I SPEND an awful lot of my time trying to convince people that snooker is a rock 'n' roll sport - Higgins' drinking, Ronnie's ranting and King's fighting are, after all, good value even if you're not remotely interested in "potting as many balls as you can".

Unfortunately, my attempts were dashed this week after a 22-year-old virgin from Rotherham lifted the Embassy World Championship in Sheffield (BBC1 and 2, all week).

Despite Shaun Murphy's whiter-than-white image, there's no doubting the lad can play, and it was nice to see some of the usual suspects' reactions after their defeats.

Stephen Hendry broke the record for the number of swear words in one BBC sound-bite; Ronnie was talking of taking a year off; and Peter Ebdon broke down in tears during an interview after O'Sullivan pretended to fall asleep waiting for the world's slowest player to take a shot.

As far as the Beeb's coverage goes, it was much of the same: Dennis Taylor's glasses steaming up at the thought of his 1985 classic with Steve Davis; John Virgo shuffling in his seat as he tried to see if Murphy had "an angle on the decisive pink"; and Clive Everton stating the obvious with even more aplomb than usual.

Meanwhile, over in football land, ITV had billed Liverpool V Chelsea as the biggest game of the season and, undoubtedly, the most important all-English clash in Europe for many years. (Champions League, ITV1, Tuesday)

And, once again, everyone's favourite channel surpassed itself.

Two minutes into Gabby Logan's introduction rant and, yes, you guessed it, it's an ad break. Then, while the teams waited in the tunnel, they squeeze in another couple of adverts.

To be fair, what was on offer in the studio

wasn't any more appealing than the plugs for tyres, chilled lager and deodorant. Gabby looked nice, but uninteresting; Michael Owen looked bronzed, but uninterested; and Terry Venables looked comfy and smug, (as you would if you were earning what he clearly is).

It didn't get any better in the commentary box, either.

Andy "Rent-A-Clich" Townsend and Clive "That-Night-In-Barcelona" Tyldesley rambled on about previous great European clashes and had their say over four inconclusive angles on "that" goal.

Clive even did his bit for the Burberry classes by continually referring to injured Liverpool star Xabi Alonso as "Chavvy". Time to get the Spanish phrase book out, Clive.

Continuing the "sporting" theme, Celebrity Wrestling (ITV1, Saturday) had me surprisingly, er, pinned down. So much so that I was late picking the wife up from Heathrow. Not a good move, I'm sure you'll agree.

But awe-struck at the sight of Kate Lawler and Michelle Heaton throwing a massive ball around, I lost track of time, as well as my will to live.

In all honesty (and I'll probably regret saying this) ITV's latest reality-romp has been nowhere near as bad as I feared.

Lee "Sharpe Shooter" Sharpe, a former Manchester United star, albeit in the days before Manchester United were good, took on Ewan "Dragon" Thomas in a bout that involved the pair ripping each other's clothes off. If only they were rucking in a pink ring...

Anyhow, no sooner had Ewan shredded Lee of his attire than it was time to take on the Masked Celebrity. After last week's effort of Fatima Whitbread, it was anyone's guess who the new masked "man" was going to be.

The excitement soon drained, however, when John Fashanu appeared out of the smoke and piercing lights.

In all fairness, and if you discount the shouty Rowdy Roddy Piper and lacklustre Kate Thornton, there's a few interesting characters in among all the usual reality dross and top-heavy lovelies.

And let's face it, what can be better than a bunch of

Z-listers beating seven bells out of each other. If only there wasn't all that padding...