...it is now.

The World Cup is over, and thus, so is my World Cup blog. I don't know quite how I'm going to fill the aching void in my life - some may suggest getting a job - but nothing will quite be the same as a month of football, with some tennis chucked in for good measure...

All this World Cup watching has kept me pretty constantly exposed to television so I've a few somewhat inane things to get this ball (not a football, sadly) rolling once again. I feel like a bit of a ramble and TV often affords me the opportunity to explore a number of tangents.

And lo! Another blast from the past is resurrected by the digital TV machine, I see. Just as More4 began showing old hospital drama St. Elsewhere the very same month that Gnarls Barkley released an album of the same name, ITV2 have tried a similar ride-someone-else's-publicity stunt by bringing back The New Adventures of Superman at around the same time the Man of Steel is cinematically resurrected for the masses. The first half of the first episode was screened last night (7pm for those of you with a digibox and in need of something to fill the World Cup space every weeknight) with the FX having aged quite badly, and Teri Hatcher looking pretty much the same age as she has done on recent episodes of Desperate Housewives. Will my pre-teen crush return? I hope not. Anyway, as the final credits rolled, the voiceover lady actually said "Superman returns... (lengthy gap) ...tomorrow night" - Warner Brothers must have paid them for that. Must have.

Meanwhile, over in BBC land, and Sports Relief is approaching - apparently. I vaguely remember being caught up in Comic Relief while a wee lad, primarily because it meant no school uniform and a cake sale at break time. I also remember my mum completely defeating the purpose of the day - and further demonstrating our family's unbelievable (and retrospectively admirable) thriftiness - by insisting on making me my own red nose from cardboard and red felt-tip. So, no money to charity, and lil' Mikey gets laughed out of the cake sale. I think this was the year that the nose was just a little smiley face with two little hands poking out - pretty basic, so I wasn't missing out on much - but I still looked like a bell-end. Anyway, I digress: Sport Relief is here, or is almost here, or has been here for a while, I don't know. I don't want to get into the day itself, as I'm not too sure what happens and would only end up slagging off an apparently worthwhile cause. I would like to note a few attendant details, however:

- David Walliams swam the channel. This means I can no longer dislike him quite as much as I did before. Fair play.

- Over the adverts on BBC, the Queen song "Don't Stop Me Now" is used. This is an undisputably classic song to soundtrack BBC sports clips, and was particularly an ever-present throughout Stephen Hendry-era world snooker championships' post-tournament "let's look back at the highlights" montages, where you'd see Tony Drago's wry smile at going out in the second round again despite being a really good pool player, and Jimmy looking a little bit more depressed than last year (this was prior to his late-90s renaissance when he, er, made a few semi-finals). I seem to have digressed again: my quibble with the whole thing is, they don't use the original Queen song, but some kind of carbon copy cover. What's the point? Take away Queen from Don't Stop Me Now - in fact, take away Queen from any Queen song - and you're left with a lifeless husk of a karaoke classic. Soundtracking our sports events! It's like a pale facsimile of previous sporting memories and I don't like it one bit. It cropped up a few times towards the end of the World Cup and I tried to ignore it... now it's happening between every freakin' show on the Beeb and I can no longer stifle my ire: either cough up the extra moolah to buy back the original song, or pick from a number of post-80s motivational/sports-worthy classics. But be warned: if you even so much as look at 'I Like The Way You Move' by The Bodyrockers, I am going to find the person who chose not to renew the rights to Queen's entire back catalogue, and I am going to hurt them - emotionally, physically, and spiritually.

Ok, I am meant to be off to the cinema this afternoon with Katie so I'll finish this shortly. My life hasn't really changed too much since before the World Cup, except that I now have another sporting catastrophe hanging over my head. I got my results back and found I got a first, hurrah, I assume I just scraped it but don't care either way... sadly, though, I found out on the morning of the Portugal match. For a few short hours that Saturday was shaping up to be one of the best ever. Then it went horribly, horribly wrong, and I forgot about my first until the Tuesday, by which time I couldn't be arsed to celebrate it. Bit of an anticlimax, really - hopefully once the World Cup is out of my system I can celebrate properly. Or maybe not. Anyway, now it just raises the question... what can you do with a first that you can't do with a 2.1? The answer is probably "more education", so I'm still hoping to procure funding for a masters after a year out.

What else has happened..... Joel (flatmate) and Hawys (mate) are now together. I could meekly claim to have 'set them up', as they met through me and on a few nights out I made drunken attempts to, y'know, match-make - but as Rob pointed out, I met Hawys through him, so he must have set them up, too. All a bit of a pointless road to go down. Anyway, I was pleased when they got together and I'm even more pleased now as it means Hawys is around a lot, and Joel is infinitely happier with a girlfriend.

Going to the Glade this weekend, with Joel, Adam and Dan and maybe Rob. It is going to be lots and lots of fun, I can't wait.

Now I'm off. But it feels good to be back, writing about nothing, once again.