Roger Federer made the worst possible start to his claycourt season with an error-strewn defeat against Ernests Gulbis, the nervy Latvian sealing a 2-6 6-1 7-5 win on his seventh match point.

The vocal demands of Strauss’s a capella motets are such that what is needed is a choir of Arabellas, Composers, Bacchuses and Mandrykas, hence they are rarely performed.

It is nothing new for the EU to be blasted for being an opaque and shadowy bureaucratic behemoth, but the search for an EU President has triggered some of the most strident criticism yet of the way Brussels operates.

A Swedish mobile phone operator acknowledged today it was behind an elaborate meteorite hoax in Latvia and pledged to reimburse the Baltic nation for all costs spent by police, rescue and military workers in the incident.

We are not in the business of encouraging foreign girls to impugn British manhood, but it is easy to appreciate the temptation that lurks in a bottle of Sambuca and a match, if you are confronted with the umpteenth British tourist behaving badly. The woman concerned might have been hauled before a court in Crete – while being feted by her compatriots as a heroine – but there is one youngish Briton, we suspect, who might wish he had joined the trend to a "staycation".

For anyone here with serious intentions there is one clear priority, apart from making victory look like the last word in formality. It is also valuable to look like a champion, to shake down the sneers of those who say you are good but maybe not good enough.

Investors are nervously watching Latvia as the Baltic state pledged this week that it would not devalue the lat, its national currency, amid growing financial jitters.

An army of 500 blondes put a smile back on the face of recession-weary Latvians by staging a festival last weekend designed to show that they really do have more fun.

The co-founder of beardie Norwegian prog-meisters Jaga Jazzist presents his second album (following 'Pooka' from 2004), and it's a belter.

Andy Murray moved one step closer to retaining his St Petersburg Open title yesterday by breezing past Ernests Gulbis 6-4, 6-2. The British No 1 showed glimpses of his best form as the match wore on to beat the highly-rated Latvian in just over an hour. Murray broke serve twice in both sets to set up a quarter-final with either Serbia's Janko Tipsarevic or France's Jeremy Chardy.