Marriage of convenience: Will these strange celebrity couplings never end?

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.

What Adidas brings to the match is its Streetball Challenge, a fast-moving, three-a-side, US-imported basketball competition, which offers teams of different ages and abilities the opportunity to compete against one another.

Nintendo's dowry, by contrast, is a technology-packed truck (or as the weight-obsessed publicity material puts it 'Twenty-One Tons of Gameplay on Wheels'), in which visitors can try out new games, win prizes, and meet the characters Mario, Wario and Kirby. To top it all, there is the chance to take on no less than the 'Mighty Metro', a 22-year-old from Richmond who has mislaid his real name and is paid by the computer-game company to be its full-time UK champion.

The music for this marriage of convenience will be provided by MTV. May the fruits of the couple's labours be profitable - and may all their children not be little couch potatoes.

The Adidas Streetball Challenge, featuring the Nintendo Challenger, takes place in Battersea Park on Saturday and Sunday 23 and 24 Jul from 10am. Free admission

(Photograph omitted)