TV VIEW:SO, OL' Blue Eyes finally made his Late Late Showdebut, Giovanni Trapattoni and his faithful sidekick Manuela Spinelli turning up for the mother of all multilingual chats on Friday. We learnt many things during the interview, including the fact that he does, indeed, have great faith in holy water, but "notta for win the game, for putta away the negativa situation".

When we tuned in to the Ryder Cup yesterday, all set for a sizzling morning session, we were reminded of Giovanni because we had ourselves another negativa situation, Celtic Manor containing plenty of water, but more of the cursed than holy kind.

Anyone tuning in late - and shame on you - might have been puzzled as to why Tom Lehman was foxtrotting across a green again, but it was just another instalment of Monty's Ryder Cup Memories, this one from when Europe's special relationship with the United States was bulldozed in Brookline.

Despite David Livingstone's reassurances that there was better weather ahead the ugly skies make a dry spell seem as likely as, say, Blackpool winning at Anfield. Out on the course Richard Boxall was a bit downcast himself, gurgling to a couple of green staff as they tried to sweep away the floods. But, wait! "He pointed to the sky, like he'd just spotted a UFO. "Up there to the right is some blue stuff! Unbelievable!" True enough, there it was, a blue patch - but, to be honest, it seemed so far away it was probably hovering over Newfoundland.

David, meanwhile, used the free time to advertise a programme on Sky tonight, How the 2010 Ryder Cup was won. You couldn't but recall the old Harold Wilson line, "I'm an optimist, but I'm an optimist who takes his raincoat". Butch Harmon almost choked, but not because he thought David was being overly optimistic, the fella was merely smothered with a cold. Any plans the Welsh Tourist Board might have had for hiring Butch to do an advertising campaign for them in America . . . well, time for plan B.

Appropriately enough, the first record Graeme McDowell ever bought was Bon Jovi's Slippery When Wet.We learnt this in Sky's quirky Q&A session with the players from both teams, Ross Fisher excelling by being able to name every single member of Take That - even Jason.

Lee Westwood, incidentally, admitted that the last concert he attended was Boyzone, a revelation that Ian Poulter will, we fear, never let him live down, while Jim Furyk, when asked how much the pink ball was worth, professed to never having heard of "snukker".

You had to smile, almost as much as when "bainisteoir" appeared under Leinster coach Joe Schmidt's name during his chat with TG4 before Saturday's game against Munster. The New Zealander had divil a focal of Irish, though. Maybe Peig put him off?

Back to Wales and things were looking up, the deluge abating. Monty, as ever, was adrenalised as kick-off approached, so to speak, drawing his interviewer's attention to the roar from the European changing room. "And that's just the buggy drivers," he beamed.

David paid tribute to Monty's "statesmanship", prompting Butch to sneeze violently, but professed to being puzzled about Corey Pavin's state of mind. The day before, he said, the American captain just talked about wanting his players to "have fun", which, he reckoned, was "hard to square with the guy who brought in Major Dan Rooney to talk to the players".

He had a point, you have to admit, because it's probably a bit unlikely that Major Dan tells the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan to "just go out there and have fun". Butch, though, reassured David, just before a coughing fit, that, privately, Corey would be telling his boys to shock and awe Europe in to submission. Hump that 'hearts and minds' lark.

It didn't happen, though, Europe leaving the visitors a bit shocked and awed themselves when play finally got under way. Westwood kickstarted a nigh on perfect day with a nifty putt, Sky treating us to a high definition slow-mo replay of Monty's reaction as the ball trickled towards the hole.

Come 4pm, however, we had a problem: Chelsea v Arsenal or the Ryder Cup? No worries. "You can have a split screen and watch both," Ewen Murray told us, "all you have to do is press the red button and you'll have the best of both worlds."

So, we did. Wacky. Europe and Chelsea in blue, the United States and Arsenal in red, all on the very same telly screen. Jeff Overton's drive to Andrei Arshavin was sublime, but, alas, the Russian made a bags of it, in contrast to Didier Drogba who controlled Pádraig Harrington's chip with consummate ease. Miguel Angel Jimenez's attempted one-two with Florent Malouda? Close, but no cigar.

"A day that will never be forgotten in European history," Ewen concluded at the end of play, somewhat downplaying, we felt, the performance of Monty's men.

The Americans, then, are in a negativa situation, Corey's ordering the holy water as we speak.