Media: A Moment with Marquis.(2006 World Cup football coverage)(Column)

Football - dontcha love it? You are going to have to try, because very soon there is going to be an awful lot of football going on. Aside from the re-crowning of Chelsea as the Premiership champions, a gripping Liverpool versus West Ham FA Cup Final and the nail-biting denouement of the Champions League, there is the small matter of the 2006 World Cup If you're not keen on football, then, as they say, look away now.

There will soon be a deluge of footy-related commercials and sponsorship credits featuring pubby humour and blokeish asides. In spite of the current round of gloomy predictions for the summer airtime market, it will be a veritable orgy of football and football-inspired promotion.

The media industry - purely in the spirit of keeping its finger on the pulse of popular culture, of course - will decamp en masse to Berlin, Munich and Nuremburg, closely marking their clients and customers (can you tell by the tone of this who isn't going?).

Those who remain will be superglued to TV screens and capable only of sporadic grunting. If you are female, just accept that the men in your life will be incommunicado for several weeks. It has its upsides ...

Actually, my own observations of the beautiful game (a couple of outings a season to Plymouth Argyle where 'beautiful' doesn't ...