Poland 1, The Archers 0

Ian Rush is managing Holland

There's nowt stranger than our elected representatives

Bizarre bunch in the Commons. The one thing politicians are all renowned for is lying. Yet the one thing they're never supposed to accuse each other of is lying. Misleading. Deliberately misleading. Being economic with the truth. Being disingenious. They're ok but the protocol is you don't call another Honourable Member (is that in itself a lie or just an oxymoron) a liar. It happened today during the debate about Jeremy Hunt (rhyming slang) and his involvement in...

...in some absolutely boring, tedious, uninteresting stuff with the newspapermen.

Anyway, someone called Jeremy (Rhyming Slang) a liar and his mate waded into the tormentors with “if it's ok to call my mate a liar” these are not the exact words, obviously, but the next bit is about right: “then may I say that the opposition front benches are the most smug, self-satisfied, pompous, holier-than-thou bunch ever to enter the chamber.” Apparently this was ok too. Probably because it's true. Along with the misleading, etc., the expenses claiming, and all that, their natural habitat is the moral high ground. They think they have the right to sit in judgement and meddle in other people's lives, doesn't that smack of pomposity, holier-than-thouness. Smug and self-satisfied? Just have a look at this gallery.

Poland 1 v 1 Russia

Great game last night. Poland came back from a goal down and drew one-all. The Polish goal was the best of the tournament so far. Huge Holland v Germany game tonight, made bigger by Portugal's win and now by Germany being two-nil up at half-time.

The Archers v Eastenders

The Archers is an institution. I love the way that, for a fascinating fifteen minutes every day, at seven o'clock, nothing happens. Unless the village flower show or a bull needing the vet's hand up his Khyber is high excitement. Now some Eastenders mush is taking over and talking about more cliff-hangers to the plot, more goings-on in general, and basically making it more like Eastenders. This suggests:

1. All the mush knows is Eastenders and that's the template that's going to be used;
2. The BBC lack the imagination to realise that if the Archers audience wanted Eastenders, they'd watch Eastenders;
3. The number of listeners is likely to plummet.