be?" film noir mystery played out by a bunch of American high school students and starring the kid out of Third Rock From The Sun. Sounds absolutely terrible doesn't it?

Well, actually it is great; really mean spirited, slow burning and rather dream-like. The film revolves around a young man's search for his ex-girlfriend after he receives a suitably cryptic distress message. The cryptic stuff doesn't end there, with the whole cast talking in some kind of 50's throwback slang, which should jar horribly, but doesn't. The plot describes a web of drugs, crime, jealousy and revenge and reminded me of many things (A Fistfull Of Dollars, Twin Peaks, Blue Velvet) without specifically resembling any of them.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Brendan is excellent, delivering hard-boiled, couldn't give a fuck, sarcasm (in a way that I have attempted to perfect for years), while getting his head badly kicked in every five minutes (which I managed to perfect at an early age). He seems to have made the transition from child star to actor fairly successfully and if it doesn't work out he could certainly have crack at a career as a runner.

Brick now seems to be playing at a few more places, I definitely recommend you try to catch it at the cinema, just don't ask too many questions like: Where are all the other parents? What is the obsession with footwear? and How on earth did they get that chandelier in the back of the van?

Hmmmm. My dream of leaving the daily grind for an exotic life of professional gambling is fading faster than the chances of Wembley stadium being finished sometime before the London Olympics Since we last spoke, money has been thrown away on:

- The open goal spurning Podolski getting one for Germany against Poland (oh how I swore at the TV that night)

- Advertising starlet Joe Cole scoring against T&T

- Freak legged brazilian full-back Carlos scoring first against the might of Australia (did you see the state of that free kick, shocking)

All dead losses unfortunately. So now it is up to England to recoup some cash for me. I'm going for moody, moody Michael Owen (5/1) to bang in the first goal against the Swedes, plus I reckon that we will triumph 2-1 against our managers country of origin (at 8/1) despite the fact that we haven't beaten them since 1968 and Sven is putting out a suspiciously weakened side.

My ongoing bet on hulking Italian striker Luca Toni to be the golden boot is looking completely laughable, he looks like he couldn't hit water if he fell out of a boat.

Now, you'd think that TV companies would be keen to let you know what is on their channel at a given time. Here are our programmes! You should watch them, they're really great!

But Broadcasting Data Services, bless their misguided cotton socks, have decided to quote the Broadcasting Act 1990 and threatened Andrew Flegg's ace bleb.org with Bad Legal Stuff, saying that he should be paying royalties for republishing BBC and ITV listings.

Flegg pointed out that the BBC publish XML listings through their Backstage initiative for free reuse, so they've backed down on the BBC listings, and now Flegg cannot publish the ITV listings.

All seems a bit daft really. I don't know about you, but I could barely give a fuck about ITV programmes - they need all the help they can get. Having said that, it sets a precedent - and I'd encourage you all (yep, both of you) to sign the petition over at Petitiononline.

Well the Mexico v Argentina match was great wasn't it? Although while watching it we all noted that either side would probably absolutely hammer England.

Speaking of Sven and his men, I have yet to receive the e-mail asking not to bet on them any more (after the injuries to Owen and that last minute travesty of an equaliser to make it 2-2) but it can can only be a matter of time. My demonic/extremely unlucky influence has already been called into question in certain quarters.

So for what hopefully won't be their last game, I have trudged back to Ladbrokes and (hopeless romantic that I am) have put a quid on England to win 2-0. Additionally, after watching Frank Lampard have more shots than any other player in the entire competition, there is two pounds on him to score first. Come on Frank, daddy needs a new pair of shoes, no really, I do.

If you haven't seen this yet get yourself straight over to the BBC 2 web site sharpish, it will be there for a week or so. The marvellous Lips tear through The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song, followed by a bit of fairly boring stuff (including The Strokes).

After this they do The W.A.N.D. with Wayne Coyne wearing a huge pair of rubber hands, kind of like a mystic Kenny Everrett back from the beyond. Touchingly they ditch the bad language, a bit ironic as they are followed by the ultra sweary acoustic troubador Plan B.

They finish off, as they did at the Birmingham Academy, with War Pigs. Wayne goes barking and throws confetti everywhere while trying to get the scared looking audience going.

Good tips on making splatter paintings too, for those of us who have done such things so poorly in the past.

I heard about this the other day : "Federer is wearing a white jacket on to the court, with his own logo on the front" - sounds rubbish, right?

Oddly, I think it really works. Although it does look like he's trying to compete with the Ralph Lauren designed Wimbledon uniform, which is rather natty too.

Not bad.

On the ladies front, we have Bethanie Mattek, who got slaughtered today by Venus Williams, and her rather fabulous knee-high socks. Officer, put the cuffs on now - I'm having bad thoughts.