YouTube: Pop Stars Falling

• Beyonce (poor quality but full points for fall)
  
• Bono (walks backwards off stage - wish I could see the Edge's reaction)
  
• Christina Aguilera (just a stumble)
  
• Axl Rose (does he do it deliberately?)
  
• Robbie Williams (but he carries if off with aplomb)
  

Bonus: models falling down.

Sports: Euro 2008

A Euro 2008 round-up.

• I had blamed ESPN for the useless statistics flashed on-screen, but now that I'm back in Ireland, I realise they are part of the official TV feed. A typical example showed that one team led the other 4-3 in being caught Offside. And what's up with showing how many kilometers a player has covered during the game? And how do they measure it?
  
• At least I have escaped Tommy Smyth. Choice Tommy quote: "It's amazing the way the game can change with the flick of an eye."
  
• Now I can hear proper football commentary - a rollcall of players' names as they pass the ball around. Just the way God meant it to be.
  
• All the commentators were very careful how they pronounced the name of Russian midfielder Zhirkov. Hard to hear it without thinking of the joke about the manager who told the player he'd pull him off at half time. Too bad Zhirkov didn't get to play in Bern's Wankdorf Stadium.
  
• I do think it's highly insensitive of ESPN to call their Spanish-language channel ESPN Deportees. The vast majority of Latinos in the US are there legally.
  
• Match the players with their country.
  

  Petit		Germany
  Roger Guerreiro		Sweden
  Lukas Podolski		Poland
  Zlatan Ibrahimović		Portugal

  
  
• Lookalike: Italian coach (already fired) Roberto Donadoni and Flaming Lips leader Wayne Coyne.
  
• I was going to post another lookalike of Franck Ribery and the face-melting Nazi from Indiana Jones, but apparently Ribery was in a bad car accident when he was a kid. As a result, he can only grow a sideburn on one side of his head.
  
• Football is being ruined by one thing: shirt-pulling. There should be an immediate red card for anyone caught tugging another player's shirt. Video replays should be used to enforce the rule. The only alternative is that all players must wear oven mitts.
  
• None of the kits blew me away. I liked the retro look of the German kit. And the numbers on the Dutch shirts crack me up - they look like someone made them from strips of electrical tape. The English Premier League has a standard set of numbers that everyone must use. I'm glad I'm not the only one who was delighted by Germany's typeface in Euro 1996. (But he doesn't like the Dutch "toilet paper numbers.)
  
• Best ESPN quote was from Adrian Healey when the Netherlands added a fourth goal against France: "It's a Dutch Oven, and the French are toast."
  

Sports: Caught Peeking

• Jose Lima eyeing Korean baseball cheerleader
  
• David Beckham checking out Laker Girl's arse
  
• Beckham's sons carry on the family tradition
  
• Now it's Posh's turn
  

Music: Action Biker

I'm not mad about her synthy backing music, but I'm smitten with the Swedish singer who goes by the name Action Biker (born Sarah Nyberg Pergament). In the second half of this video she conjugates French verbs to a ye-ye beat. (You can hear it at her MySpace too.) She sings three songs in this video, just her head singing to the camera. (The first song reminds me very much of early Cardigans.)

One of her many other projects is The Dreamers.

Unrelated: a 3-year-old explains "Star Wars".

Quiz: Presidential Relatives

Eric supplies this quiz. Name the President (or Predidential candidate) who is associated with each relative (some of these are merely metaphorical):

1. Crazy Uncle in the attic
   
2. Crazy Aunt in the basement
   
3. Uncle Joe
   
4. Straying Sisters
   
5. Billy Beer
   

Literature: Clandestine

Read At Work offers a clever interface to read public domain poems and short stories at work. (Via Largehearted Boy.)