And then there were huit. I'm sure we all expected the French veterans ("I won the World Cup, you know!") to surrender to the fluent Spanish tonight, mais non. They had Xavi -- not in the official Scrabble dictionary -- they had Torres -- a Chesney Hawkes lookalike, according to Chris "Larsson" Waddle -- and yet they're leaving on a jet plane.

Mightily impressed with Scarface Ribery; less so with Va Va Voom who only appeared to have been elbowed dans la visage and secured a yellow card for Puyol -- tut tut, Thierry -- and Senegalese Vieira was there. Zinedine Yazid Zidane, a man not short on Zs, banged in la troisieme to pile on the pain and it's hasta pronto, Spain.

Missed the boys from Brazil putting out the gallant Ghana due to an important appointment at the local Hut for Birthday Boy. Happy with his Power Rangers SWAT Command Truck (S.P.D. -- Emergency!), remote control K9, super soaker, scooter and so on and so forth. We'll be setting up the Hot Wheels vertical drop track when there's some dead time at the weekend, perhaps when the ballboys are fetching a 35 yard Lampard screamer from behind the Yahoo hoarding.

Did manage to check the live score while biking through Kesgrave, taking advantage of the Beeb's mobile website -- top link, World Cup scores & results -- then the battery conked out. That's technology.