Football: For starters, a Gazza memorial barbecue

Zackand Fiona'S World Cup Diary

ZACK BEANSTALK is a 30-year-old freelance advertising copywriter, having been axed last Christmas from the Polenta, Bogart, Elderflower & Warp Agency for having too straight a name. Zack has been a Tottenham fan for very nearly three years now, but lives in a flat overlooking Highbury Fields. His significant other is Fiona, who works as an editor at the publishers Deutschland & Uber. This is the story of their World Cup...

MANAGED to do the mega, pre-tournament Sainsbury's slog yesterday morning, although Fiona thought it was a bit pretentious of me having the shopping list on my Psion 3.

Shows how little she knows about what creatives working at home can find to waste their time (good news for the future, I guess). I was in a foul mood for the usual scrum at the bread counter and very nearly had to deck this guy who was making a move on the last Pugliese. We ended up tossing for it - well he was a big mutha - and he won. But then I had the wiz idea of blanking the usual "We're-in-Islington-so-let's-pretend-we're- in-Lucca" Sunday lunch, and doing a Gazza memorial barbecue, as a prelude to my "Eating Around the World Cup Menus".

Fiona grimaced - she went off him in a big way after the old punch-bag routine with Sheryl - but I managed to persuade her that it was logical to have something plain and English before four weeks of inter-continental gluttony. So I tossed all the stuff I needed into the trolley and if the weather's OK today, we'll have chicken kebabs, oven chips, lager-top and deep-fried Mars bars on the terrace with the neighbours Sally and Harry - I hope they'll realise I'm being ironic.

Spent the rest of the day filling in the menus on the World Cup wall- chart in the kitchen. The first few days won't be too challenging - fava- bean casserole for lunch before the Brazil-Scotland game, cous-cous and smoked fish from Steve Hatt for Morocco-Norway, and Italy on Thursday will be a breeze, cos I've got every recipe that the River Cafe's Rose and Ruthie have ever written.

I began to get excited about the footy, after a month of suffering in- yer-face Arsenal fans. Was it really just three years ago that I experienced that first rush of pleasure? The agency's White Hart Lane thrash which the boys re-christened white-snort-line (hope the cops never read this) when I felt I could almost reach out and touch the Spurs players from the hospitality box? Thank God it was security glass, otherwise I'd have been an amputee now.

I was just relishing my Proustian wallow when - crash - on came a real black dog. My own fault really, should have had the telly totally unplugged until the opening ceremony starts on Wednesday. Too late, the whole shebang of World Cup ads came on: Puma boots (nice but who's the black guy in the Newcastle strip - Tino or Barnsey?); Snickers (pathetic - should have had the English lads doing a penalty shoot-out and breaking off for a gob-full of chocolate); Pepperami (cheap 'n' nasty and should have had Gazza in to redo the voice-over by now); and then bleeding Brazil in the airport again. God it hurts - I still think it will go down as one of the great unused ideas in ad-land. Ronaldo, in his yellow No 9 shirt, keeping the ball up, juggling, only he's dressed as the Duracell bunny. If he wins the "Golden Boot" maybe I can go in and pitch it again.

SPENT last night re-doing my Fantasy World Cup team. My first entry was the mother of all bummers - Boksic, Gascoigne, Romario, Peruzzi, all crocked or dropped. Am I psychic or what? Maybe I should ring TV-AM and offer myself as a cheap alternative to Uri Geller. I was just completing my final attempt to win tickets for the final and, more importantly, a place on the great Mastercard celebrity party-train to Paris when Fiona walks in ashen-faced, no other way to describe it...

Fiona: My boss has just been on. Job from hell.

Me: Speak!

Fiona: He wants me to ring Gazza, see if he's interested in doing his World Cup diary. I can go up to pounds 50K.

Me: You mean you've got his home number.

Fiona: Not quite the point, actually.

Got a touch of the old David Ellerays for that, but schmoozed her enough to get the number off her. His answering machine was on - "Please speak after the burp", which I thought was quite a gas. And then a freaky turn of events. Expecting the chilly shoulder from Fi, I arrive in the bedroom in my Philosophy Football pyjama top ("I deserve it" - Bill Shankly) only to find her in best Janet Reger, waving what looked like a school thermometer at me. "I've decided I should conceive during the World Cup," she says, in her no- answering back voice which I know so well. Tried to stop my grin spreading as I lowered the Armani jockeys when she says: "This is a fertility tester - and I'm nowhere near the right point in my cycle, so save it."

Suddenly I feel at one with our lads out there in France - no sex before the match, and I slept the sleep of the deeply contented.

Next week: Those Iranian recipes in full.