I’m currently watching last night’s Superbowl. I’ve never watched a full American Football match before, so I thought I’d give it a whirl. I must admit I’m intrigued: back at uni, Ricardio used American football as one of his theatre warm up exercises, so I kind of knew the basics from there, but what I hadn’t appreciated was how tactical it was. Both teams have to predict the moves of each player, so it’s a bit like chess. However, what I’m not so keen on is how start/stop it is: play barely seems to go thirty seconds without stopping, so the game seems painstakingly slow (and I say that as a cricket fan). Each quarter is supposed to last fifteen minutes, but I’ve been watching the program for two hours and I’ve only reached half time. It really staggers me how much Americans pad their sports and other bits of culture out with adverts. How can they stand everything getting interrupted every five minutes (if that)?