Last night I watched the Superbowl. A s a person who has never seen American football except in films, I must say right now that it is an extremely dull sport. There is a huge amount of standing around and yelling, and lots of complicated number sequences that I do not understand. Why does anyone watch this crap, I wondered. Then the cheerleaders came on screen, all heaving cleavage and dazzling smiles and the boys in my living room went silent. Ahh, I murmured to myself as comprehension dawned.
Still, the rules of the game elude me. Thinking that Americans (which I have also had little experience with outside films) followed the same rules of logical numerical progression as ourselves, I glanced up from my perusal of the Observer's travel section to find the words on the screen changed from '3rd&11' to '1st&10'.
'What?! What just happened? Did we just move back in time?' I demanded of the room.
Burt took a deep breath and launched into a lengthy explanation of the technicalities of the game, which seems to involve yards and other things I thought the EU made illegal when we all went metric. There's ten minutes of my life I won't get back again.
When he finished, with a knowing nod and a swig of his Stella, I hummed appreciatively and fumbled for the Funday Times supplement from that day's Times. Evidently, I am not made for such viscerally real experiences as this.
To sum up, and in a synopsis I'm sure you would have rather had at the start: Lucy watched sport yesterday and did not get it. Nobody is surprised by this rather unfunny revelation. Lucy sighs heavily and crosses another topic off her 'Things I can converse cleverly on' list. Getting to be a pretty short list.
2 comments:
Surely you didn't watch the whole thing, as it would have dragged on into the wee hours of the morn. And I would advise not trying to learn football by watching the Super Bowl. The game is deliberately stretched and made even more tedious than usual.
As the second Chris posting a comment, I would second that opinion--the Super Bowl is ridiculously stretched and much more tedious than a typical game. And, as an American thoroughly obsessed with the sport, I must say that this year's Super Bowl was actually a rather dreadful affair compared to those in years past.
But, all that being said, I got quite a chuckle out of your analysis and found myself wondering, "Why do I waste so much time watching such a silly game?"
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