Schedule A: Euro 2008 - **Live Blog**

And here it is. For those who don't remember our coverage of the 2006 World Cup, this is where we view the coverage from different broadcasters, and allocate (and subtract) points according to how good or bad their coverage is. Last time around, ESPN India nicked the prize at the last moment, thanks to the marvellous Duniya Goal Hai preview show (which was as funny as Soccer AM thinks it is), while the stupidly named UKTVG2 had the worst coverage. Exactly the same as what was on BBC One at the same time, only with much worse punditry, presentation and with tons of adverts, thereby making it the most pointless waste of money since Juan Sebastien Veron.

We don't think Duniya Goal Hai is still going, and UKTVG2 certainly isn't (having become the even more stupidly named, if quite entertaining to watch, Dave), meaning that both prizes are up for grabs. In addition to just the BBC and ITV, we're going to check out the coverage of any global broadcasters we can find streaming coverage of. Well, otherwise it'd be a bit pointless. Unlike what we're... oh.

And with the seeds of doubt sprouting in our subconscious, we'd better get on.

SWITZERLAND vs CZECH REPUBLIC

A good start for the Beeb. Martin O'Neill self-effacedly disagreeing with the other pundits. Some very nice on-screen presentation (which might well be from the host broadcaster, but we shall see). Wee Gordon Strachan is there, too. Even the video montage of previous tournaments didn't bother mentioning England, other than that is was hosting the gig in 1996. The only negative was the annoying Liverpudlian child in the vox pop about who everyone is going to support. A promising start, all in.

Nicely, the opening ceremony is being covered in full (we don't think they'd bothered with it in 2006, preferring to bang on about Rooney's injury or something), with Motty commentating on the action in his own increasingly befuddled manner. Even Mark Bright is on co-commentator duties instead of Comedy Lawro. It's a promising opening to the coverage, even if that title sequence wasn't quite as good as we'd thought it would be.

[BBC Sport +1 Point]

Meanwhile, over to Denmark's "Danish Delight" channel (according to the description on MyP2P.eu, though it looks like TV2 on the ident), and they're doing much the same, although quite obviously we can't understand a word. They will be getting a bonus point if Jan Molby is a pundit.

17:00

Motty has just said Jan Koller can "look down Frei's record quite literally". Well, he could literally look down on Alexander Frei's copy of Now That's What I Call Music 9, so technically that's correct in a way, but still.

[BBC Sport -1 Point]



17.50

TV2 Sporten (which is what it actually seems to be called) has Coke-sponsored break bumpers involving a football fan in a bar. His team scores a goal, and so he is about to hug the bloke standing next to him. As he turns around, he notices that the bloke next to him is COVERED IN BEES. After a momentary pause, he decides to hug him anyway. Cut to Coke logo. W the F?

The rest of the ad break confirms these early suspicions that Danish advertising is mental. It's a pity TVU Player won't work for screengrabs.

[TV2 Sporten +1 Point]

Wee Gordon and Ray Stubbs are standing right next to the touchline on the pitch for their analysis. Why they're doing this, we don't know. It's only the fact that Gordon has eschewed the suit expected of BBC pundits in favour of a black leather jacket, and that BBC Sport haven't made them use a stupid little plastic table (as seen on ITV Sport) that save us from deducting any points.

Meanwhile, TV2 News are still using the classic "we don't have any cameras at the scene, just a reporter, so here's a map with a bit coloured in, and a photo of the reporter who is on the phone" technique. Excellent.

[TV2 Sporten +1 Point. It would have been +3 if the photo had been of the reporter pretending to be on the phone.]

And so, as we ruminate on how glad we are we hadn't back Alex Frei for top goalscorer after his adds plummeted from 125/1 to 50/1, we rejoin the second half.


18.20

Here's something that we've always wondered about football coverage during tournaments. When the score update appears at the bottom of the screen occasionally (which is a bit pointless considering every broadcaster keeps the score and time on-screen at all times now anyway), it generally includes a company logo. In the case of Euro 2008, it's Canon. This has gone on since, what, the 1970s, and would generally involve the name of a company you'd expect to have something to do with timekeeping, such as Timex.

The implication of this is that Canon, or Timex, or whoever, are acting as official timekeepers for the host broadcaster. The tasks involved may or may not involve keeping track of the score as well. Surely UEFA would sooner try and keep track of that one themselves. If the representative from Canon is in charge of recording the score and scorers at a World Cup, maybe he'd decide that a controversially disallowed goal by Japan should stand after all. If he's lucky, his lie would become the accepted truth, like how Michael Moore claims Fox News' reporting George Walker Bush as confirmed winner of the 2000 US election just after polling day directly led to him becoming president (and nothing to do with Judge Scalia after all, then). And thereby lining up against Poland in the quarter finals or have carte blanche to start an illegal war on Iraq (yes, we're all about the contemporary satire).

But anyway, that might have had some sort of use in the 1970s. Everyone had badly designed novelty-shaped clocks on their walls (all rectangular and brown, with huge hands), so seeing a digital representation of the time had a real purpose. But now, in Space Year 2008, everyone has digital watches, iPhones, internet-powered time on their laptops, and hey, watches. Can't the logo just be something along the lines of "time by: Bob the sound guy's mobile phone"?

Oh, the Czechs have scored.

Turkey vs Portugal

"No need for hype, here", claims ITV Sport's Matt Smith, just before they go on to spend ten minutes hyping everything up as much as they can be bothered. As TV Cream pointed out, ITV's punditry team are operating from their studio in London, not bothering with the trip to Austria. On the one hand, this shows how little they care about the tournament. They haven't even got Steve Rider in to present their first match of the tournament, which is quite telling. He was busy presenting ITV1's big Switzerland-Czech Republic ratings beater, erm... the qualifying for the Canadian Grand Prix, in weekend prime time on one of Britain's biggest two channels.

On the other hand, does it really matter about the surroundings of the people who pop up for ten minutes before kick-off? Going by what we're seeing of other nation's coverage, most broadcasters don't even bother with that. We do strongly suspect it's part of the fact ITV are losing interest in this sort of thing now they've got the Premiership highlights and FA Cup packages back, and that as soon as their deal with UEFA expires, the European Championships could well be shared by BBC and Five. You read it here first.

Gary Neville and Andy Townsend on punditry duties, which isn't quite as good as Hansen, O'Neill and Strachan, but at least Sky's absence in the event means we won't have to put up with the 'opinions' of Jamie Redknapp. We're still docking them a point, because we can't stand Gary Neville.

[ITV Sport -1 point]

Oh, and if you actually are reading this live (and we really doubt anyone is), we're on a half-hour delay because Doctor Who was too exiting to miss the second half of. So now we're going to get crazy with our Topfield's 'skip forward' function.

20.16

We're all caught up now. Nice to see that ITV1's No Hype Zone doesn't exclude them mentioning Cristiano Ronaldo every twenty flipping seconds, whether he's near the ball or not.

20.22

Anyone who'd prefer to see what the Brazilian (we think) coverage of the match is like:

Here you go. Or, if you want to see it moving, visit here. It should be worth it for the adverts, at least.

20.25

It's almost half past eight, and so displaying the level of professionalism you'd expect from BrokenTV, we're going out, so we'll leave the coverage here for today. Hey, it's Saturday. One quick update for the alternate schedule, and we'll be away. Oh, and an update to the league table first.

The BrokenTV World Cup Of Euro 2008 Coverage League Table, 7.6.08

1. TV2 Sporten (Denmark) (2 pts)
2. BBC Sport (0)
3. ITV Sport (-1)

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One Day To Go, And One Day Gone

Schedule A:

Kicking this off a day earlier than we'd anticipated. Because of this very interesting news from MeejaGrauniad. Here's the main bit of it, in case only registered users can view articles from MG:

The BBC has teamed up with Wallace & Gromit producer Aardman to create an animated title sequence for its Match of the Day Euro 2008 football coverage.

Aardman's title sequence, which will run around Match of the Day's Euro 2008 coverage, features animated versions of footballers including Cristiano Ronaldo, Michael Ballack, William Gallas and Fernando Torres.

The animation also includes former Holland player and present manager Marco van Basten and Italian former Rangers midfielder Gennaro Gattuso.

It opens in an Austrian opera house and goes on to feature the eight cities that will host matches across Switzerland and Austria from the start of the tournament on Saturday, June 7, as backdrops to the animated players.

Unkle's version of Austrian-born composer Mozart's symphony number 41 accompanies the title sequence.

Splendid stuff. Slightly disappointingly, the animation isn't of the stop-motion variety, but this is a promising start nonetheless. We're kind of expecting ITV Sport to go with the "footage of various landmarks in Switzerland and Austria, with CGI whooshing shapes in the flag colours of competing nations darting around everywhere" approach, but we'll keep an open mind until we see it. We might be lucky, and they've gone with a rolling serial that takes place throughout the tournament, with Gaby, Andy, Ally and Jim Rosenthal recreating key scenes from Hannibal Brooks.

Or, given they can't even be arsed with showing the final, it'll be a piece of card with "Uero 20008" faintly scrawled onto it with a dry felt-tip.

[BBC Sport: +1 Point.]

The BrokenTV World Cup Of Euro 2008 Coverage League Table (6th June 2008)

• 1. BBC Sport: 1 pt
• 2. ITV Sport: 0 pts

Schedule B: Big Brother Ratings Update

5,400,000 viewers for the launch show. Will Switzerland vs Czech Republic beat that? Time, or more likely Digital Spy's ratings roundup, will tell. We're going to get at least one graph out of this year's Big Brother.

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Max Ernst and Davina McCall. Together At Last.

Schedule A: If Max Ernst Worked For Panini

Splendidly, UEFA's own Euro 2008 minisite is rather lovely, including as it does all manner of flash gimmickry. It evens goes has far to include a set of graphs so pointless even we're taken aback. At least if you ever find yourself in a pub quiz, and a bonus question is "what percentage of the Spanish Euro 2008 squad are between the heights of 175 and 185 centimetres?", you'll know the answer.

56.5%.

The best bit as far as we're concerned is a collection of online football stickers, for each squad member of the previous European Championship, erm, Champions.

"That's not very interesting", you might be saying at this point, "in fact, I'm going to throw rocks at your windows, it's so not very interesting. I hate you." Steady on there, champ. Here's just how Interesting After All they are:

Mmm, yeah. You're slurping down those ill-considered words now, aren't you? We're really tempted to post our top ten favourites, along with witty captions about what the frigging heck is going on in each picture, but UEFA's lawyers are probably circling overhead as we type, so instead we'll just add another link to that section of the UEFA website, and retire to a safe distance.

Oh, just one more.

Schedule B: Big Brother Launch Night - Almost Live Blogging!

9.11pm

Erm, we were too busy having fun in multiplayer GTA IV at 9pm to catch it live. So, we're ten minutes behind. Here's what we gleaned from trying to catch up.

Smokers have to do so within a tiny outdoor space, or else. That'll annoy the smugger fag suckers, which on Big Brother is generally at least an eight-way tie.

"Zero tolerance". Possibly to be interpreted as "don't be racist or bigoted". We think the other bungalowmates should be given sharp sticks with which to prod them.

More of an emphasis than ever on contestants being dividing into groups of 'haves' and 'have-nots', it seems. All so that annoying WAG-wannabies can pretend to be oppressed, when they're actually just eight weeks away from two years of guesting on Chris Moyles and attending premières of low-budget British movies.

The new film called Hancock doesn't seem like it's going to have Will Smith complaining about anything being nearly an armful of anything. ("Yeah, we've already pointed that out" - Everyone else on the internet."

The contestants:

* A couple. While they don't seem too bad so far, we predict one of them will be demonised in the press, and there will be pleas from femto-celebrities on BBBM for the 'good' one to leave the 'evil' one.

* The Bastard Offspring Of Johnny Briggs And Gareth From Off Of The Office. Uh-oh. He might be this year's 'wacky' one. A lot of people in the crowd are booing already, although we're really sure a load of that noise is piped in.

* Stephanie. 19. Student. She seems to be an amalgam of Emily Parr and Danielle Lloyd. Chucked out of the house to an uneasy silence? Either that, or will become the most famous person in Britain ten weeks from now. Place your bets!

A quick check on Wikipedia reveals: 'Our' version of Big Brother is also screened on Africa's M-Net channel, and Poland's TVN Lingua. We dread to think what they make of it.

First curve-ball of the night: Secret mission. Mario and Lisa "aren't a couple any more", they're expected to pair up with the other two contestants. Of course, this is pretty much like the first round of selecting on Deal Or No Deal. No one ever chooses "Deal" at £27.50, and the first task of the series is usually pretty dull. Well, in both of the two series' of Regular Big Brother that we've watched.

9.34pm

And we're live! (We've caught up with the live transmission.)

Big Brother's Little Brother is co-hosted by George Lamb. Won't be watching that, then. But if it keeps him away from 6Music, all the better. For us, and society as a whole.

* Rachel. Chatty and seemingly opinionated, but seems quite pleasant. Possible winner? Has "been in commercials", it seems. Loads of those will be getting some airtime on late evening Channel Four over the next couple of months, then. Clever Channel Four.

Can we be bothered to do some graphs about Big Brother this year? Very probably not. We could do one about the comparative ratings between this and Euro 2008, we suppose. Bit of a foregone conclusion.

* Dale. Going to 'nail' 'fanny' in the house. Was 'at' Manchester United. 'All' 'About' 'The' 'Glory'. Move over, George Lamb, we've got a new mortal enemy. We give him three weeks, either until he's evicted, or until he senses the tide of opinion turning against him and he contrives a reason to storm out of the house to make some sort of spurious point.

* Sylvia. Is 'sassy'. "I'm not argumentative, but I do have a sharp tongue," she says. Translation: "I am very argumentative."

Those Wikipedia profiles of the new contestants are building up, despite the fact that no-one knows anything about any of them yet. Example:

"Stephanie. 19 years of age, thinks she is attractive."

* Dennis. This year's camp bloke. Will be hosting a companion show to an ill-judged reality format on E4 by the end of November. Mark our words.

9.50pm

Ad time, so here's more from Wikipedia:

"Sylvia. Dresses trendily........ or not"

Surely that's not in the Wikipedia style guide. "Kate McCann. Infant murderer..... or not."

9.52pm

Either someone has vandalised the Wikipedia page, or the remaining contestants really are Mr Blobby, Sir Paul MCCartney, Mr Beans, Merlin, Sir Wankalott, Rebecca and Barbeque Sue. It's the slim possibility that they're on the level that is keeping us watching. Meanwhile, the new Coldplay single is exclusive to iTunes. We're uninstalling iTunes on our PC, just in case we accidentally buy it.

9.55pm

According to Wikipedia, the new Big Brother logo for 2008 is a "FURIOUS RAGING ERECTION".

* Michael. He is blind, so that's our lazy-but-generally-ethically-okay comedy angle buggered, then. Tsk. Says he has been a stand-up comedian before now, so he should be good value for money. Will anyone think he's only pretending to be blind as some sort of BB task? Cripes.

Wikiupate: According to every lazy student's one-stop shop for research, Michael "looks like sloth from The Goonies". And we thought our opponents on Xbox Live just before 9pm were insensitive, annoying pricks.

10.00pm

* Alexandra. Seems generally intelligent, so we're not sure why some people are booing her.

* Rex. As Wikipedia has just predicted, Rex is next. He's an executive chef. Seems sensible (if a little self-satisfied), and on first impression will last for ages but won't stand a chance of winning.

10.05pm.

Hey, is this in high definition on Channel Four HD?

10.06pm.

No. It isn't. If it's such a flagship show, wonder why not. It'd mean that for the sake of a dozen or so HD cameras, Channel Four could claim to have transmitted 975 more hours of live HD content in 2008 than it would have otherwise.

* Mohammed. Wants to point out that he isn't a terrorist, and is the third contestant of the night to have been interviewed whilst wearing Mr Men clothing. The estate of Roger Hargreaves must be well chuffed by all this exposure.

Wikiupdate: The article is now locked for public editing. Not before time, really. We're a responsible Wikipedia user with a longstanding account (we even added a bunch of correct and verifiable figures to the Euro 2008 Austria Squad article yesterday), so we could go in and type 'penis vagina' two hundred times in the 'sponsorship' section. Shall we do that? Hmm, best not.

* Rebecca. Will be photoshopped onto the body of Vicki Pollard within ten seconds of entering the house (we'd got as far as typing 'Vicki Poll' before the interviewer made much the same point, but we're leaving that in).

10.15pm

One more person to go, and it's looking very much like this will be the last episode of Big Brother we watch this series. Our official stance will be largely the same as that of the Daily Mirror circa 2003, when it became the 'official' Anti-Big Brother newspaper. Although they then proceeded to devote at least three pages to the show every day, which absolutely misses the point by a sodding mile. If you're trying to appeal to people who don't like something, don't expect them to happily read 3000 words on that very thing every day, you chumps. Mind you, it was when Piers Morgan was editor,

* Darnell. He's an albino, and an American (born in, erm, Ipswich). Far be it from us to point out that putting a brash character raised in America in the house along with a couple of muslim contestants is courting controversy, but, well, y'know.

* Jennifer. Seemingly, a young mother who claims to be really devoted to her offspring. So devoted in fact, she's... ah, you know where we're going with that. Also seems to hold what we're going to refer to as 'traditional views'. Why not just chuck Roy Chubby fucking Brown in there, and have done with it?

10.27pm

Last up, Kathreya. Seems nicely jolly, and is sure to laugh along when Justin Lee Collins does an ha-ha-larious impression of her when she's the guest on the Sunday Friday Night Project (not a typo, we're trying to be 'funny' again) the week after she leaves Big Brother. A possible winner, unlikely to have a bad word to say about anyone. This year's The Twins From Last Year.

10.32pm

On Sunday's show - a fake, real, fake wedding. While Germany vs Poland is on BBC One. Yeah, the second one.

The current betting at Betfair:

Shaun - Doesn't seem to be listed
Lisa - 38
Luke - 11.5
Stephanie - 32
Rachel - 14
Dale - 15
Sylvia - 42
Dennis - 25
Michael - 6
Alexandra - 65
Rex - 16
Mohamed - 14.5
Rebecca - 32
Jennifer - 34
Darnell - 11
Kathreya - 9

We've backed Michael, although we suspect Kathreya could take it.


And that pretty much concludes our coverage of Big Brother 2008, unless something really exciting happens. At least until after the final of Euro 2008. And with contestants from previous Big Brothers buggering up a half-decent Muppet Show gag at the start of The Big Brother Launch Night Project in the background, we're going back to GTA IV.

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Schedule A, and Schedule B

Euro 2008 is just around the corner, and in tribute we're going to adapt one of the best things about every large international football tournament. A regular sighting in listings magazines around the time of the knockout stages is the wonderful alternate schedule. Seemingly designed with a primary purpose of confusing your nan, these are schemed up by the schedulers at BBC and ITV, as they won't have been able to divvy up the matches while the listings mags are going to press. With this in mind, your typical Wednesday night's viewing on Granada could be an episode of Des O'Connor Tonight, or it could be Yugoslavia versus West Germany. BBC might go with 'Winners Group A' vs 'Runners-up Group F', or you might get to see Mel Brooks' Silent Movie. And after the match, you might get to see a bonus repeat of Only Fools and Horses (Grandad vintage, natch), or there might be extra time. A penalty shoot-out, and that late showing of Steptoe and Son Ride Again may just be shunted back twenty minutes.

All very thrilling, we're sure you'll agree.

In tribute to this, we'll be offering a choice of viewing on BrokenTV. For each update, we'll be offering a bon mot or three about Euro 2008, but alongside your staple diet of telly-related miscellanea. You know, being sarcastic about adverts or going on about Big Brother. It's win-win! Well, if you consider reading half-baked opinions on football and television some sort of victory, that is.

Schedule A: BrokenTV's Euro 2008 Betting Guide

Win money, on us. A lot of people (including us) like to put a few shillings on the top goalscorer for each international tournament. Very few people (not including us) make a nice little profit out of this, and generally they'll be bookmakers. But: not this time!

With judicious use of cut and paste, we've Excelled up a list of all the players in the squads. We've then worked out their international goalscoring rate (i.e. goals divided by caps), and sorted the list accordingly. Then, we've added lookup tables for the current odds at both Betfair and William Hill, to arrive at the current odds for each player finishing as the top scorer. Here are the top forty goalscorers (according to our system) due to take part in Euro 2008.

(NL = Not listed in betting.)

So, while the top two players in the list can be safely discarded, the current favourites in the betting (Torres and Ronaldo) don't look quite so appealing. Annoyingly (for us, at least) the odds on Alexander Frei have dropped rapidly (he was listed at 100/1 a few days ago), so we'll be backing Huntelaar and Podolski. You might decide otherwise, but whatever happens, here's to a good tournament.

Schedule B: Pop Video Of The Week



Justice - DNVO

Not only is it from possibly our favourite album of 2007, but the video lovingly recreates tons of 1980s video company idents, American TV idents (most obviously, HBO) and movie title sequences. Wonderful, and much better than the "ooh, so very shocking" promo video for Stress from the same album.

(Betting update! We've now backed

£5 on Podolski at 30 (potential winnings: £145)

£3 on Johan Elmander at 410 (potential winnings: £1,227)

£2 on Marcus Allback at 670 (potential winnings: £1,338)

That's mainly because we expect all those odds to plummet, so we can lay off the potential winnings. This is about the point we discover each of those players are banned for the first five matches of the tournament.)

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Things Television Commercials Have Taught Us

Y'know, we used to be your typical feminist, tofu-munching, Mark Thomas, commie-liberal types. Until one particular advert has managed to finally seep through the limestone of our consciousness and change our world-view forever.

We used to think that women, with their cute little foibles and ovaries, were human beings capable of their own individual consciousness, intellect, hopes, dreams and rights.



How silly that all seems now.



Yes, thanks to an advert for unpleasant microwaveable offal-in-a-bap, we have now come around to the way of thinking that if you meet a woman, and she doesn't agree to let you have torrid and joyless sex with her (and subsequently letting you withdraw and collapse into a drunken, selfsatisfied and cuntish stupor the very femtosecond you've spewed your man-mess into her) after two hours of imbibing half-price Stella at your local Wetherspoons, she's a pointless and worthless bitch.



Thanks, Rustlers!

-

(Preview of first comment: "Fucking hell, that's unusually nihilistic for a blog usually happy to cheerily bung up a pie chart about Deal Or No Deal's ratings. But, having seen the advert in question, yes, fair dues. I can't believe it's got another outing since the last time. Have they mistaken television in 2008 for Loaded magazine in 1996 or something?")

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Deah Gamesmar-star

Crikey.

Now, we're an incredible duffers at multiplayer Grand Theft Auto IV - in fact, we've just turned off the BrokenTV 360 in a petulant sulk after getting our collective arse handed to us in Mafiya mode for the umpteenth time. In BrokenTV's entire GTA Race online 'career', we have notched up a pathetic half a dozen kills (although we did win one race. Go us!). With this in mind, can anyone tell us how the ruddy fuck we've found ourselves getting this achievement?

We must be the lamest people to do something UBER7337 in the history of multiplayer gaming.



(Interesting local colour corner for the seven people in the UK not playing GTA4: 'a Rockstar' means one of the development team who actually made Grand Theft Auto IV. GTAIV is a game which sold six million copies in the first week of sale. It could conservatively be estimated that one in six of those people have tried the multiplayer function of the game. From those one million online players, maybe one hundred of them had a notable impact on developing the title. Then factor in the average standard of skill for a highly-paid professional behind one of the greatest games of all time, and the level of cack-handed ineptitude one could reasonably expect from us. That, right there, is some scary maths.)

Right, now where's our trilby? We're off out to slaughter some crack dealers.

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How The Almost Mighty Have Fallen

Back in December 2007, in our end of year awards, we proclaimed Sumo.tv as our Wallpaper TV Channel Of The Year, noting that it makes "a lovely diversion if you're awake near a television on a Sunday morning". Nestled comfortably on Sky channel 144 (just next to BBC HD), it was in a perfect position to be stumbled across while the channel you're watching has cut to adverts, or you're waiting for That Mitchell And Webb Look to start.

Sadly, the lure of filthy lucre saw Sumo depart the 144 and 145 slots in our EPG in April, to make way for Discovery's "Bravo for geeks" channel DMAX. As a result, Sumo dropped down the EPG league table a little bit. If around 435 places down the list, to channel 875, qualifies as 'a little bit'. Which it doesn't. It was once next door neighbours with More4 and BBC HD. Now it has to put up with Chat Box popping around to borrow some sugar and asking Teachers TV to please keep the noise down.

All of this comes not too long after new Chief Creative Type James Brown (he of Loaded and the criminally ignored Jack magazine fame) promoted the new programming created for the fledgeling channel, stating in an interview with Digital Spy that

We have developed lots of new shows around themed content. So far it has been short attention span TV. If you are coming in and having a spliff after the pub, it's great to stick on. You are getting short hits. Now we are giving appointments to view. Before, we have not really used presenters much. Now we are bringing in three or four presenters.

And entertaining enough it was, too. Especially if there's still room for marvellous archive material like One Got Fat (specially re-edited to appear 36% more disturbing). With this in mind, what did we find when checking out Sumo.tv in it's slightly less glamorous new home?

Bah. Tits and text messages. Usually there'd either be some classic clipola, or at least 1950s B-movie shunted to the public domain on at this time of night. Well, maybe it's more impressive later in the morning, where all the archivery used to be transmitted.

Nope, it's now a Non-stop Waste £1.50 Putting Some Text On A TV Channel No-One Is Watching Channel, just like all the other ones up the shitty end of the Sky EPG. Nice to see the £1.4million parent company Cellcast received for those slots has been well re-invested then. A bit of a shame, all round, really.

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Eurovision Blog: LIVE!

[8pm] We're off to a good start, with the BBC making an on-air apology about last year's Making Your Mind Up, and the lack of money given to charity at the time. It looks superb in HDTV.

Confluence of Sound is this year's title, it seems. The show kicks off with a woman singing a capella that Tel likens to a grumpy Jimmy Krankie. We reckon she looks more like Joe Pesquale. She proceeds to rip several layers of clothing off a woman standing next to her, leaving her wearing a half-dress, half-suit combo. And still, the singing continues, still without instrumental backing. If it's like this all the way through, we can't see us making it to half past eight, let alone all the way through.

[8.05] A bit of music has piped up in the background, then faded away again, suggesting this is an audio cock-up rather than by design. It certainly looked stupid having backing dancers when there's no actual music.

[8.07] Tel's eye has caught the attractive host. "Hello yourself," he replies to her greeting. You sly old dog, Toggers.

[8.09] First up, it's Romania with Nico and Vlad with Pe-o Margine de Lume. One minute in, and we can just make out some music over the singing. It's disappointingly bland and generic. Plus, it's in Romanian. Tsk. We've already swung it so the host's announcements are all in English despite the UK taking up a tiny proportion of the European population, why can't we force them all to sing in English?

[8.13] Speaking of singing in English, here come Our Brave Boys, more specifically Andy Abraham performing Even If. And we've just made the startling discovery that the backing music is almost totally inaudible on BBC HD only. Switching to BBC One just to check almost saw us propelled backwards by sheer force of volume. Like that bloke in the 1980s Maxell adverts. Once we drag the volume to a more polite level, it's not too bad, considering it's a British Eurovision entry.

[8.17] Seventeen minutes in, and we've got our first belly button of the evening (thanks for pointing that out, Terry), courtesy of Albania's Olta Boka. She's singing Zemrën E Lamë Peng. which is probably going down a storm on the Albanian equivalent of Radio Two. And here's a picture of her we've culled from Wikipedia, to try and distract everyone from the fact that this live blogging isn't very interesting yet. It's not our fault there aren't any bald blokes in tight suits chanting about how they're going to win Euro 2008 or something.

[8.20] Germany now. No Angels performing a song called Disappear. More standard Eurovision fare. Given the fact that each country really wants to win this thing, and that you're allowed to bring in overseas 'talent', why on earth hasn't anyone snapped up Girls Aloud?

[8.24] Armenia, whose flag is represented by a crap clown. Sirusho are about to perform their Qele Qelere, so they're cavorting around like they're the opening ceremony for the Olympics, if the Olympics were being held in Shetland. The music still isn't coming through properly on BBC HD. Wonder how many people have been watching it all this time, wondering what the ruddy hell is going on. It'll probably prove a boon for amateur 'mash up' deejays, looking to meld Zemrën E Lamë Peng with The Strokes.

[8.28] Yay! Here's Bosnia's Laka doing Pokušaj, essentially some berks dressed up in funny costumes. The bloke has a drawn-on moustache we think, and a bottle green school blazer. The woman is hanging up some washing whilst wearing a funny dress. So idea what they're on about, but at least it's fun. We Brits like to think we're the de facto masters of irony - why can't we pull something like this?

Again: yay!

[8.31] Off to Belgrade City Hall. It's turned into Children in Need, it seems.

[8.33] Israel's turn, with a song written by Dana International. Sadly, Boaz isn't dressed up outrageously, so we've kind of lost interest already. Why not do something more interesting on stage, Boaz? Rip off that OK Go video with the treadmills, or something. Like that yoghurt advert has done.

[8.37] Finland. Teräsbetoni doing Missä miehet ratsastaa. It's 1980s-style heavy metal! In Finnish! And while the singer looks a little bit like the bloke from Nickelback, they're not shit! The winner, we're saying. Everyone else might as well go home. And we don't actually like heavy metal music. It's so ball-kickingly loud that you can even hear the music on BBC HD. Hell, it's so loud you could probably even hear it on QVC. Look everyone, we've done a joke!

"There's men!" announces Tel. Ace.

[8.41] Croatia now. Kraljevi Ulice and 75 cents performing Romanca. They've got the best flag in Europe, but will they have the best song? It's an old bloke in a white suit. And another slightly younger man in a black suit. They both have hats. There's a dancer in a frock. A gramophone on a table. And the old man has started shouting things. Eurovision is up and running now! We don't know which one is 75 Cents, but if it's the old shouting man, he literally is twenty-five cents better than 50 Cent.

Now he's scratching the gramophone record like a septuagenarian Mixmaster Mike! Marvellous! Another potential winner.

[8.45] Poland are up, Isis Gee, For Life. We're with Doug Stanhope when it comes to Polish women, although as feminists, we don't quite agree with his dick-sucking employment policy for them. We suspect lots of tedious racists in pubs right now are making jocular remarks about her coming over here to work in a chip shop on Monday.

Oh, and cheers to an anonymous commentgoer for letting us know the HD sound is working now. It's like we're the Guardian football website or something!

[8.49] Reverting to type now, with Iceland's euroband, erm, Euroband. If Steps were Icelandic, they'd be Euroband. This Is My Life is precisely the sort of song we used to fast forward through when listening to the imported German dance compilations we'd bought from Wrexham's mighty Phase One Records in the early-to-mid 1990s.

[8.53] Turkey have also gone for the rock option, but sadly Mor ve Ötesi's 'Deli' doesn't hit the same heights as Finland's entry. Still, it gives us time to put the kettle on, so it's not all bad. 'Deli' means 'crazy' in English, by the way. I'm sure most Turkish-speaking visitors to New York allow themselves a wry grin each time they see a delicatessen.

[8.56] We're off to the green room. And more shouty Serbian hosts squabbling with each other. They're quite annoying, to be honest, and they don't actually do anything.

[8.58] Back to the main hosts. The male host has the tiniest beard ever worn by a man, taking the world record away from Tony Almeida in the first series of 24.

[9.00] Portugal. Vânia Fernandes singing Senhora do Mar (Negras Águas). It's a bit rubbish. We're off to get some crisps. Hope there's some prawn cocktail Quavers left.

[9.02] Bah. Only salt and vinegar ones.

[9.03] Christ's soupy beard. Latvia's entry is a hi-NRG sea shanty, with a bunch of people in camp pirate outfits waxing lyrical on what it's like to be a pirate. The band are called Pirates of the Sea and the sing is Wolves of the Sea. It's surprisingly ace. Another possible winner, which would lead to inevitably po-faced reporting of the fact in the news.

"Ya ha ha!" shouts Sir Tel as the song closes.

[9.07] Sweden have chosen a monochrome woman to do their song.

[9.08] Oh, she's in colour now. How did they do that. It did distract from the blandness of the song, at least. Charlotte Perrelli, Hero. Now some backing singers have appeared. They should have just forced Whale to reform. Whale were brilliant.

[9.10] Denmark, whose flag is represented by two blokes chucking a woman into a box and then sealing it. Whuh? Ooh, Christ. All Night Long, performed by the not-particularly Danish sounding Simon Mathew is quite dull. And it doesn't help that Simon Mathew seems to be a bit of a Chico character. If that box is soundproof, we can see just what that woman in the flag sequence was thinking of. We've made our second joke of the night!

[9.14] Georgia's Diana Gurtskaya hopes that Peace Will Come. Meh. Meanwhile, over on Betfair Ukraine are the big favourites, with Russia not far behind. Latvia are 47/1! We're sorely tempted to put a fiver on it, just in case. With Finland on 37/1, that's another reasonable bet. Are these people backing Russia and Ukraine based purely on national preconceptions here, or have they all heard the songs?

[9.18] Here's our chance to find out. It's the woman herself, Ani Lorak (pictured) doing Shady Lady. What a rubbish title. The song itself isn't anything too special, if you ask us, but they've certainly prepared their dance moves well in advance. We can't see why this is the favourite, aside from the accusations of international everyone-pick-on-Britain collusion that we've been bombarded with over the last week.

[9.21] Tel is warning us again not to phone in, or he'll get in trouble. That'd certainly make for an interesting new incentive by the BBC Trust. If we phone up trying to vote someone out from The Apprentice, will they set about Alan Sugar with big sticks?

[9.23] France's Sébastien Tellier singing 'Divine'. Women in beards. The singer on a Hank Kingsley-issue golf cart. And a very catchy song that we've heard on 6Music before now. Sung in English, much to the chagrin of the French. It's easily the best actual song of the night, so much so that we might even buy it. It's got that special kind of pop hook that wriggles underneath your skin and doesn't go away until you buy it. Criminally, it's 94/1 on Betfair to win.

[9.27] Azerbaijan win the award for the first country of the night that we've had to check the spelling of. Elnur and his gang are dressed as angels, while Samir and his minions have come as the devil. Together they perform Day After Day, They both look quite silly.

[9.30] Greece's turn, with the glamorous Kalomira. She reminds us a bit of Dannii Minogue, and her song Secret Combination is nice enough. We're going to go out on a limb here, and predict this will get the maximum twelve points from a small island beginning with 'C'.

[9.34] Ooh, now we're talking. Spain's turn, and they've elected to be represented by a Rolf Harris impersonator playing a child's toy guitar-cum-keyboard, with a troupe of foxy bouffanted babes. Rodolfo Chikilicuatre is his name, and the magnificently titled Baila el Chiki Chiki is his song. He might just be the greatest Spaniard ever to don a beard since Rafa Benitez. 69/1 on Betfair, but that's not stopping us putting his picture atop this post.

[9.38] Host nation Serbia's turn, and quite brilliantly it's a dwarf with a banjo singing My Lovely Horse from off of Father Ted. Oh, alright then. Jelena Tomašević and Bora Dugić performing Oro. The crowd go mad, but we'd rather have used Live Rewind to hear Baila el Chiki Chiki again.

[9.42] Russia, represented by a bloke who's forgotten to put his shoes on, the chump. Dima Bilan and Believe. We're going to prepare a graph instead of listen to this.

[9.46] Norway. Last up, it's Maria singing Hold On Be Strong. Hang on, Maria? You're only meant to be able to get away with using one name in the world of pop when it's an unusual one. Kylie. Sting. Madonna. Not 'Maria'. Bah. We tore ourselves away from an Excel pivot table for this?

[9.51] A huge Serbian basketball star (in both senses of the word) takes to the stage. Both senses of the word 'huge', not the word 'star'. That would just be silly, as the entire venue would be destroyed if a massive, luminous ball of plasma was brought up to declare the phone lines open. Tsk. Oh, and the phone lines are now open.

[9.56] Pre-empting the inevitable kicking we're going to get in the phone votes (mainly because we've got one of the more forgettable songs), here's something we've just knocked up during the recap of the songs. Taking the information on Wikipedia for the languages the songs were performed in, here's a pie chart for you.

So, we've won Eurovision. In a way.

[10.00] We're still working our way through a recap of all songs. This is a good way to determine a winner, seeing each song distilled into a six-second soundbite outlines just how catchy each song is. The UK's track comes over as pretty forgettable, as do many others, while the songs from Latvia and France grab your attention quite instantly. Ukraine are even bigger favourites on Betfair now, at just 2.8, although we don't think they'll win.

[10.06] A spurious countdown marks the closing of the phone lines, along with a pleading caption from the Beeb imploring us not to call any more. We know you don't want another bollocking, but all this is coming over as quite pathetic. You're like Dwayne in Grand Theft Auto IV, BBC. Stop being like Dwayne.

[10.09] Sir Tel has just admitted he can't wait to get drunk afterwards. We're not being sarcastic when we say Terry Wogan is a national blimmin' treasure. Why can't all television presenters be anywhere near as good?

Meanwhile, we've busied ourselves by checking out Rodolfo Chikilicuatre's official website. Will it live up to our hopes?

Hell, yeah. Everyone do 'El Robocop'.

[10.15] Well, there's still an oom-pah band up on stage, as they have been for the last ten minutes. Meanwhile, Tel has just been given some lovely chocolates by his Belarussian counterpart.

[10.17] The votes are about to start flooding in. Tel's getting a name check on stage, which is nice.

[10.18] The realisation that we're about to spend the next hour of our one and only life listening to various Europeans reading out lists of countries and numbers dawns. We could probably get to Bargain Booze and back in fifteen minutes. Hmm. If only it wasn't closed.

[10.20] Phew. They're only reading out the top three scores from each nation, the lower scores just pop up on screen. That's much better than the previous method, while lasted about three weeks. Albania get twelve points from the Macedonian presenter, who appears to be some sort of Timmy Mallett looky-likey.

[10.25] We really can't be bothered commenting on the people reading out numbers, so here's a look at the website for Pirates Of The Sea.

They've got a forum!

Meanwhile, we've got our first points. Thanks for the pity voting, people of San Marino.

[10.30] Ukraine are slipping down the betting now, to third place. Told you they won't win. Turkey - third place in the voting - are still 19/1. Fill your boots.

[10.33] Bosnia-Herzegovina's entry gets twelve points from someone, much to the annoyance of Tel. Lighten up, sir! The UK are now second to last in the table. Will Cyprus give us some points?

[10.34] No. Greece got their twelve points, though.

[10.36] The scruffily attired Moldovan presenter is trying to eke every last second from his appearance. Come on, man. You're like the least famous celebrity presenting an award at an awards show, frantically and quite pathetically trying to make a name for yourself.

[10.38] No wonder no-one votes for us. This is three hours of live primetime television, and about 90% of the total television audience has to sit through the majority of it listening to a language they don't understand. If all the commentary on the BBC and ITV coverage of Euro 2008 was in German, there'd be an armed uprising.

Here's a question for any Eurovision buffs reading this: does the coverage in other Eurovision nations include commercial breaks? There's no gap left for any, but if it's as popular as it's made out to be, surely it'd be a goldmine for the commercial stations.

[10.46] The award for Best Fake Tan And Whitened Teeth of the night goes to the Slovenian presenter. It's as if he was fathered by Dale Winton, although that's statistically unlikely on several levels. The Armenian presenter runs him quite close, but as she's absolutely gorgeous we can forgive her.

[10.48] First cock up of the night - the Czech presenter messes up their results, leaving her perilously close to erupting into a fit of giggles. We're still second from bottom of the table. Not even Malta have given us some points! Expect a furious reaction from the Daily Mail on this matter.

[10.54] Some consolation points from Ireland. The presenter lady almost seemed embarrassed by this. As Poland have also picked up some points, we're now last in the table.

[10.57] We're getting bored of the numbers now. Russia are going to win, we're going to finish last. Happily, we've just discovered Sébastien Tellier's MySpace page. And we've also just discovered that Swedish people have trouble pronouncing Bosnia-Herzegovina. Every day's a school day.

[11.01] Sébastien Tellier fact! Divine was produced by 50% of Daft Punk. Which is why it's so great. We've just bought it. It downloading now. Whee. The results are nearly over, so soon we'll all be able to get on with our lives.

[11.04] Sébastien Tellier fact two! The cover of his album has a bare lady on it.

[11.06] The presenters reading out the results have taken to singing bits of the songs. That isn't really helping anyone. Oh, and Russia have won.

[11.08] And that's pretty much it. The evening ends with the winning song, a shitload of fireworks, and Tel grumbling about how it's all a big fix, and how all the west European countries might as well just stop entering it. Never mind the fact this is the first time Russia have ever won it. Mind you, it's not as if the winning song was anything to write home about, so maybe he's on the money. We don't know. We do like the fact that as next year's contest is going to be in Moscow, there's an outside chance Tatu will make an appearance. We're now definitely going to be watching it again next year.

And with that in mind, what better way to sign off?

See you next year!

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The Big BrokenTV Eurovision Preview Show. With Nipples.

Here's a confession for you. In much the same way we've never watched any of the Star Wars trilogy all of the way through (and you'd be surprised how many people get genuinely annoyed when we tell them that), we've never watched an annual Eurovision from start to finish. Well, later on today (i.e. Saturday, as that's what it technically is), we plan to lose our Eurovision virginity, because we care about you, our loyal listeners, we're going to be blogging the whole grisly experience live. Yes, between the hours in which it is broadcast, on a Saturday night, we literally have nothing better to do. Plus. we spent all of our gin money on Friday night. Hey, you've got to set yourself limits.

But that's for later. This preview is here to set the scene for the main event, and what better way to do that than a round up of the TOP THREE EUROVISION APPEARANCES (THAT WE KNOW ABOUT, GIVEN OUR LIMITED KNOWLEDGE OF THE EVENT).

THREE.



LT United - We Are The Winners (Luthuania 2006)

"But... it's shit!" you might be saying if you haven't clicked on the 'play video' icon yet, and you'd only ever heard about five seconds of it on Radio One Newsbeat two years ago, while they were bemoaning why the rest of Europe have to pick on Britain once again, and how the only way we don't win every year is because of our government's support for the War in Iraq. And you'd be quite spectacularly incorrect to do so. Go click that link. We'll wait.

Ready to yum up those words yet? One of the reasons 'we' like to somehow feel all superior over never winning Eurovision is that we like to assume everyone else treats it the same way 'we' treat the World Cup. The be-all and end-all of everything. But not us merry Britishers, oh no. We treat it as a bit of a laugh, and nothing more. That's why it really sticks in our collective craw when someone else - Lithuania of all people! - treats it with precisely as much disdain as we like to think we do. Only, when we're sneering at those funny European sorts after selecting yet another bland sub-daytime Radio Two travesty to represent all sixty million of us, those swarthy Lituanians go and pull some shit like this.

Odd thing is: it's not actually that bad a song. In fact, it's pretty damn good. No, really. It falls in with BrokenTV's Fifth Rule Of Music in that if a band contains more than two members (one of whom must be lead vocalist) who could pass for managers of your firm's IT department, then they're really good at music. Think about it. Apples In Stereo, Guided By Voices, The Hold Steady - they all fall into this theory.And so do LT United, although admittedly, to a lesser extent.

Odd thing is, parading around whilst dressed sharply, smugly proclaiming you're the best thing since sliced sex is perfectly acceptable when you're Robbie Williams (erm, and it's still 2002). When you have the sheer barefaced audacity to be... foreign - ugh. Especially when you're from one of those frightful ex-Soviet nations that only otherwise seem to pop up to callously steal a couple of qualification points from England when they really need them. Bad show, LT United. In a way, it's your fault Brave John Terry won't be slipping over for penalties in Vienna this summer.

TWO.



France Gall - Poupée de Cire, Poupée de Son (Luxembourg 1965)

And we didn't even have to look up the year, that's all from memory. Cripes, eh? It's quite clearly a metric mile more impressive and catchy than any of Sir Clifford's efforts, and it roundly kicks anything by Abba up the arse. And for some reason, it has two grown men in romper suits wandering into an oversized mock-up of a nursery. Christ knows why. They don't even do anything when they get there.

More super background info that we don't even have to look up - there was a bit of an uproar in France at the time this scooped the Eurovision. France Gall wasn't from Luxembourg, and nor was the writer of the song, the legendary Serge Gainsbourg. But that doesn't stop it being the second best Eurovision song ever. Heck no. So, in leiu of us knowing much more about Eurovision 1965, here are some other things we know (or at least, think we know) about France Gall.

FRANCE GALL FACT ONE: Serge "The Surge" Gainsbourg continued to write songs for France Gall after Eurovision 1965, but after the people of France discovered that the song "Les Sucettes" was probably about blowjobs (and not, as had been assumed, lollipops), the 18-year-old Gall had to put up with all sorts of palaver, and saw her career take a bit of a nosedive. With that in mind, she ironically never worked with the generously-conked Gainsbourg again, and reportedly still refuses to perform the songs written by him.

FRANCE GALL FACT TWO: The Arcade Fire have an absolutely brilliant cover version of "Poupée de cire, poupée de son" available as a split 7" with LCD Soundsystem, which was available at their concerts for a short while. And, because we're splendid, here it is.

FRANCE GALL FACT THREE: We don't know more than two facts about France Gall. Unless you count the fact that even though she's now sixty, we'd probably still consider it.

ONE.



Tatu - Ne Ver', Ne Boisia (Russia 2003)

Well, clearly. It's Tatu. The greatest band ever to appear on Eurovision. We even own an actual physical copy of this song. That's how good it is. But, we'll spare you the same spittle-flecked diatribe about how Tatu are actually one of the best bands in the history of the word (if you want to hear that in full, be in the same pub as us any time All About Us pops up on the jukebox - we didn't put it on, we don't even like that song very much - and make any sort of 'tutting' noise about it. We dares ya).

No, instead we're going to simply point to an NSFW uncut copy of the video for Beliy Plaschik, their latest single. It's stunningly excellent. And, with an observation that will in all probability see our penises revoked by the Bloke Police, we're more excited about the fact that it's a brilliant remix of the track than the fact you get to see two of Tatu's nipples (one each, if you're keeping score). But for whichever reason you're considering checking it out, here you go. While stocks last (i.e. us being told to remove it). And see you later for that Live Eurovision Extravaganza.

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My Philosophy Like HDTV / Is All There in Black and White

Speaking as disgruntled Sky+ customers frantically spending every free moment watching everything on our planner before we cancel our contract (because if you want to watch your recordings when not subscribing, you have to give Sky a tenner a month, even if the programmes were on Free-to-air channels), we're delighted to read of Stockport County manager Jim Gannon's Sky+ related protest:

Full story: on the Eurosport website (with a nod to Matthew Rudd's blog, where we heard about this). Much more interesting than not speaking to the BBC because they highlighted the fact that your son is a clearly dodgy football agent.

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