For sponsors, huge global exposure

Continuous exposure for World Cup sponsors.

Read this > For sponsors, huge global exposure. Soccer features two 45 minutes halves of play with few breaks, so while broadcasters won't be able to air frequent commercials, marketers sponsoring official in-stadium signage and "ambush marketers" seeking free airtime will have a chance to reach billions of consumers across the globe.

Among the official sponsors forking over an average of $35 million each are Adidas, Coca-Cola and Yahoo!

'It's a monster. But if it stops changing, it will die'

As the London Architecture Biennale kicks off, its director Peter Ackroyd tells Jonathan Glancey how money has transformed the city, and will make it almost unrecognisable by 2010.

He said that London 'It's a monster. But if it stops changing, it will die'. There is, though, as developments in the City and the East End continue to prove, little chance of London coming to heel or becoming one city.

It remains a many-faced, buccaneering, brute beauty.

'Da Vinci Code' newest pop culture tour

Each day, 80 to 100 fans of the movie "Amelie" visit the Cafe des Deux Moulins in Paris where the title character was a waitress.

And the Rosslyn Chapel in Scotland that figures in "The Da Vinci Code" had just 6,000 visitors in 1997 - but is gearing up for well over 120,000 this year.

Read this article at St. Petersburg Times Online Except if you prefer Harry Potter-themed trips!

Will work for travel

Cap and gown off, backpack on: Europe awaits.

But with limited finances, there'll be furniture to mend, farming to learn and teens to tend at boarding school. And fun to have in between, from London to the Czech Republic. Will work for travel In our final weeks we'll drift through Greece, work on another organic farm, this time in Italy, and then back to London. On Nov. 14 we fly back to Florida.

Why don't you follow her example?

Gooooooooal!

The world is about to go footballistic.

In some countries, there will be mass delirium, in others, much weeping and gnashing of teeth. Like the Olympics, the Fédération Internationale de Football Association World Cup (only in North America is “the beautiful game” called soccer) is staged every four years and is every bit a television spectacle.

A quarter of the world’s population tuned in to the 2002 World Cup. This year’s extravaganza, which gets underway June 9 in Germany, is likely to surpass that. Gooooooooal! Movies and books about football, on the other hand, are structured to provide a reliable payoff. Especially in feature films, the game is mostly a vehicle for wish fulfillment: the triumph of the underdog or the follow-your-dreams parable.

The Boys Are Back

While their popularity has declined since their late-'80s peak, the Pet Shop Boys have retained a steadfast following.

Fundamental entered the British charts at No. 5 and made the Top Ten for album downloads for iTunes subscribers in Canada, Germany, Spain and Scandinavia. Those numbers are healthy enough to spare Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe from the fate of many of their one-time contemporaries, doomed to relive past glories on shows such as VH1 Bands Reunited.

However, The Boys Are Back once more. The influence of gay culture has never been hard to find in the music biz, an industry that has long traded on the allure of young men in tight trousers.

In the early '60s, impresario Larry Parmes built up a stable of prefab stars with vigorous names such as Tommy Steele. Nearly 40 years after his death, Beatles manager Brian Epstein is still the subject of innuendo concerning his interest in the Fab Four. Openly gay music acts were rare even amid the rampant hedonism of glam and disco, the real shocker was that David Bowie and most of the Village People would eventually be outed as straight.

Well, times are changing so does culture, pop or gay.

New Dating Show Premieres on ABC

The producers of "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" have come up with a new show, "How to Get The Guy," about four single girls hoping to meet "Mr. Right".

The New Dating Show Premieres on ABC "How to Get the Guy" debuts Monday, June 12th, on ABC.