And finally... at 4.30 today a man will kick a ball and for a month the world will watch

AT PRECISELY 4.30 this afternoon one man will blow a whistle, another will kick a ball and the world's biggest and most manic sporting party will be off and running. The planet is about to go Coup du Monde mad.

An estimated 500 million people will be watching today's opening game between champions Brazil and humble Scotland, the first of a record 64. By the time we get to the final, on June 12, a staggering four billion will be tuned in - that's three quarters of the world's population, and the biggest audience ever.

From Bogata to Bologna, via Bedford and Bridlington, celebrations and commiserations will be shouted, sworn and drunk over the next month in every language under the sun by folk in shirts of every hue. More than ever before we will become part of a global village, glued to the communal tube for every twist and turn of drama. Planet Football will have come of age.

Celebrations in Paris actually started last night, with a carnival of bizarre and colourful events, some of which were even officially planned. Four separate parades were led by 60-foot high giants, to symbolise the four footballing continents, and converged on the Place de la Concorde. If well-intentioned, perhaps these Tele-tubby look alikes were carrying a message rather too high brow for most of those watching. Romeo, for instance, representing Europe, "lives as an art, a show, a never-ending celebration. He is a product of a culture that, since antiquity, has been wavering between mannerism and wealth... ," and so on.

Showing not too much of either were the thousands of Scots fans who were more than holding their own on the Champs-Elysees in a very unofficial festival of football, involving fans from most of the competing nations and which completely blocked the pavements. If they were feeling ripped off or impoverished by the non-arrival of hugely expensive tickets, the Scots were not showing it. Perhaps they were oblivious.

A move by Le Folies Bergere, the Paris cabaret famous for its dancing girls, may possibly provide them with a chance to re-coup losses, in Full Monty style. The club is putting on a show of male strippers in order to cater for "football widows" during the competition.

Back home, the country is expected to completely close down this afternoon as Scotland face their most important and illustrious game in their history. In Britain as a whole, a survey has found that almost one in three men will be taking time off work to watch the tournament at home. Monday afternoon, when England meet Tunisia in their opening game with a 1.30 kick-off, is expected to witness a mass exodus from factories and offices. Some firms are bowing to the inevitable, with Cadbury's in Birmingham piping live radio commentary to its 4,000 staff to try and keep as many as possible at their work.

British brewers are rubbing their hands in anticipation of the alcoholic floodgates opening. Pubs everywhere have finished bolting in the big screens and ordering extra barrels for the cellar, and it will be there that the relatively new national pastime of pub football will reach its zenith - fostering with it a kind of rowdy community spirit not seen since VE Day, or at least 1966.

Bookies are also looking forward to a lot of action. Over pounds 150 million will be bet on the competition, making it the biggest betting event in bookmaking history.

For those who can't even bear to tear themselves away from the TV for a walk down to the local, Asda alone has already spent pounds 300,000 on extra cans of beer and lager. Meanwhile Customs officers have reported a boom in cross channel traffic for bootleggers, importing a cheaper if illicit alternative.

Even at home, however, you are not safe if you live in the London borough of Brent. The council has hatched a dastardly scheme to try and recoup some of its missing millions of council tax arrears. It has sent out thousands of final demands and summonses, with the threat that if people don't pay then the bailiffs will be sent round - to take the television.