World Cup web meltdown

Geek TV OK, what bright BBC spark decided to stream the World Cup live online? Experts now reckon the internet will go into meltdown, thanks to office-bound footie fans watching afternoon games while they should be pimping spreadsheets.

Under normal circumstances, the nation's finest engineering minds would immediately fix the net. But this is June 2006. Half the nation's scientists are re-building Wayne Rooney's foot, and the other half are drawing complex Venn diagrams to work out who exactly was bitching about whom in Big Brother the other night (Did you see it? It was like trying to follow a geophysics lesson after sniffing too much WD40 in your lunchbreak).

But there's hope for footie fans who will insist on watching the infernal game during office hours. You can always try to tune in on your mobile. Yes: mobile TV, the technology that's been on the starting line since Chesney Hawkes was number one, has finally been kicked into touch by Germany 2006, with some network operators laying on streams and highlights. Now all you have to do is find someone with a TV-enabled mobile, and threaten to send BB Nikki* round their house if they don't share.

Wait a few months, and you might even see Peter "Jive Talkin" Crouch get his BBC Sports Personality of the Year gong** live on your mobile. The Beeb and ITV are rumoured to be wheeling and dealing with Samsung and LG over a live TV service for mobiles, and Eurosport and Cartoon Network are also "interested". A six-month Beeb trial is mooted for late 2006; watch this space.

* Anyone else notice how Nikki's nomination was announced on Devil Day, 6.6.06? And that if you rearrange "Nikki" you get "kikiN", which sounds a bit like "Damien"?