Every man must do two things alone; he must do his own believing and his own dying.
Martin Luther
And so, I must stand before you today alone, secure in the knowledge my own friends will disown even the knowledge of my acquaintance. I alone, can see the true light: Football. And so alone, I must take this stand and brave the verbal carnage that is American Football, when viewed from afar. I stand humble in the naked light.
I wish I too had a friend I could like so much. Alas, Roger says he don’t give a shit. I even told Roger that this year’s Super Bowl was the second most watched television event in history, behind the Apollo 11 moon landing. He says I’m a wanker. I’m not really sure what that is but I suspect it has little to do with the Pope or how humble I am.
I didn’t even bother with Sergey, they play hockey. I know that game takes place on ice. Did you ever wonder how they paint the lines inside the ice? I think the paint brush should stick.
Because our readership is international, I feel compelled to explain the rules of American Football:
- They line up 248,000 TV Commercials; some are sixty seconds but most are thirty.
- There are two groups of big men in little, matching tights; it’s cute as hell but I can’t tell you much about them.
- Then Taylor Swift comes out and that’s when the game starts.
Mostly, that’s all you need to know.
This concludes my in-depth analysis of American Football.
Super Bowl – do we really care in Russia?
Super Bowl? What it is? A big bowl made in the USA?
Seriously, if you ask 100 people in Russia, I guess maybe one or two would understand the question, let alone explain it more specifically.
I am one of those guys as I like what we call here American Football, and what Americans call just Football. I like its power, speed, and dynamics. And the player’s outfits. I even know what a touchdown is because I spent a year in Texas and know who the Dallas Cowboys are. They won the Super Bowl back in 1993, by the way. There should be another football team from Houston. Plus, I know who Tom Brady is, and truly admire him as an athlete and as a personality. What a guy!
Finally, I know that the best and most expensive ads are shown at half time. This is how I found out the Chrysler commercial called ‘Half Time in America‘ with Clint Eastwood starring in it. I still like it. It won the 2012 Cannes advertising festival Silver Lion award. I watched the whole Cannes program in a movie theater in Moscow back then, including this one.
This is basically it. Now, it is time to play soccer!
Super Bowl – should we in Britain really care?
Nah, for most of us it’s an utter irrelevance. You miss a night’s sleep watching what is a tiny bit of the world’s most contrived sport, and a disgracefully expensive cabaret show which of course has nothing to do with sport whatsoever. And a stop every five minutes for a commercial break. Our idea of sporting hell on earth.
Yes, there are always a few die-hard fans who will watch the live coverage, and some public establishments will stay open late to accommodate a modest gathering of American football fans. But they are few and far between.
Most Brits know we have a far superior game called Rugby, which is game for ruffians played by the meanest and toughest gentlemen you will find on our planet. And no armour-plating for protection either.
In fact, at this very time, Europe has Rugby’s Six Nations Championship going on, which has millions of fans glued to their television sets and pubs and entertainment venues packed to the seams with fans of English, Scottish, Irish, Welsh, French and Italian heritage. The matches feature non-stop action for 40 minutes, a short break to reassemble limbs and teeth, and then another 40 minutes of legal warfare. Marvellous.
The vast majority of us Brits think that American football is mind-numbingly tedious, and worse still, incorrectly named. It’s played mostly with the hands, and yet they call it football. Wankers.
Why would we want to watch a bunch of egg-chasing cissies? We want proper sport, not a massive T.V. commercial interrupted by milliseconds of ballet.