Weekend Stuff...

Well, well, well. How about that for a weekend. A real mixed bag, one might say.

An epic Doctor Who finale, a bollo performance from England's 'Golden Generation' against the Germans and some tremendous sets from a sweltering Glastonbury served up onto the tellybox by Auntie.

First things first, Who was really excellent. It had me thinking 'this is pretty good for the first few minutes' and then Matt Smith said "It's a fez. I wear a fez now. Fezzes are cool." At which point the entertainment part of my brain blurted out 'Ok, this is the best thing ever'. The performances were towering, the writing nothing short of brilliant and just enough intrigue was left to leave me wondering how I'll get by until the Christmas special.

Second things second, England are a painful team to watch. With my Swiss hopes already dashed by remarkable profligacy in front of goal against Honduras and a rather dubious red card against Chile, I now settled down to watch Capello's unchanged 4-4-2 take on a youthful and exciting German team. England's chances had been talked up by pundits and fans alike, but I (though I must confess I missed the Slovenia game) wasn't so hopeful having seen two uninspired and frankly uninspiring performances against the USA and Algeria. But then, surely this was the moment to step up to the plate and silence the doubters, the moments when things would turn around?

Well, no, not really, as it happened. The positive thinking lasted all of 20 minutes and then 'keeper Manuel Neuer smacked a drop kick 100 yards down the pitch, bouncing over the heads of a hapless Terry and Upson, for Miroslav Klose to slot past a furious David James. Village. The fury was compounded seconds later as dicy German passing led to Lukas Podolski smashing home through David James' legs from the tightest of angles. It was looking as though it could be a cricket score, when a chipped cross from Frank Lampard found the head of Matthew Upson who fired it over a rather flappy Neuer and into the net. The lifeline we'd supposedly been waiting for? It was the much-maligned Lampard who struck again sending a trademark slapshot 0f the crossbar and in. Except well, was it in though? Well, yes it was, but that didn't stop the Uruguayan ref and his assistant failing to notice this.

It all became irrelevant in the second half however as another incisive German counterattack (as a historian it's very, very difficult not to draw parrallels with the Battle of the Bulge and such like...) saw 20 year old Thomas Mueller, one of Germany's most impressive youths along with 21 year old Mesut Oezil, slot home and the quickfire double salvo was completed with another close range finish from the Bayern Muenchen youngster, 3 minutes later. The rout was complete, the misery confounded. Hope was lost the moment that Capello revealed his game-chasing attacking substitution to be Heskey on for Defoe.

It was an abject, miserable performance from the 'golden generation'. Rooney looked as feckless up front as he had done all tournament, Glen Johnson failed to be in the correct defensive position once, Terry and Upson resembled the Chuckle brothers at centre half and all were run rings round by the youthful exuberance of the talented Germans, as painful as that is to say.

An 'inquest' was promised by the commentators. To be fair, Lineker and chums could have summed up the performance simply as 'the Germans were much, much better at football than we were'. Shearer wasn't best pleased either. Hansen declared that the Germans brought 'ideas that England just couldn't cope with'. Yeah, like 'defending'.

The big players didn't perform. It was simple, England weren't a team, they were a collection of egos made to wear the same colour shirt for 90 hopeless, agonising minutes. Rooney is perhaps the greatest villain of all. Knackered and impotent up front, he's made Slovakia's Robert Vittek look like Pele. Hopefully some of the deadwood will have been cleared out in time for the Euros in 2 years time, but don't count on it.

Third things third, Glastonbury has some pretty stonking performances. Obviously on occasions such as these, it is the headliners that draw the most attention. Friday saw Gorillaz deputising for U2 and their crocked, divisive lead singer Bono and, by all accounts, not particularly well. Revellers began to drift away from the Pyramid Stage during a downbeat set which included only a couple of big hits. Contrast this with the other two headliners, Muse and Stevie Wonder, who produced terrific feel-good greatest hits sets (and with my favourite Glasto perfromance of recent memory, last year's epic Bruce Springsteen set) and you can see perhaps why a psyched-up Friday night crowd didn't appreciate a dark, experimental study in melancholia.

Muse were all stadium rock and pyrotechnics, producing a marvellously lively collection of hits from their impressive back catalogue. They finished with a stonking rendition of space western epic Knights of Cydonia prefaced by a snippet of Ennio Morricone's Man With a Harmonica from Once Upon a Time in the West (a personal favourite of mine). Motown legend Stevie Wonder gave a hugely entertaining, light-hearted set, reeling off hit after hit and present Glastonbury founder Michael Eavis with a harmonica during Happy Birthday. Wonder has clearly lost none of his exuberance, giving a wonderful, life-affirming performance to an adoring crowd.