Vandals scrawl graffiti on exhibition photo of Beckham

The words “Beckham and Meier, you loosers” were also scribbled on a wall opposite a picture of Pele. […] The misspelling of ‘losers’ may have been a reference to Rebecca Loos, whose claims of an affair with Beckham made headlines earlier this year.

Least plausible spin ever. It was because they were illiterate. Duh.

Kelvin MacKenzie calls for the dismantlement of the BBC, and scrapping the notion of the licence fee, saying a licence-funded BBC “is not required and could be paid for by commercial forces.”

Meanwhile, over on ITV now… Dumb Foreigners

GNER are running a promotion for cheap off-peak fares (Only £25 for London-Edinburgh). As I am having to face the prospect of running up to Edinburgh at some point soon to sort out where I’m going to live when I do my Masters, I thought I’d check it out.

Now, a sensible company running a website and online booking system would surely orientate the system so that it would tell you which trains these nice cheap fares are available on. Instead, you have to enter random dates and times and wait for the frustratingly slow interface to tell you whether there are cheap tickets available for then. After much pissing about, I think that there are no tickets on the days I want for the next 2-3 weeks, but I can’t be sure. I’m going to have to ring them tomorrow to make sure. :-( So much for easy online booking.

I don’t know why but Lost In Translation: The trailer we’d like to see (via Sore Eyes), though quite sarky, tickled my funny bone.

Update: Speaking of hot dogs, the talk of town at the moment is this hot dog advert (WMV, several MBs) which basically consists of a bloke saying the word “girthy” over and over again - which has provoked a Slate article speculating on its homoerotic aspects. I don’t think it’s anything to do with that, it’s probably because they’re running out of ways of distracting you from what the sausages are actually made out of.

Worst lookalikes in the world, ever (via Popbitch)

Note how many of the pictures are either taken at funny angles or corrupted by lossy compression. And as for the rest - that second Alan Partridge - who told that man he looked like the real thing?

While in London this weekend I popped by Borough Market to do some shopping. As I was walking down Borough High Street, all of a sudden half a dozen police motorcycles charged down the street and started blocking off traffic, which was all a bit mysterious and scary-looking, until a friendly person in a Samsung T-shirt told me that the Olympic torch run was passing through the area. Not for the first time I wished I had bought the camera attachment for my mobile phone.

Eventually the torch arrived, but it got held up by a bus stuck in the way of the TV van that was covering proceedings. Cue all the policemen on motorcycles (who were absolutely loving it, zooming up and down and empty street) swarming about attempting to get it out of the torch bearer’s way, but with not much clue as to how to do it. The words “piss up” and “brewery” came to mind, and it was a good 5-10 minutes before they managed to escort it out of the way and give the bearer safe passage. Not really confidence-boosting, if we can’t organise one day of a torch run to go smoothly, then how can we hope to host the entire damn Games?

I love this - GPS Drawings (via b3ta). People travelling about whilst continually recording their position via GPS, resulting in giant drawings. My personal favourites include a giant game of noughts and crosses, the word ‘If’ in 70 mile high letters, and the terror of Swindon’s Magic Roundabout. There are 3D and colourised interpretations too, to make it all the prettier.

Just taken a lunchtime stroll round Cambridge, paying special attention to the taxi ranks and building sites around town, and there’s barely an England flag in sight. It’s as if we’re in complete denial over last night - it never happened, there is no European Championship.