For reasons which we cant even explain to ourselves, we keep looking at Digital Spy. Mainly out of some idiotic sense of loyalty, because we remember when it used to be called DigiNews, and was mainly concerned with announcing new channels popping up or closing down on the then-new Sky Digital service (Bah, ITV are still refusing to put any of their channels on Sky). Since then, its grown, taking in more mainstream types of news story (i.e. those appealing to non-spods), and grown into a hugely popular website as a result. Meanwhile, BrokenTV has remained resolutely unpopular and not that good. Why? Because weve got integrity, dammit.

 BrokenTV, post-relaunch.

Problem is, in order to keep that all important stream of stories coming, all packed with lovely clickable advertising and Tweet this! buttons, pretty much anything is considered news on the site. One of todays main stories on Digital Spy is headlined Alistair Campbell booed on Top Gear, the fascinating story of some people in the audience booing the former Labour press secretary, in a TV shown already broadcast two days ago, and recorded almost a full week ago.

See? The entire news story is just someone typing in a few events from a TV show that aired a few days ago. What next? Adrian Chiles wears pastel coloured shirt on ITVs World Cup coverage? Kirsty Wark brushes hair before appearing on screen? It really doesnt stop there, either. There are thousands upon thousands of what well call antinews stories on DS, meaning weve had to come up with a few categorisations for them. Heres a quick rundown of the five most pointless types of bandwidth slurry since, well, the BrokenTV Twitter feed.

5. Minor Celebrity X Slams Minor Celebrity Y

Thats Perez Hilton, the vapid, fame-hungry and pointless celebrity blogger (hey, we can smell our own), attacking Jordan, for seeking publicity. You see, thats what bloggers do. We snipe. We criticise. We attack those in the public eye that we conceive as having no inherent talent, mainly because we want to be in the public eye despite having no detectable talent ourselves. See? Were doing just that right now!

The story includes a Hilton remark on how he doesnt care about Jordans marriage to That Bloke From Celebrity Big Brother Even Though He Wasnt A Celebrity Before He Went Into The Celebrity Big Brother House (or Alex for short). That only really reminds us of the annoying cockwads you often notice on internet forums who like to pop up in threads about Big Brother, Lost, Doctor Who or the World Cup, pointedly remarking that they dont care about Big Brother, Lost, Doctor Who or the World Cup, as if anyone could possibly give a flying fuck about their indifference, considering everyone else in those threads are there specifically because they do care about those shows. We can only really assume that these people also make a habit of barging into support group meetings in local church halls, and loudly proclaiming that theyve never been an alcoholic, suffered from depression or been molested by a trusted relative, and then seeming to want a fucking medal.

4. Quite Famous Person Says Thing On Social Networking Feed

Ah, Twitter. Where would desperate hacks be without it? In the olden days, they had to wait for a press release from a minor celebritys people before copy-pasting it into a story and adding their name at the top of the page. Now, thanks to Twitter, those days of waiting for pointless fluff are gone! Just hover around a celebrity Twitter feed, wait until they get a little bit peeved about something or someone, and hey presto, one instant story. Maybe even offering up the chance to use one of those verbs you only ever see in lazy tabloid stories somewhere in the headline. X SLAMS Y, A SNUBS B, that kind of thing, as above.

It neednt even be something negative, it neednt even be something thats actually happened yet. Simply keep pressing F5 on your chosen celebrity Twitter page until they reply to a fan question, and youve got a story right there. Stephen Fry looking forward to new iPhone. Britney admits love of watching DVDs. Demi Moore wouldnt much fancy being set ablaze. Lazy-arsed journalist shoots fish in barrel.

One wonderful example of this is here. Annoying focus-grouped pop rebel Pink complains about employees at a hotel she was staying at not bringing her luggage as quickly as shed like. And, thats about it. Phew, eh?

3. Person Proud Of Not Fucking Up At Work

Another theme that crops up quite often is people, who have done something, stating that theyre proud of the thing theyve just done. Now, this surely doesnt qualify as news? [Marcus] Bentley proud of iconic Big Brother?  "’24′ exec: ‘I’m proud of final season’"? "JLS ‘really proud’ of new single"? "Callies: ‘I’m proud of Prison Break’"? All tremendously obvious stuff. If any of these people had expressed deep shame and regret at their most recent projects, then that might count as actual news. If theyre proud of it, why bother publishing it. Its about as pointless as saying someone likes Jaffa Cakes.

Another pride-based non-story is where people express their aims of hopefully being proud of something in the future. Rampal: ‘I want to make my family proud’, "’Idol’ DeWyze ‘wants to be proud of album’", Nicola: ‘Poppy will be so proud of me’. Yes, well done. Were hoping BrokenTVs mum will print out this blog update, and stick it on the fridge. That doesnt mean its necessarily going to happen, and nor does it mean any of these stories have an ounce of merit. Quite frankly, the only time we want to see a headline containing the word pride on Digital Spy from now on, is when the story involves a collection of lions.

2. Shock Announcement of Thing Everyone was Expecting Anyway.

When youre famous enough, you no longer actually just mention things. Instead you reveal things. Got a producer lined up for your forthcoming album? Well, when you mention who that is, its not merely an announcement, its a revelation. A revelation of such staggering magnitude, it is genuinely worthy of that book in The Bible. You know, whats it called The First Epistle of Paul to the Thessalonians? (Readers voice: You mean The Book of Revelations, you dolt.)

Almost always, the revelations really dont deserve use of that word. its not as if Kylie had kept the executive producer of her new album under a silk sheet for months before inviting the worlds press to a glitzy unveiling ceremony, where its revealed to be GASP! Stuart Price, who has produced lots of albums a bit like Kylies new album in the past. And quite often, the news being revealed isnt even new. On the 26th of May, DS reported that Christina Aguilera has revealed the full songwriting and production credits for her new album, even though all the information therein had been doing the rounds since the previous year. Basically, reveals can easily be substituted with would like to remind everyone that they have a new product coming out soon, wherein.

1. Ive Not Done Anything Worth Mentioning, So Ill Mention A Beckham.

Are you a minor celebrity, or maybe even a nutjob scientologist Hollywood actor? Have you done absolutely shag-all of artistic worth recently? Desperate for some column inches, but dont want to go outside? Then simply MentionABeckham! Online publications love it when you do this, as it gives them a wonderful opportunity to print a photo of a grinning David or pouting Victoria alongside the article, meaning youre bound to get your story published, and your name fleetingly associated with the hottest surname in showbiz.

It really is a cert for getting your name out there. Dimwitted readers who skim-read the story might even assume youre actually good chums with the Beckhams, and if your star is shining especially brightly at the moment, itll be your face used for the lead photo a handy barometer of your current value.

However, there are rules that must be adhered to. Youre only allowed to say nice things about David, unless youve somehow time-travelled back to July 1998 and its still the immediate aftermath of his sending off against Argentina. You can however feel free to bitch about Victoria how about trying to be the billionth person on the planet to make the astonishing revelation that shes not a very good singer? Or that shes a bit up herself? If youre a really lucky female celebrity, you could even cultivate an image as her nemesis! Whizzer to her Chips. A Dalek to her Doctor. Moriarty to her Holmes. And not, say, a bitter has-been or never-will desperately clamouring for attention in the only place still nothing to be on nodding terms with you. Thats what Digital Spy is there for!

–

Its not all pointless, fluff, of course. When picking through the bones to come up with those stories, we discovered the Mulligan and OHare are to make an appearance in the forthcoming series of Shooting Stars, which is wonderful news, but its so annoying to have to delve through acres of valueless drek in order to get to a few actual pieces of interest. We can only assume that the people behind Digital Spy will soon tire of their tens of thousands of hits per day and genuinely profitable web-based business model, and soon revert to the main story being a rundown of Astra test transmission frequencies.

As an off-kilter comic in the 1980s, the most obvious move might have been for Chris Sieveys alter ego to have become one of the Friday Night Live Thatcher eh? Grr! crowd, but instead his act took a delightfully innocent turn, putting on a distinctively family friendly act, but one so wonderfully bizarre his appearances on kids television were disappointingly few and far between.

It says a lot about Frank Sidebottom that when he has cropped up on TV, radio and the mainstream media, his appearances have really stuck in our memory. Here are a few of our favourites.

- Frank becoming the most well-known contributor to legendarily raucous kids comic Oink!, Indeed, an Oink!-based tie-in single, for the post part only available via mail order, even made the lower echelons of the Indie Charts in the late 1980s.

- A brief but memorable scene in 1989 Marks & Gran-penned role reversal sitcom Snakes & Ladders saw newly gentrified pauper John Gordon Sinclair visit a posh London wine bar. Taking place in a futuristic world where South Britain is a place of luxury in sharp contrast to the squalor of the North, this was best encapsulated by the way this posh London wine bar only ever played songs by performed Frank Sidebottom.

- Before operating principally from within the head of his alter ego, Chris Sievey wrote a couple of games for the ZX Spectrum, both of which are playable at the excellent World Of Spectrum;

1983s Flying Train was just a wonderful kind of arcade affair that seemed to prevail on Uncle Clives black box or wires in the early 1980s, right from the very first instruction screen packing in delightful jokes, throwing in a phony R Tape loading error message before cheekily telling you to buy an Oric instead, and using precisely the pleasing turn of phrase that you just would never expect to see in a more sober kind of videogame:

• The game itself was simple, yet considering it was only a free giveaway game issued (quite uniquely at the time) as the B-side to Sieveys 7 single Camouflage quite enjoyable, with the player dropping the top half of a locomotive onto the bottom half of a locomotive. Why? Because youre a railwaynaut. Thats why.

- The following year saw Chris Sievey quite neatly reverse this process, with his first (and only) proper Spectrum release The Biz. This was a more traditional cassette-based release, on the Virgin Games label, with the B-side of the tape containing eight tracks from his band, Chris Sievey And The Freshies. The game itself was hugely enjoyable at the time, and somewhat surprisingly considering hardly anyone else even remembers it, still is. Despite being written wholly in BASIC, theres a lot of depth beneath the surface, and its unquestionably our favourite Rock Manager game of all time.

 

 

Indeed, us writing this tribute has become slightly delayed by us taking time out to start our new band (The Brokens) on the road to rock superstardom. No need to take our word on how much fun The Biz is, you can enjoy it for yourself right here.

- The Biz wasnt Chris Sieveys last dalliance with videogames, however. EAs TV campaign for FIFA 10 one of the worlds most popular videogaming franchises saw a lovely little cameo from Frank Sidebottom himself, possibly to the mild bemusement of viewers in the USA, where the advert also aired.

  – The early 1990s saw Frank become a more regular fixture on our TV screens, with Timperleys finest regularly cropping up alongside host Tony Wilson in Channel Fours UK version of MTVs Remote Control. Much more enjoyable however was Franks Fantastic Shed Show, going out in the wee small hours on ITV, with a tiny budget, and which saw Frank interviewing and introducing guests from Dennis Taylor to Pop Will Eat Itself. The programme also saw early appearances from Franks next door neighbour Mrs Merton, played by Caroline Aherne, who went on to become a huge comedy hit on her own.

- Sadly, it took until 2006 before Frank was given his own standalone series, but when it arrived, it was every bit as special as Shed Show. Channel Ms Frank Sidebottom’s Proper Telly Show in B/W With Repeats In Colour was a marvellous little gem, tucked away in a part of the Sky EPG few outside Manchester ever visit. As the title suggested, the first airing of each episode was in monochrome, while subsequent repeats were in full colour. Why? Because it was BRILLIANT, thats why. All great fun, with Frank interviewing a variety of guests (with David Soul seemed especially confused by the goings on), making on-location reports from the streets of Manchester, and even including a stop-motion animated show-within-the-show. If that werent enough, Channel Ms nightly testcard contained Frank engaging in bouts of improvised whimsy with his cardboard sidekick Little Frank.

Even when diagnosed with cancer, Frank speaking through his Twitter feed – remained resolutely upbeat and in character

Franks upbeat nature continued, regularly performing gigs and auctioning his artwork for cancer charities, right up until the shocking news earlier today, less than 24 hours after Franks last Twitter update, which announced that a future gig with his Oh Blimey Band should still be going ahead.

Despite rarely appearing on television, his records barely troubling the Top Forty, it seems that absolutely loads of people had a soft spot for Frank Sidebottom, so much so that as we type these words, Frank Sidebottom is the second highest trending term on Twitter globally, with people expressing their shock at the news even outnumbering people talking about the World Cup.

Right now, theres the start of a Twitter campaign to get Franks World Cup Song Three Shirts On My Line to number one in the charts. All proceeds go to Cancer Research, Were still trying to find a link to where the song can be purchased, Until then, heres a live version. If we find a working link to where it can be bought, well update this post accordingly.

 

RIP Frank Sidebottom. He will be missed. You know he will. He really will.

[UPDATE} A Facebook campaign has been started to get Frank Sidebottom to number one. Details: here.

One other highlight weve found so far is The Guardians World Cup Twitter replay, which gives a high-speed replay of matches, represented only by the most commonly used words on Twitter at the time. It makes for surprisingly compelling viewing, a bit like somehow playing Football Manager 2003 on a lava lamp:

Anyway, posters!

1994 USA

From this point on, the World Cup posters get a lot better than what weve seen, providing less scope for easy japery. The poster for the World Cup in 1994 is very well done, though it doesnt really look very American, does it? The typeface used looks a bit more suited to a tournament taking place in Africa, the central image being backed in painted yellow makes it feel a bit like the tournament is taking place in Australia, and its only really the Star Spangled Banner draped across a rough representation of the US mainland that gives any clue as to where its taking place.

Now, if it were us

That, or a representation of Diana Ross missing that penalty in the opening ceremony, against a backdrop montage of all the clip show idiots smugly sneering about it, as if theyre the first person to have ever noticed it.

1998 France

Ah, France 1998, and the World Cup finally coming home. Maybe the best tournament that weve lived through, with the possible exception of Mexico 1986. A nice lively poster, too, full of verve, energy, and its even (broadly) in the same colours as the French kit from that tournament. Though the designers still dont seem to have worked out how to draw in the semi-circles on the edges of the 18 yard boxes. Or the six yard boxes, for that matter. And those corner spots are way too big, surely those are against FIFA regulations.

Our favourite recollection of France 98: France winning the final, and, just because he didnt have anything else to really contribute to the conversation, a BBC pundit (was it Lawrenson? It might have been Mark Lawrenson) desperately noting that as France had won the thing without even having any decent strikers (poor old Stephane Guivarch), maybe that would be a tactic other countries would use from that point on. As if picking rubbish strikers would actually be a tactic. (Insert uninspired Emile Heskey joke here.)

2002 Japan/Korea

Another great poster, maybe one of our favourites so far. Its not absolutely perfect though, the placement of the text seems to be a bit of an afterthought, and it doesnt even try to sum up either host nation. Wed have plumped for maybe a photoshoot of dozens of colourfully haired J-Pop and K-Pop starlets in cosplay uniforms. But then, thats probably the kind of thing youd expect from slightly desperate males who spend too much time playing videogames and using the internet. But come on! What about Ayumi Hamasaki and Wondergirls peering out shyly from beneath a pile of flags? Cor!

2006 Germany

Ignoring the chuckling Mr Men that make up the tournament logo, this is another great poster, marred only slightly by the fact no-one has used footballs that look like that since about 1966. At least if it had been an Adidas Telstar ball, which is a bona-fide design classic, we could allow it. Admittedly, the poster doesnt really say Germany, but if we want to see lazy assumptions on what constitutes German culture, we could just pick up a copy of The Sun in any month where England are about to play Germany. We really would have loved it if Tok Tok Vs Soffy O had played at the opening ceremony, mind.

Germany 2006 was another great tournament, mind. And hey! Maybe all those stars represent what Marco Materazzi saw after Zidane headbutted him! Eh? Eh? Aah, factually inaccurate cutting edge satire arriving  just three years and eleven months too late, there.

2010 South Africa

Finally, the poster for the current tournament (i.e. the one were half-ignoring right NOW, in order to write this rubbish). Its very good poster, too. A footballer, playing football, the subtle inclusion of a map of South Africa as the footballers lower neck, a lovely clear design, AND the football is the classic Adidas Telstar ball, as used in the 1970 and 1974 tournaments. Its a wonderful poster that were finding it hard to be negative about.

HOWEVER! If it were really to encapsulate what seems to the most obvious trait of the 2010 World Cup, it just needs one very subtle inclusion.

Enjoy the football, everyone!

Were we right, or were we just being as stultifyingly idiotic as all the Britons who feel the need to post comments on American sports blog articles about soccer angrily exclaiming ITS CALLED FOOTBALL?

(Note to such people: Americans tend to call it soccer, its an American website, written by an American writer, for an audience mainly comprised of American people. Thats what they call the sport, as their have their own sport which they call football, you dolts. Would you post on the Gazzetta Dello Sport website petulantly bitching about how its not called calcio, its called football? No, you wouldnt, so stop being every bit as ignorant of slightly different cultures as you like to think Americans are when they refer to the sport of association football as soccer. Thank you.)

1974 WEST GERMANY

See how wrong we were. That right there is a pretty great official poster. A simplistic yet hugely effective action shot of a footballer kicking a football, against a nicely understated brown backdrop. The reliably classy Helvetica used for the text, with the dates of the tournament and the host cities modestly tucked out of the way, and a pleasingly effective WM74 official logo. We cant even think of anything nasty to say about it, its a brilliant poster.

So, instead, were going to be nasty about something on television. Please could anyone involved in BBC Threes World Cups Most Shocking Moments please go and live in  a ditch from now until the end of time? Cor, when England avent qualified, everyone always supports whoever Germanys opponents are, dont they? We all do! Gorblimeyluvaduck, we all ate dem Germans, dont we! Well, no. Some of us have made the logical leap that as no members of the German national team were actually involved in the holocaust, or indeed any part of World War II, theres no real reason to dislike them in any way, unless of course youre a bit of a bigoted fuck. Thank you.

And Englands Worst Ever Team really wasnt any better. Ha ha! Gary Nevilles one of Englands worst ever players, because he once grew a wispy moustache and hes an easy target for ridicule. And look! He hugged his team-mate and friend David Beckham a few times after hed scored a goal, so hes also secretly homosexual! I mean, yeah, he won about 80 caps for his country and Im just a rubbish stand-up who appeared on a Paramount Comedy Channel panel show twice in 2007 and done little else since and all that, but wispy moustache! A-ha-ha-ha. Really, for making us think well, thats a bit unfair when hearing someone slag off Gary Neville (Gary sodding Neville!), you probably deserve to die in a house fire.

1978 ARGENTINA

Over to South America for the next World Cup, and its in jolly old Argentina, then in the grip of a military dictatorship. POP FACT! The original draft for the poster had the intention more of keeping the visiting journalists in check, lest they ask a few too many questions on why all the poor people have suddenly disappeared from Buenos Ares, and what are all these rumours about concentration camps?

Oh. Right. Doesnt matter. Tee-hee, Scotland are rubbish!

1982 SPAIN

What the bloody hell? The last few posters had seen a return to a motif of someone actually playing football, but the poster for Spain 82 took things in a wholly new direction. We think, anyway. Though it might not have done. Is that someone playing football? Is that red thing in the top right a football? Is the multicoloured blob in the middle a footballer? Is the oblong in the bottom right meant to be a goal? Or is that in fact the official mascot of the 1982 World Cup, Surreal-O?

Well, its actually the latter. Surreal-O became a huge hit in school playgrounds around the globe, and even had his own spin-off animated series. BrokenTV was only a very tiny child at the time, but even we remember dashing home from infants and scoffing our tea in time for the continuity announcement along the lines of but first on Children’s ITV, another dose of Dadaist daredevilry from Surreal-O & Chums.

It was utterly brilliant, too. Surreal-O, along with his best pal Fergus Fluxus, and four-legged sidekick Nouveau Ralisme The Dog, could often be found sitting around in expensive coffee shops pondering the launch of new literary journals, wondering if staying in bed all day could be classed as an anti-art statement, railing against the meaninglessness of broadcast mediums by refusing to appear on screen and speaking only in numbers for an entire three episode story arc, and accidentally smashing his dads greenhouse then trying to claim it had never actually been a greenhouse. Ah, happier times.

1986 MEXICO AGAIN

After the disappointment of the 1970 Official World Cup poster, Mexico were given the tournament again, just so they could come up with a better poster. This was the result.

Thats right. A silhouette of Bruce Forsyth set against some Aztec statues, and a football. A winner, were saying, though we do prefer this unused draft that we have uncovered:

1990 ITALY

1990! Thrills! Spills! Bellyaches! Toto Schillaci! A really boring World Cup Final! That BBC World Cup Grandstand theme tune that everyone loved, even though we preferred the ITV theme tune that year, because were awkward!

An iconic image of The Colosseum, with a crude illustration of a football pitch in the middle, seemingly drawn by someone who didnt have a bleeding clue what a football pitch actually looks like. We imagine the idea was to use the three colours of the Italian flag; the rosso, the blanco and the, erm, green. But really, if theres ONE thing youre going to make green when drawing the football pitch, it should be THE PITCH. The outer perimeter would be the place to put the red, you could just tell everyone its a running track or something. But no. They had to go and balls it up.

Maybe they painted in the outer perimeter first, giggling to themselves over what must have seemed like the easiest commission ever. They were just to paint in the pitch itself, when they happened to take another glance at the design brief.

Oh. Oh dear. It says here and the central illustration MUST contain the three colours of Il Tricolore but Ive already done the outside bits in green!

You idiot! We cant start again, Joo Havelange is already on his way here to collect the finished artwork! Hell be furious. Look, er just colour the pitch in red.

But thatll look rubbish! Itll look more like a basketball court, if anything. I wont even have time to paint in the semi-circles on the edge of the eighteen yard boxes. And hes bound to notice, hes the President of FIFA, not some corrupt businessman who only cares about abusing his position for personal gain! Were doomed.

Quick! Hes in the reception area!

Ooh, bloody heck!

TOMORROW: 1994-2006,

1950 BRAZIL

For the 1950 finals, the winners were universally expected to be host nation Brazil. Indeed, they were expected to win to such a degree, many of their group stage opponents rested their star players for their more winnable matches. Mexico actually fielded a team of mannequins dressed in football jerseys and Mexican hats for their first round match against the Brazilians, succumbing to a four-nil defeat. It might well have been more, but the plastic backline proved to make for a surprisingly effective offside trap. Plus, plastic full-backs are statistically less likely to be bamboozled by stepovers.

The poster continued France 1938s theme of not bothering to draw an entire footballer, this time only bothering to go as far as one leg. Presumably, the remainder of the football is attached to that leg, though we cant really dismiss the notion that its merely a leg attached to a stick. Note the multinational socks, and the use of the Union Flag to represent England, as opposed to the St Georges Cross, which always used to be the case for some strange reason.

And how did Brazil get on? Well, quite famously, they ended up losing in the final to a determined Uruguay team. By the time theyd reached the final, such was the fear theyd instilled into opponents wary of being humiliated, Brazil had mainly found themselves facing teams comprised of shop dummies, farmyard animals and kitchen appliances. By the time they came to face the Uruguayans, the Brazilian side had grown so complacent after so many walks in the park, they were taken by surprise at coming up against eleven animate objects.

1954 SWITZERLAND

Back to Europe for the 1954 World Cup, and as such a minimalist work was commissioned for the poster artwork. And how rubbish is that goalkeeper? That football is easily twice the size of a beach ball, and he still missed it. Though, to be fair, what with him only having one eye, his depth perception is probably not the best. If anything, its surprising he even made the squad.

The increased size of the balls used in the tournament, as seen here, was part of a concerted effort to keep the final scores down. Clearly, it didnt work; both the quarter-finals and semi-finals saw an astonishing average of 6.5 goals per match, including a demented match between Austria and hosts Switzerland which finished 7-5 to the Austrians. Something would HAVE to be done.

1958 SWEDEN

As the poster for the 1958 tournament showed, FIFA had probably messed with the rules a little TOO much. The increased size of the new match ball did succeed in keeping the scores low, with the quarter-finals now seeing an average of just two goals per match. This was mainly due to the fact that if the newly oversized ball could now barely fit beneath the crossbar, and even then the goalkeeper could generally keep a clean sheet by simply grabbing hold of the flags that FIFA insisted be affixed to the ball in a misguided attempt at bringing the competing nations together.

The tournament took a sombre turn when the diminutive Yugoslav winger Boris Petelovic was crushed by one of the oversized footballs in a pre-tournament friendly against East Germany, after foolishly trying to collect a hoofed clearance on his shin. As a result, there was a tribute paid to him in the opening ceremony, and the official tournament poster was designed with his final moments in mind. Just look at his expression of dismayed resignation being obscured by the growing shadow of the brown sphere about to end his life. Brr.

Surely, after such a senseless waste of a human life, FIFA would ensure that the size of match balls was restricted to a more sensible size? Well, if history has taught us anything, its that FIFA never really get things right.

1962 CHILE

In one of the most stupid miscalculations ever made by a sports governing body, FIFA finally accepted that making the match ball smaller would keep the sport entertaining, and new dimensions for a regulation match ball were drawn up in early 1959. However, things would not quite go according to plan.

The original idea was for the ball to be a more modest 37.2 centimetres in diameter. However, a fly getting jammed in FIFAs telex machine caused Santiago-based sportswear firm Ramirez, Toro and sons to make a prototype football with a diameter of some 37,200 kilometres. Not only did the sheer amount of material used to make the football cause a global shortage in leather, lace and rubber (causing supply chain chaos for the S&M manufacturing community), but the weight of the thing caused earthquakes on an unprecedented scale in the host nation.

(Poking fun at the 1960 Valdivia earthquake? Too soon?)

Much worse than that, the scale of the ball actually caused the globes axis to tilt wildly, meaning that from 1960 to 1962, Australia was technically inside the Antarctic circle, and the year of 1961 actually lasted some 437 days, effectively sending the months September to November into extra time. A series of tactical nuclear strikes eventually corrected the planets axis and trajectory around the sun, and the ball was eventually shot into space (where its now known as the planet Venus). Concerned that all those events would soon be forgotten about, it was decided that the official tournament poster would mark the events of 1960 and 1961.

Despite all that, the tournament is mainly remembered for a small dog pissing on Jimmy Greaves.

1966 ENGLAND

Some people are on the pitch! This is disgraceful behaviour, the match should be stopped and the result overturned immediately! Ah, everyone remembers that famous piece of commentary from BBC Scotlands Wee Kenny McWolstenhume.

1966 is the year that, as everyone knows, a British team wearing red won the World Cup. Sadly though, it was England. This poster is a much jollier affair than in previous years, even if the main illustration looks like its from an Evening Standard comic strip, and not even an especially popular Evening Standard comic strip, rather than the finely crafted embodiment of a proud nation. And, of course, lions generally only exist in Sub-Saharan Africa and in Asia, so its very unlikely that World Cup Willie was actually eligible for an England call-up in the first place. Not to mention that there was almost definitely a clause in FIFAs rule book that all 22 members of the squads in the 1966 finals had to be, at the very least, members of the Homo genus of bipedal primates. Typical England, always cheating.

1970 MEXICO

Much more like it. Mexico 1970, generally regarded as the greatest World Cup finals of all time (well, at least until the 2010 World Cup, where New Zealand will beat the Ivory Coast 7-6 in the final, after extra time). Note how the illustrations had been growing simpler over the previous few tournaments? 1962 saw a grandiose illustration actually taken by sending the artists into outer space, whereas 1966 saw a cartoon lion looking pretty pleased with itself against a plan backdrop. Mexico70 took things one step further, with a plain backdrop, and a few polygons thrown at the page in order to make a vague ball shape. Luckily, its the iconic MEXICO70 typeface that really saves the day. And how iconic was the branding of this World Cup finals? Iconic enough for MEXICO70 to already be included in Windows Live Writers inline spellcheck. Thats how iconic.

We mean, admittedly, it does the same for pretty much any city name and number combination. Swansea1976 also avoids coming up as a spelling error, and its a matter of public record that nothing of any interest happened in Swansea in 1976. But anyway, it was a very memorable tournament. with loads of iconic moments, not limited to but including Pele sitting atop someone elses shoulder. Gordon Banks making an overrated save from a header about fourteen yards out, and (quite brilliantly) one of the pitchside advertisement hoardings in the final being for the Daily Mirror.

See:

Given the number of iconic moments it led to (Readers Voice: Stop saying iconic!), its all a bit of a shame that the official poster for the greatest World Cup final tournaments ever looked like the rejected artwork for a promo copy of a Primal Scream remix 12 from 1991. And the next tournaments going to be in West Germany! How functional and minimalist will THAT be? Itll probably just be the word fussball74 in comic cans, beneath a beige circle. Oh no!

TOMORROW: GERMANY 1974 onwards.

Now, these are something that you hardly seem to see when the actual tournament is going on, but they tend to be used after the event quite often. The official poster art allows an artist from each host nation to sum up their homeland, the decade, and the continent-uniting power of football all in one simple image. And yet, the practice doesnt even seem to warrant a Wikipedia entry of its own, nor is there much background information available on FIFAs website.

Now surely, there MUST be a lot of background information on each poster somewhere, but if there is, its not easy to find. Someone, preferably a blog with a surprisingly high Google ranking, really should get around to writing a definitive guide to these cultural artefacts.

GOOD NEWS! Someone has done just that. BAD NEWS! Its us. Disclaimer: where we arent sure of the facts, we are going to make things up. And that will be most of the time.

1930: URUGUAY

  The first ever World Cup, held in Uruguay and later aloft by the winning captain of that country, and maybe best known for being the World Cup that anyone who could be bothered turning up got to take part. This was mainly due to FIFA still being a relatively new body, and the four British nations abstaining (from the World Cup and FIFA itself), as they were still treating the Home Internationals at the true method of determining the best footballing nation on the planet. And we reckon even then, lazy comedians scoffed at the Baseball World Series only ever including teams from North America. Tsk, eh?

Anyway, the cut and paste approach of the first ever World Cup was reflected in the first ever Official FIFA World Cup Poster, which has entirely out of fuzzy felt. And, it seems, Mr Tickle from Roger Hargreaves Mr Men books saving a goalbound shot was the central image.

1934: ITALY

Famously, the World Cup held under the gaze of Benito Mussolini, with the dictator keen to use the tournament as a means of promoting fascism. Astonishingly, this extended as far as post-mach interviews with goalscorers taking place in front of a backdrop comprised of jackbooted feet stomping on faces, and some controversial pitch-side advertising, as this rarely seen photo of the host nations post-final celebrations shows.

The poster itself was a little less overt in its support of murderous regimes, seeing a bigshorted sportsman kicking a ball. See, if nothing else, at least fascists in the 1930s knew their marketing. Much like how all marketing executives in the modern day are all fascists! Oh, come on! You wouldnt come up with a campaign like the We! Buy! Any! Car! Dot! Com! one unless youve a deep seated desire to kick everyone who isnt exactly like you very hard in the face.

1938: FRANCE

Ah, some things are just more fun to say when theyve been translated into French, dont they? Coupe du Monde is right up there with ou est le gare and bon appetit. Some may say that were being needlessly pretentious when we say that, but wed say au contraire, which is certainly more sophisticated than just saying bollocks.

The poster is a doozy, too. A huge golden footballer, standing atop the WORLD ITSELF. Its quite interesting to see the acronym FIFA appear on a poster for the first time too, along with the lesser-spotted FFFA. Whats that, you might be asking. Well, as we can EXCLUSIVELY reveal, its the remnants of an earlier, less successful draft of the poster.

1942: NO WORLD CUP

Due to World War II, there was no World Cup tournament, but few people realise that FIFA actually did commission a poster regardless. It only got as far as the draft stage, and included an image of two footballers tussling for a 50:50 ball, and Hitler ruining everyones fun by sticking a fucking great pitchfork through the ball. Boo! Well, in another exclusive, weve actually got that original poster design for you! Here! Now!

1946: NO WORLD CUP

1946, and despite the war being over, no World Cup again. With there having been no time for the qualification rounds (and many European nations still mostly being on fire at the time), it was all a pretty unworkable proposition. That said, FIFA did commission another poster for the non-tournament, which AGAIN, we have exclusively unearthed:

PART TWO TOMORROW!

Is there any way of getting these old age pensioners to PLAY? Really, if wed been involved in these live broadcasts, wed have kept cocking things up on purpose, solely for the benefit of people from the future putting things on YouTube. Whatever that turned out to be.

Meanwhile, from the infamous Good King Memorex BBC VT Christmas tape, heres some footage of Stewart Morris getting only mildly miffed with a take of The Wengelbert Humptyback Show.

Sadly, that seems to be it on YouTube for shouty Stewart Morris moments. Unless anyone knows differently, of course. While it wouldnt be too surprising if there arent that many recordings that survive of gallery chatter from 1970s/80s light entertainment shows (or indeed, recordings of the actual shows themselves) that are still in public circulation, we do really hope there are more out there.

For now though, well do what we can to increase the amount of Stewart Morris clippage on YouTube. Here, from 2003s Pegg-narrated What Was The Week We Watched, is the tale of Stewart Morris deciding to well, slightly mislead a certain internationally acclaimed diva.

Apologies for aspect-ratio wrongness. It was recorded onto a steam-powered DVD recorder back in 2003, and were too technologically challenged (and lazy) to do much about putting it in 16:9.

Coincidentally, that same episode of TWTWWW did include a look back at Eurovision 1977, but only includes a short exchange with Stewart Morris, and doesnt even mention the talkback track, so it wasnt worth putting online. Unless you all really want to find out that Angela Rippon is so tremendously polite, she meekly mimes the word bloody when quoting an angry lighting technician.

23:13 Germany wins, and all the songs we like got nowhere. And the UK ended up finishing BOTTOM OF THE ENTIRE CONTINENT, meaning we werent even right about that. Mind you, in a roundabout way, Wales beat England (as in Cyprus beat the UK, right at the arse end of the table), which is about as Pyrrhic a victory as you can get.

Anyway, goodnight, and thanks for tuning in! Well leave you with a glimpse of much happier times.

23:00 Remember when we said the UK would finish second from bottom, right at the start of this live blog?

LOOK ASTONISHED.

22:40 Germany are storming it, despite their entry being so bloody exciting we cant even remember what it was. Anyway, Estonias results are being announced by what appears to be Sasha Baron Cohens camp new comic character.

22:24 Ouch. Theres just been an utterly great interval showpiece where the show cut live to dancing flashmobs from around Europe, and about a billion people dancing at a concert in Hamburg. Then they did a slightly weak gag about the main Eurovision boss guy, which didnt work at all. It went down about as well as when the CEO of whichever company is sponsoring the British Comedy Awards gets to present an award. Anyway, scores! Numbers! Woo! (Exciting food update: the thing we got to eat was: a chilli dog. It was quite nice.)

21:59 Thats all the songs. Coming soon, the only bit we used to watch of the entire evening, because it involves lots of numbers being added up really slowly, and were quite geeky like that. Right now though, were going to get something to eat. Everyone on Twitter wants Albania to win. Were a bit worried that having to host Eurovision might just bugger up their economy. Wont anyone think of the poor Albanian public?

21:31 HOLY FREAKING SHIT. The male host was just doing a piece to camera, when suddenly he stopped talking, and just started staring, blank and utterly emotionless.

His unflinching gaze maybe only lasted about ten seconds, but it was so utterly chilling that it seemed to last long enough for whole continents to form and break away, for entire universes to be born and die.

The camera slowly panned in, as if to press him into reacting, leaving his cold merciless glare looming ever larger on hundreds of millions of plasmas, LCDs and CRTs around the planet. The only faint signs of life were his nostrils, flaring and contracting wildly as his breathing grew quicker and quicker with each passing second, and his eyes, which began to dart around frantically, as if he had just become fully and overwhelmingly conscious that its this, this moment right now that will come to define his entire time on this planet, and that anything else he does from this point on will just seem empty, hollow, pointless and futile. As soon as the credits roll in about eighty minutes, he will never again be able to taste the feeling of astonishing power that he has right now. He may be at the top of the rollercoaster ride, but everything from this moment, to the day he dies, will just seem blank by comparison. Every. Single. Thing.

  And yet his body and face was frozen. Utterly motionless. His eyes darted around furiously, as if they were now the only part of his body not utterly, irrevocably paralyzed by the moment, the biggest moment, his moment. His rigid grin granted a terrified and transfixed global audience a terrifyingly revealing clue towards the huge explosion of fear, paranoia, ecstacy and dread going on inside his mind.

Finally, there was an almost imperceptable shake of his head, and he said Portugal, there. And now lets take a look at the next contestant. It was a moment that had us truly spellbound.

Nah, not really. There was a rubbish joke about Icelands volcano and then some more disappointing ballads.

21:24 Romania are on, and theyve got a cheap-looking perspex two-person grand piano. Their chorus rhymes the word fire with the word desire. Was it written by a ten-year-old? That should be punishable by a hefty fine and a one-year suspension from the competition, if you ask us. Uh-oh – it also throws the word higher in there, too. Wed up the ban to five years for that.

 21:18 There have been more bands on. Albanias entry was really good, Icelands entry was instantly catchy and pretty damn ace, the others were mostly rubbish. BUT! Here comes France, and a jumpy Europop song that is also the nations official World Cup song. Its quite good, and seems to necessitate a load of jumping around, which makes it hard to get a decent screen capture of them.

 OUR TOP FOUR SO FAR: 1. Iceland. 2. Albania. 3. Moldova. 4. France.

21:03 Turkeys turn, and a manufactured nu-metal band so very unexciting they make Limp Bizkit look edgy. This is probably as close as were getting to interesting this year, apart from Moldovas entry, which is the best song so far. Instead of watching Turkeys song which tries to amp up the excitement by having someone pretending to be a robot on stage were looking at more pictures on Wikipedia from Eurovision 2008. It was brilliant. Wheres Rodollfo Chikilicuatre when you need him?

And just look at Slovenias entry from 2008:

Thats proper interesting, Turkey.

20:58 One of the hosts has just given us a (pre-recorded) glimpse at Graham Nortons commentary booth, and a nice chat with him. This was quite excellently talked all over by Graham Norton himself, dismissing it all for the lightweight pan-continental faff it is. At one point, Norton pointed out that he had nothing to do with the interior design of his booth, and that it was all the producers fault. And no wonder, it looks like its been vandalised by the BNP.

20:46 Summary of last few acts. Belarus, dull, though we did get to make a rubbish joke about them being called Three Up Two Down, just so we could name check the late Michael Elphick. Irelands entry is nicely scaled back, and Quite Good If You Like That Sort Of Thing. We suspect our mum likes this one the best so far. As we type, Greece are up, with a song weve now heard twice in one week. First time around, it was tolerable. Second time: annoying.

Why cant it all be like Eurovision 2008, which was the first one we ever watched in full, with loads of brilliantly demented acts like Laka

Kreisraadio

Irelands magnificent Dustin The Turkey, which made mention of Terry Wogans wig. Sadly, it got knocked out in the semi final, meaning the UK was robbed of the chance to hear Sir Tel explode with mock outrage in the final

All that, PLUS Seb Tellier, singing the best Eurovision song of recent years. BRING BACK THAT TYPE OF EUROVISION, not the useless frigging rejected Big Fun album filler that the UK is represented by this year. Its just the kind of song an EastEnders actor in their early 20s would use to launch a pop career, crawl to number 37 in the charts, and subsequently disappear from the music industry completely.

20:39 Yikes. Its like a The Fly-type teleportation had been tried out by Kenneth The Page from 30 Rock, and somehow Casey Tatum from the Uncle Muscles sketches in Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job and Photoshops Gaussian Blur tool had both crawled into the booth at the same time. A horrible mutation takes place, resulting in

20:34 Belgium. A man and a guitar. Boring. We did get a nice arty screencap of it though. Why couldnt Vive La Fete be the choice for Belgium? Because theyve got artistic integrity? Ah, right.

 20:29: An earnest entry from Wales, there. Not very good, but we still want it to win. Over on Twitter, the reliably great @lauriepink is doing live sketches of all the entrants. Well worth a look. Better than the uninspired chod were coming out with on here. Everyone just uses Twitter now. No-one is even going to be reading until tomorrow, at which point itll be out of date. Tsk. We cant post rambling self-defeatism like this on Twitter! Oh, and Bosnia-Herzegovina’s entry is quite good. Not Moldova good, but better than the Welsh song good.

20:24: Moldovas turn, as despite being represented by an annoyingly wacky berk with a neon violin (hes just stuck his tongue out at the camera. Have some decorum, man!), and an Aqua tribute act, its bloody catchy. Proper late 90s catchy pop. Our current favourite to win.

Ooh, Wales are up. For some reason, the montage seems to be set in Cyprus. Were still saying its Wales, though. It was close as were getting to a World Cup finals any time soon.

20:16. What vision of hell is this? Spains entry is quite bad, but at least livened up by being performed by a strange amalgam of Jedward and former Bolton Wanderers lynchpin Ivan Campo, backed with disturbing people dressed up as toys. Spain, of course, are one of the countries who didnt have to pre-qualify for the final, much like the UK. One reason we always do so badly is that the UKs entry is up against a load of songs that were already good enough to survive one phone vote. The main reason the UK always does so badly is that the songs are always unmitigated shite, of course.

Norway are up now. Not a song were really going for, but the sort of thing that could well win. Its not terrible, but the sort of thing that could be the closing music for a slightly annoying Richard Curtis romantic comedy, and as such a song we could never really like.

20:10. IT BEGINS. Eurovision 2010 is GO, and after a fashion, so does our live blog (we had a pop-up to update Windows Live Writer, we downloaded it, then couldnt install it strai you dont care? Okay!). Throughout, well also be tweeting, because were a multiplatform service. Not much going on yet, though. Azerbaijan are first up, and its a bit bland. Expect us to use the world bland quite often, going by most of the songs that won through from the semis. We might not even bother watching it, but we want to see how well Wales do. Admittedly, Wales arent really there, but a Welsh chap is singing for Cyprus, and not in a bad version of World In Motion sense (Were singin for Cyprus! Cy! Per! Us!)).

PREDICTION: The UKs entry to finish second from last.