Just once a year - watching A FUNNY-SHAPED BALL

I noted at this time last year that, while I do not think it remotely bears comparison with the grace and artistry of real football, I do nevertheless have a longstanding soft spot for the American gridiron game. And I confess this weakness has become bound up with my other great moral frailty - an occasional fondness for drinking heavily at breakfast time (usually only on this one occasion each year, I promise!). I look forward to the Super Bowl every year because, when living in East Asia, the game gets under way for me at around 6.30 or 7am - and this is just such an exquisite time of day to crack open one's first beer. (With any luck, one of these - since I've finally tracked down a store that fairly regularly seems to have it in cans.)

Super Bowl LX (and I do love that they're doing their bit to keep Roman numerals alive!) is between the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks tomorrow morning (in my part of the world). I have not the slightest shred of attachment to either team (and have hardly seen anything of the games this season!), so.... I will pledge my allegiance according to the time-honoured principles of random sentiment and playful rancour. I spent a very pleasant few days in Seattle back in the 1990s (although, true to the city's reputation, it did piss with rain most of the time), and I've had a bit of a soft spot for it ever since (though I've never previously taken an interest in any of their sports teams). Extra bonus points to the place for being the setting of Frasier!! And one of my old drinking buddies from my Beijing days is a diehard Pats fan - so, it will be fun to root against him during the game. (If I had the money, I'd flit off to join him for the event. He's going to be watching it in a beach bar in Thailand - lucky sod! Only a few hundred miles away; but in my current state of penury, it might as well be 10,000 miles....)