Stuporbowl

I have a Facebook 'friend' who seems, in the eight years or so since I last saw him, to have developed a predilection for American football. I know this because it's one of the three themes of his semi-literate status updates. The other two are stories of his child (who may well be charming), and manifestations of his taste in music (which is apparently execrable).

I imagine he, like me, watched the Superbowl last night. But he probably didn't watch it with about 150 other people in his landlord's back garden. Our landlord lives just down the street from us, and has apparently being putting on an annual Superbowl extravaganza for 20 years or so. He'd hired a massive flatscreen telly, got a load of seating, laid on a quite ample amount of food and beer, and invited over about everyone he could think of, it seemed. At half time, there was some prize-giving ceremony that I could make neither head nor tail of, and a massive firework display in the middle of the street.

So, yeah, people make a real fuss over this (can you imagine a similar event in the UK for the FA cup final?). The actual game seems almost incidental, which is handy, because there's not much actual game to go on. This was the first time I'd watched a full match, and what's crazy is how long the thing lasts relative to the amount of time they actually play. A game lasts for four 15-minute quarters, but because of the amount of stoppages, length of halftime, and so on, that hour stretches to something like three. And all of the breaks in play are filled with advertisements. Not just a quick one, either, but usually a full break's worth of three or four. This means that it can be quite hard to follow the progress of the game, since by the time it restarts, you can hardly remember what was going on before. I can usually watch pretty much any sport on telly and get interested (though not to the extent of an ex-roommate who could get properly involved with absolutely anything; I balk at golf), but the lack of continuity makes it hard.

Luckily, despite barely watching any, I do somehow know at least roughly the rules of the game. I think this is some long-buried memory from the time in the 80s or early 90s when there was a brief attempt to make the game popular in the UK. I remember buying a book on American football at a Blue Peter bring-and-buy sale across the road, so perhaps that's where my familiarity stems from. Incidentally, at that time, the best team in the US were the Miami Dolphins, which I think explains why most people in the UK can still remember their name despite the fact that since then, they've apparently been consistently awful.

So I could follow the game without peppering whoever was standing next to me with annoying questions, and from what I could tell, it was a pretty good one. Back and forth, and a last-minute winner. I don't think I'm going to be making a habit of watching American football - though I really ought to go to a game some time - but it was quite a fun experience, all in all. If only I could find a 150-strong crowd of people with whom I could watch the forthcoming West Indies-England Test series. Unfortunately, I think I'll struggle to find one person who cares. Sigh.

A few connected thoughts.

Following comment and criticism from both my regular readers, I've resolved to be less concerned with writing long-ish, careful pieces here, and more directed towards actually updating the thing regularly, even if it seems a little slapdash See how long that lasts.

Anyway, having spent the holiday in the UK, I'm now back in Miami, having added another couple of transatlantic flights to my list of climate crimes. Airports and aeroplanes have a strange effect on me. Everything seems to become disconnected in my head, more immediate and visceral. I'm not sure why. Something, perhaps, to do with the peculiar stasis of transit; hours (many of them) sat still, uncommunicative and unreachable, headphones jammed in to drown out the other people. So here, in no particular order, are some vaguely connected thoughts that occurred to me on my way back here last Tuesday.

Regarding the men's toilets at the departure gates at Heathrow: how deludedly optimistic would one have to be to buy condoms immediately before flying?

On the subject of the third runway: it's not the fact that they've decided to build the wretched thing that makes me angry. Well, it does, but what really makes me angry is that it's been obvious ever since the idea was first mooted that this was going to be the outcome. How long ago was that? Three years, four? Since when, we've had inquiries, consultations, coy statements from ministers about how no final decision had been reached, all this verbiage and money and time wasted in an attempt to... to what? To convince the population at large that this wasn't a foregone conclusion? It depresses me that they think anyone was convinced by it all. Why not just do it? Same with everything else: privatising the post office, building new nuclear plants, and so on. Give up on the sham 'listening' or whatever, save us all the bother, and just do what's going to be done in the end anyway.

In-flight entertainment: the last Woody Allen film ("Vicky Cristina Barcelona") might be a wonderful piece of cinema, considered as a whole, but the first half hour is so execrable that I had to stop watching it, so I couldn't tell you. Linked to the comments above about the experience of flying, it seems that my reactions to films are sharpened considerably. I'm either utterly engrossed, or totally turned off. Examples: "I'm Not There", on the way back here this time, had me wishing fiercely that I could be any of the pseudo-Dylans featured, in a way that I've not reacted to a film character since I was young and impressionable. "Juno", a couple of flights ago, I couldn't stomach, though I'd digested it quite happily the first time round in the cinema. And so on.

Terminal 5: is wonderful. Seriously, both arriving and departing are smooth, quick, and easy. Compared to the horrible Miami International, where the weary traveller is greeted by an hour-long queue for passport control and then spat out into a chaotic underground mess of moving vehicles, Heathrow is just lovely.

I think that's enough of that. New rambling tone established. As I said, I'll try to be more regular about all this... Until I get bored. Or you do.