TV View: England. What now? Ask the pundits. "Howay alreet ghsb aysh kknofw ach noo, like, bukh hsdga anna ytshdg loopfs wxadf, like," insisted Gazza, "othawise Arge teen, like, will sjydhs ahsykj dsgjs - def nilly, like." Gabby Logan looked at Robbie Earle.
Robbie Earle looked at Gabby Logan. Gabby Logan looked at us. With eyes that appeared to be dialling 999.
We looked at our remote controls and pressed 888 on the off-chance that the programme came with subtitles. It didn't. Just as well. Imagine asking someone to subtitle Gazza? "You're having a laugh, like," they'd say.
All credit to her, though, Gabby persisted. She asked Gazza what changes he would make to the England line-up for the Argentina game. "Av ma mi'field heor," he said, pointing to a scrap of paper. "Av got Becks, Horgrivs, ah think ad problee put Teddy thor, if Teddy dunt play ad play Scholes thor, an' Owen, an' problee put Butt in Scholes' posis-posis-shun, an' Andy Cole, ah mean Joe Cole, on the left an' give 'em a go. Like."
"Would you go along with that Robbie?" asked Gabby. "Emmmm," said Robbie .
What Robbie was thinking, but was too polite to say, was that Gazza was opting for a risky, if revolutionary, formation in which there appeared to be no room for a goalkeeper and space for just one defender.
Rio Ferdinand, then, would play in a flat back one, behind a midfield of David Beckham, Owen Hargreaves, Nicky Butt and Joe Cole, with Teddy Sheringham and Paul Scholes filling the hole (let's hope it's a big one) behind Michael Owen, Darius Vassell and Emily Heksee.
"Tried them tactics Gaz, didn't work," Kevin Keegan was heard to say to his telly back home.
Yes, indeed, The Gazza Show. "Fourteen million watched the England game on ITV," Gabby declared, proudly. "That's 'cos am on the show," said Gazza. And do you know? He's probably right.
True, the match wasn't actually on any other British channel and if England play against Argentina and Nigeria like they did against Sweden we might never get the chance to see ITV and the BBC go head to head with their coverage, but Gazza's - how does one put it? - "alternative" punditry style appears to be going doon a bomb. And it might even give ITV its first ever World Cup victory over the Beeb.
Remember Stanley Unwin? The English fella who spoke gobbledegook for a living? His version of Goldilocks and the Three Bears ("Goldyloppers and the Three Bearloaders") went like this: "Goldyloppers trittly-how in the early mordy, and she falolloped down the steps. Oh unfortunade for cracking of the eggers and the sheebs and the buttery full-falollop and graze the knee-clappers." They say Stanley Unwin died last year, but I'm beginning to wonder.
Can you imagine Alan Hansen opening the BBC's morning coverage by telling us - over a photo of Buckingham Palace on fire - that because he was very nervous for the England game, "ah decided to have a cigarette behine the Palace an' I've burned it doon - ah got a phone caal an' the Queen is going absolute ballistic wi' us"? No. Truly, Gazza is the Ozzy Osbourne of World Cup punditry. And if he's turning ITV's coverage into The Osbournes he's managing to make the Beeb's come over like Songs of Praise.
Before the Italian game, he reminisced fondly about his time at Lazio ("aye, they loved me, like") and gave a brief insight in to the general pattern of his career - "ah was oot nine month, came back, got smashed in the jaw, like, and broke me kneecap and was oot another eight month."
Then, when Brazil's game was up for discussion, he shared his inside knowledge of Juninho, who was a team-mate at Middlesbrough. "He just wannee happy a' Millbro, homesick, rumaars, wha'ever, then all a sudden, like, he's back on the game."
But, before we saw Juninho prostituting himself for Brazil against Turkey, we had to endure Croatia v Mexico (kick-off 7.30 a.m.). "If he's fit he's catching pigeons," Jamie Redknapp said of Alen Boksic before the game, trying to get us excited, an effort that wasn't helped by Peter Reid's pronouncement that "there's probably nobody watching us any way".
Just when you were beginning to think this World Cup couldn't get any better, it didn't. But the second half did, at least, provide the competition's funniest moment so far - the Croatian goalkeeper's spectacular "effort" at saving Mexico's penalty.
Why did he move towards the corner flag just as Blanco stepped up to take it? Answers on a postcard.
Brazil v Turkey. Now you're taking. There was, of course, no pressure on the Brazilians going in to the game, apart from the BBC's montage of sublime Brazilian World Cup moments from history and Hansen declaring: "We love them, we expect, we anticipate, the history, the tradition, the charisma, you look for talent, ability, quality, flair, invention, creation, they've got the lot."
The highlight? Lots (lowlight: Rivaldo. Why oh why?), but the Beeb picked out the best one at the end of the game - left-back Roberto Carlos, 20 yards from Turkey's goal, sweeping the ball cross-field to right-back Cafu, in the Turkish penalty box.
And they're defenders. One mini-moment that summed up the philosophy. Bliss. But probably enough to make Jack Charlton choke on his Weetabix.
