ROBERT Louis-Dreyfus, the French businessman who quit his job as chief executive of Saatchi & Saatchi in early 1993, has accused the Saatchi brothers of acting greedily over an investment he and they made in Adidas, the sportswear company of which he is now chief executive.

No 78: ADIDAS

Questions were raised last night over Charles Saatchi's future as the advertising agency he helped to found 25 years ago mounted a legal claim against him and his brother, Maurice, over a reputed $40m (£26m) profit they made from an investment in Adidas.

Rain-clouds filled the sky at last weekend's Reading Festival, but had the decency not to burst until Friday's headliners Cypress Hill had stomped off stage. The Lemonheads were first, though. Singer Evan Dando, growing out a Jean Seberg crop, flirted with his famously adoring fans. 'Anyone fancy a shag?', he asked, that distinctly British colloquialism sounding clumsy on his American tongue. The feverish response left him in no doubt that he could have unzipped any tent-flap on site and found an accomodating sleeping-bag. The band whizzed through bite-sized pop nuggets like 'The Great Big No' and 'Confetti', omitting 'Mrs Robinson' (in everyone's best interest).

AS THE Ireland fans cheered their heroes through the World Cup, many of those sporting the distinctive green and white strip were probably unaware that they were wearing counterfeits.

First Adam and Naomi. Then Lyle and Julia. Now Adidas and Nintendo: the sporty young thing is bedding down with the sofa spud, the two of them brought together by a common ability to sell large quantities of consumer goods to teenagers.

Used by pro footballers and an object of desire for schoolboy wannabes are top-of-the-line Mitre Premier League Pro-Max footballs. So prized are they that when Ian Wright kicked one into the crowd recently at an England v Norway game, a small boy thought he'd just copped the ultimate gift from his hero. Mitre has been making footballs since the 1880s, virtually when football first started in this country. They have leading credibilty with regard to development and design, and a deal with the FA and Scottish FA to supply most of the major clubs. Retailing at pounds 49.99, a Mitre Pro-Max Premier League football is a pricey but perfect present for football freaks. Also on fanatics' birthday lists are the latest Adidas Predator football boots. These feature a special rubber vamp over the toes to give more swerve and kicking accuracy. At a mere pounds 119.99, so they should.

BUNHILL'S first (and, with luck, only) story about the World Cup: the footballs you will be watching over the next few weeks will carry the name of Adidas, official suppliers to FIFA, but they will have been made in Sialkot, Pakistan. Sialkot? I hear you cry. Yes, a city 40 miles north-east of Lahore on the Great Trunk Road to the Khyber Pass - phrases that have a ring of Kipling's Indian Empire about them.

CALLING people who have great clothes up in the attic: the 20th-century dress curators of the Victoria & Albert Museum would like to hear from you.

Nobody ever goes on holiday in this country without a foul-weather companion wardrobe: for every bikini, sun-dress or pair of shorts, there's a cardigan, an anorak or a Pakamac to keep it dry. This summer, in an uncharacteristically sensible move, the cover-ups have become as much a part of fashion as the itsy-bitsy things underneath.

THE CABLE channel I'm waiting for is the Factory Channel. All it would consist of would be film of things being made - biscuits, television sets, armchairs, toothpaste tubes, nail-clippers, bicycle chains, biros. Anything, in fact, because the fascination of what you see has nothing to do with the glamour or desirability of the finished product. I still have fond memories of an Open University programme about the development of plastic mesh netting, a film which combined ingenuity and nerdish technical detail in almost perfect proportions. It may be that I'm peculiarly susceptible here to the enchantment of processes (I think I could probably even watch paint dry, if it was handled properly) but I doubt if I'm alone - the ratings success of How Do They Do That? is built on just such an appetite for explanation.

While Nike and Reebok continue pumping hype and gimmicks into their trainers, the sneakers most in demand are free of tricks. The 'Old School' variety has taken over from the hi-tech trainers. And Old School they are: these are the trainers of the football-crazy schoolkids of the mid- to late-Seventies, of the 11-year-old boys in their flared-trouser school uniforms, plastic Adidas sports bags (another rediscovery and selling fast) and matching Stan Smith striped trainers. Today, a pair of vintage gold-stamped Stan Smiths will change hands for pounds 100 at VKS (Vintage King Sneakers) in sneaker-mad Japan.

IN THE pre-war years, Soho in London was full of shops with workrooms upstairs where tailors and seamstresses produced the garments. These days you need to hunt hard around the back streets. Mark Powell, for instance, operates from a top- floor room in D'Arblay Street, dressing club people and pop stars; John Pearse, the laconic veteran of Meard Street, designs for media types and old rockers.

PENTLAND, which backed out of buying Adidas from Bernard Tapie last year, is close to spending some of its pounds 430m cash pile on a US sports goods company.