I believe I can reply to the black border question. The PS2 plays what it sees, in this case an NTSC game. It thus outputs NTSC but at 60Hz. A PAL TV scans at 50Hz and I reckon you have one of the three possible effects. These effects are 1)Black border; 2)Greyscale picture; 3)Rolling screen.

There are two known cures one of which I use. The one I use is a NTSC-PAL convertor bought from Maplins. Whenever I play NTSC backups, this is placed between the PS2 and the PAL TV. The other method is the BLAZER PS2 SCART connector available from HMV. Let us know how you get on.