Diving and feigning injury in football (soccer) drives me nuts as well, and does most fans (unless he's one of 'your' players of course).

With a dive, there's the desire to con the ref into awarding you a free kick, and there's also the cumulative psychological bombardment that players diving and feigning near-death injuries hope will influence the referee over the course of the game. The trouble is, it sometimes works, though not so often these days.

But most players don't do it and those who do are just plain cheats in my view. Cristiano Ronaldo is a fine example: he's very skilled at the fake dive, and the look of injured innocence on his face when the ref doesn't fall for it always makes me want to punch him on the nose.

For us lefty types in Britain, the world's been stood on its head.

We've got a Labour government - a LABOUR government - that's the most authoritarian in living memory, has presided over a huge erosion of civil liberties, and colluded with a far-right US government to start an illegal war that includes imprisonment without trial and torture.

And, meanwhile, the Conservatives, the natural party of authoritarianism you might think, are doing the right thing in opposing the further erosion of our liberties.

OK, if the Tories were in power rather than opposition, they might not be so principled, but I'll give John Major and David Davis the benefit of the doubt. Good for them and shame on Labour.

Given that the main reason for starting the war in the first place was to gain control of the oil supplies, there's no way the US will be relinquishing those bases any time soon.

Of course the Bush administration (and their enablers in the MSM) will tell you that it's ludicrous to suppose that they went to war for oil - just like it's ludicrous they intended to scatter American mega-bases throughout Iraq for a long-term military occupation.

I'm not American so it's none of my business - but actually it is my business because the sort of president America ends up with has global implications whether we like it or not (and I don't like it - not in the last few years anyway).

Obama seemed like the sort of intelligent and principled guy who just might change America's attitude to the rest of the world, an indication of this being his attitude to the rights and liberties of his own people.

But now this. He has feet of clay like all the rest.

Deep gloom.

I'm not really a big tennis fan either but you couldn't have scripted a better match than the Nadal/Federer one.

You can't compare it with other sports but it was certainly the best game of tennis I've ever seen, and I've been watching Wimbledon, on and off, for over 40 years now.

America should end its shameful embargo against Cuba but it's just too hypocritical for words to do it because of sugar-based ethanol: "You've got something we want therefore we'll cross you off the axis of evil".

America should end the embargo because it doesn't work and impoverishes ordinary Cubans.

It also pisses off other countries who think the embargo is ludicrous but find the US petulantly extending its jurisdiction by threatening companies with American interests who also want to do business with Cuba.

I'm glad Obama has abandoned the Brandenburg Gate idea.

He's quite well liked in Europe (anybody but Bush - or Bush clones) but he would run the risk of being accused of the same old American parochialism: that his European visit, and his appropriating of the Brandenburg Gate as a symbolic backdrop, was for a domestic American audience first and foremost rather than what it should be about which is beginning the process of mending US/European ties so badly damaged by Bush and co.

Xranadu Hutman pretty much said it all but I'd add that even if Carse has some interesting things to say, his remarks about atheists show such a lack of understanding that you have to doubt the veracity of anything else he says.

Ian McEwan not McEwen.

Michael Gove is a self-confessed British neo-conservative (pro-Iraq war, pro-Israel, anti-Muslim, ani-State etc) and is part of a long tradition of right-wing Tory MPs who don't understand the way most of us live our lives but are quite prepared to lecture us on how we should.

So please don't take him seriously - it'll only encourage him.

Americans like to have this image of their country as "a champion of human rights and the rule of law".

In fact, America has always been rather selective about this - if it didn't suit its geo-political aims then human rights and the rule of law were conveniently forgotten about (e.g. Central America, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Uzbekistan), only to be vociferously championed again in countries perceived as obstructing American interests (e.g. Russia, China, Iran). In fact some countries (e.g. Iraq) have swapped between good guy and good bad status, not because of change in that country, but because of a change in the US's strategic goals.

But in general, I would say America set a good example when it came to human rights and the rule of law.

But no longer.

The long list of abuses perpetrated at Guantanamo and elsewhere has knocked America off its lofty perch and it's an awful long climb back from here.

I think the Georgians are right to blame their government; did Saakashvili really think that Russia would just stand by and watch as Georgia invaded South Ossetia? If he did then he understands nothing and shouldn't be in government.

Russia's seriously overreacted to this but apart from diplomacy what can Europe or the US do to stop it? Military aid would effectively put the West/NATO at war with Russia. And that would be lunacy - I don't even want to think where that would lead.