Inception (3 1/2 out of 5)

Who knew Leonardo Di Caprio's career could change so rapidly. Gone are the days of mushy films like Titanic, and in are the box-office action hits such as Inception.

While I hate Gangs of New York (a total mess of a film no matter what anybody else says) and the Aviator; Departed and Shutter Island have entrenched Caprio in the edgy action, semi-thriller genre.

Boy has he got the part down, playing a slightly troubled protagonist. His characteristic look where he squints and peers out of the corner of his eyes while leaving his mouth half-open is used again throughout the film, and his whole sub-plot, and troubled past is a real. While it does give structure to the film that Nolan could not do without, the less we hear about his dead wife the better.

Don't get me wrong, it is an excellent film, if not twenty minutes too long. The basic premise is pulled off beautifully, and I love the concept of a dream within a dream having several distinct levels.

The plot involves Di Caprio's character, Cobb, contracted to plant an idea in someone (Cilian Murphy's) head without him knowing it. He puts together a team who have to prepare and pull this off, by overcoming obstacles on their way deeper and deeper into Murphy's mind (Murphy worked with Nolan on Batman Begins, playing the Scarecrow).

However there are some hitches to the film.

Ellen Page is basically in the film to look pretty, look puzzled and ask what the hell is going on every five minutes, acting as your basic fish out of water character, which probably seemed like a good idea, but Page, star of Juno, looks awfully out of place. Maybe that was the point I'm not sure.

In a later scene where Eames, played by Tom Hardy has to repel a load of death commandos, you get bored after about a minute, as the Commando/Rambo style action, and killing of endless swat-team members rolls on for twenty minutes.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt pulls off his role as Cobb's deputy pretty well, although he looks far too much like Christian Bale in Equilibrium, suited with his hair slicked back.

Michael Caine has a ridiculous cameo, but the ending leaves you satisfied enough, and although it is worth a watch, the critical reception the film has received borders on the ludicrous.

The Wait for a Red Bull 1-2 Goes on...and on...and on

The British GP- Sunday

You have to feel a little sorry for Christian Horner, having seen his driver win a fantastic victory in today's British Grand Prix, and all anyone wanted to talk about was Mark Webber's tongue in cheek comment over the team radio. 'Not bad for your number 2 driver,' the Australian said after taking the chequered flag. Quite.

This sorry saga really questions who is making the decisions in the Red Bull garage, or even perhaps out of it. Horner initally had very little to say when challenged by Eddie Jordan, who rightly pointed out that Webber felt as if he was being undermined (at least partially) by his own team.

They must have known that removing an upgrade from Webber's car, so they could replace the one Sebastian Vettel had broken in practice would be seen as preferential treatment. And indeed it was. Justifying it by pointing to the marginal gap in the points scores is tenuous at best. Meanwhile McLaren pulled off an unlikely 2-4 finish, while Red Bull squandered another front row of the grid lockout.

Fernando Alonso meanwhile seems to be learning. Two weeks after blasting the stewards over dallying over handing Lewis Hamilton his penalty, the Spaniard kept quiet over being given a drive-through penalty for overtaking Robert Kubica by going off the racing line. He should have known better, and given him the place back.

Saturday England-Bangladesh

England's performance was nearly as comical as Five's coverage of said event. What they do not seem to realise is that you can't project excitement onto a cricket match, however much you shout during commentary. At one point Strauss marched down the pitch and swatted the ball through the covers for four, where Mark Nicholas shouted 'what a ripper!' I get the feeling that Nicholas has a sheet of descriptive phrases, and picks which to utter, producing a programme of highlights with clichéd phrases spliced onto them. I expect he lost said sheet when he came up with the immortal words 'that is VERY good,' when Simon Jones bowled Michael Clarke in the 2005 Ashes.

And I have not even mentioned England's batting performance against Bangladesh, a team they had never previously lost to. Ever. True, Ian Bell was relegated to 11th in the lineup after a nasty foot injury, and hobbled on in the last over, but the only player who batted sensibly was Jonathan Trott, eventually edging to the keeper with 6 needed in 4 balls. And they only got it close because Trott and Stuart Broad had a go in the last 6 overs.

Maradona left with egg on his face

You get the feeling reading yesterday's (Saturday) sports sections that there are two types of people: those who watch football and understand it, and those who believe what the newspapers tell them (and even their own newspapers).

Into the second category falls Richard Williams at least for today, whose singularly uninformed piece in Saturday's Guardian was totally refuted by last night's match. And this is not just me taking the high road, as two weeks ago I made it clear that although Argentina were winning, there were not doing so with any coherent tactical plan.

Williams said the 'circus surrounding the Argentina coach masks his clever man-management' and that he was 'dominating the World Cup'. The 'method to his apparent madness has become apparent [sic] over the past three weeks "What Maradona did first when he took over," an Argentinian journalist said this week, "was to nominate the key man in his side. That was Mascherano. He actually said, "The Team will be Mascherano and 10 others." And when he selected the squad of 23 to go to South Africa, he divided it very clearly into two: there would be the 11 players of the side, plus 12 supporters.'

Given this apparent inflexibility to the Argentinian side, no wonder Maradona was shackled by his own rigid tactics. There can be no Plan B, and frankly to base a team of Argentina's calibre around Mascherano sounds laughable to me. As a United supporter, I have seen him have amazing games, dominating the midfield, and not allowing opposing players the time or space to fashion attacking chances, but in this World Cup the Liverpool player looked detached from both attack and defense, hopelessly stuck in the middle as Khedira, Schweinsteiger, Muller and Podolski tied him up in knots.

Bastian Scheweinsteiger will get the plaudits for his effort yesterday, but it was Stuttgart's Sami Khedira in the first half who was the stand out player for me.

'Basically just get the ball to Messi or Tevez or Higuan and watch them do something amazing and score,' is not coaching. Gabriel Heinze was having a shocker, and would have been Argentina's worst player, if their other fullback Nicholas Ottamendi. Could he have been substituted at half time and replaced by an older, wiser player, who would hopefully have plenty of experience, and could display a clear head in what was a fiery contest? Javier Zanetti anyone?

Higuain scored 29 goals for Real Madrid this season, but he looked woeful, getting caught offside most of the times the ball was played up to him, while Angel Di Maria's distribution was worse than Nani's before the Portuguese's recent renaissance. Could Diego Milito not have been put on in place of Higuain at half time, pushing Carlos Tevez wide? Tevez and Messi for all their skill, were far too easily muscled off the ball by the German defense, and every time looked up to the referee for amends. Physicality is part of the game whether they like it or not.

Maxi Rodriguez and Di Maria were passengers in the Argentina team when they did not have the ball, and it was oh-so-easy every time Jerome Boateng had the ball, to pass it infield to either Khedira or Schweinsteiger, who then would have the space and awareness to pick out a surging Ozil or Muller.

Despite four straight wins in the competition last night was conclusive proof that Maradona does not understand football enough, and that frankly he does not deserve the position he has inherited as an international coach. If it were a charity or exhibition match, the flair and talent of Messi and co. would shine through, but in these sorts of matches, the team with the most mettle usually win through. And that certainly was not a passive Argentinian side. It could have been 6-0 by the end.

True, the early goal was a perfect start for Germany, since it meant that the South American team had to push up to find an equaliser, allowing Germany to counter-attack, which they did with the same precision that had dumped England out last week. But Diego did nothing to nullify the German strengths, as if they did not matter, as if by seeing a few great darting runs by Messi they would retreat into their shells and not dare attack for fear of conceding. It was an incredibly naive tactical set-up.

The only dampener for Sebastien Loew's Germany was the yellow card of Thomas Muller, ridiculously given for a deliberate handball when his arms were at his sides. As the smoke clears, it will be abundantly clear to everyone that Maradona's coaching ability is worth less than the ridiculous suit he wore pitch-side.

Props go to Arne Freidrich for his 'Klinsmann' celebration after Germany's third goal.

Murray Outclassed by Sensational Nadal

Hopefully the Daily Mirror will be blacklisted by Andy Murray, as today's front page lays into the 'Scot' for not beating Rafael Nadal yesterday. You have to wonder whether they even watched the tennis at all yesterday. For those who did will have observed that at times Nadal did his best impression of Grigori Rasputin as he just did not lay down and die when he should have.

Murray threw everything he had at the Spaniard, although admittedly not his best tennis, but the world number one responded in kind every time the Brit raised the level of his game. In such inspired form, even playing out of his skin Murray might still have lost the semi-final yesterday.

Just as he had been outclassed by Federer in two grand slam finals previously, he was outmatched as some of the tennis Nadal played yesterday was irresistible, crushing ground strokes with such menace and ferocity, unwilling to give up on any point, able to return the ball from any angle.

As well as the Spaniard played, Murray hung in with him for the three sets, and had the Spaniard faltered at any of the vital junctures in the match, he might have had a sniff, but every time the luck rolled with the seven-time grand slam winner. Every time, whether it was a ball hitting the net cord and dropping on the right side, or seeing almost every forehand land on Murray's baseline.

There were times when Murray might have been smarter with his game, for instance, he went back to the drop shot late in the game when it had been established conclusively that the tactic did not work against the pacey Spaniard. Mark Petchey also made an excellent point that Murray had condensed the court with his ground strokes, and that he had not really stretched the court enough to trouble Nadal. Nor was his touch assured in the mid-court. Forehand after forehand found the net rather than the court from that range, much to his disgust.

At times his backhand looked dangerous, sometimes skidding under Nadal's racket, and a he hit a few forehand winners, but to emerge victorious he would have had to keep that level up for hours, something he was unable to do.

Perhaps he was also a little tentative, but every time he was more aggressive on points he either saw his ground strokes sail past the baseline or into the net. Without complete control of his ground strokes, Murray would never reach Nadal's standards.

All sports are about margins, but in tennis these margins are very small. Had Murray taken a set point in the second set tie-break, or held his nerve in the third set when he found himself a break up, he would have given himself a chance, but this was not Murray's time, nor will it be Berdych's if he finds the Spaniard replicating Friday's performance on Sunday. Nadal only broke the Murray serve once, but the real story was how he stepped up his game to a new level every time the match required it. This is why he is the world number one. The English media would be wise to reflect on this every time some two-bit hack writes something they have very little understanding of.

Murray has beaten Nadal before in a grand slam, and he might do so again, but to do so you have to catch Rafa on a bad day, or play almost flawless tennis. And he does not have many bad days, unless his knees are creaking.

Some of his points were played with some precision that there was nothing Murray could do to survive on centre court. Only marginal improvement is needed in his game if he is to become a grand slam winner. What he really needs is a big slice of luck.

Julian Finney Getty Images

PMQs: Queen of the Harpies Edition (30/06/10)

Speaker John Bercow is apparently a 'stupid sanctimonious dwarf', well at least according to Health Minister Simon Burns.

Whereas Brown would shrivel up like a porcupine, let his chin wobble and splutter 'no mr. speaker, no,' before bumbling through a response, Cameron seems unfazed by the Harman's attacks.

Last week Simon Hoggart put it best when he ridiculed Harman's line delivery in last weeks' budget response. He said of her performance:

Remember Eric Morecambe's funniest gag, as the police car rushes by with siren wailing? She would have said, 'Um, well, I have to inform the house that, frankly, sales of ice-cream will be unable to reach their full potential given the rate of travel manifested by the hon member,' and wondered why nobody laughed.

Cameron's defence to the 1m job losses in the public sector was that 2m private sector jobs would be created in the lifetime of the Parliament, which would be at a higher rate than that under the Blair-Brown boom years.

And her line of questioning seemed to follow the pattern of 'You're making rather a mess of cleaning up the mess we created.' Again, she attacked the Lib Dems, and when Clegg deputises for Cameron for the first time we will really see some sparks fly.

'Peaceniks to peacepods and bankrupted the country in the process' was Cameron's mocking put-down of Harman, who spent £2.4m doing up her own department, hardly essential spending in a time of belt-tightening is it?

'You can always tell when he doesn't want to answer a question, because he asks a question,' well Labour ministers were masters of doing that. Ministers invented a whole reem of tactics when faced with a question they did not want to answer. Peter Mandleson's response to a grilling by Jeremy Paxman is still my favourite. Lord Mandleson cries hysterically, 'Calm down Jeremy, calm down!' Again and again until he stops. Or even this one by Yvette Cooper on the 10p tax u-turn.

Prime Minister's Questions has almost nothing to do with reasoned political debate, rather it is the Leader of the Oppositions' chance to give the Prime Minister a black eye or two. All Harman does is screech at Cameron, taking the same line of questioning, and then chucking in a few one-liners that her interns have probably written up for her.

Surprising that she did not touch on Ken Clarke's shakeup of the prisons system, but Labour will probably have less to disagree with Cameron about than his own backbenchers will.