HOW TO BE . . . SHITTY IN AMERICA

A month is a very short time in US healthcare. Within a matter of weeks, I had a mammogram, cervical smear and a colonoscopy, all included in my insurance under the banner of Preventative Care (or preventive as they call it here). 

In the UK, even at the age of 60, I would have been offered the first two once every three years and the latter probably never; any medical word containing five syllables equals expensive. It reminds me of a cartoon I once saw in the New Yorker: a man lying on the analyst’s couch and the shrink saying, “Manic depression? Manic depression? Oh no, that’s way out of your price range.”

   

The mammogram involved machinery that made me think I had gone on vacation in Thunderbird 2. The paddles I remember from the UK transformed my breasts into muffins, but thankfully they were no more; instead, the 3D technology involved a gentle process that nevertheless produced hundreds of shots from every imaginable angle.  

   

The smear was likewise painless. The last one I had in the UK made me feel as if I’d been attacked by a bear - from the inside out. For some bizarre reason, they always started with the metal tube that threatened to split me in half like a water melon; the one they ended up with, to fit my petite size, was barely wider than a nostril. Then there was the scraping, like a soon to be employed miner, desperate to get a memento of the last coal mine on Earth.

   

In the US, they were in and out so quickly, I didn’t even notice (a bit like some of my exes). I have no idea why in Britain everything was so painful and across the Atlantic almost a pleasure to be put under the spatula/tube.

   

I was dreading the colonoscopy, however. Only once had any outside party ventured up there (I’ll ignore references to exes at this juncture; no means no, okay?) and that was when I was doing a show called So You Think You Want a Heathy Lifestyle? It required me to live mega healthily for two weeks and have colonic irrigation. 

The procedure was to be performed by a male doctor, accompanied by his sidekick wife, the show’s director (female), and the camera and sound men. There was a poster of Princess Diana on the wall and the doctor explained how she was a big fan of colonics (not that  it helped rid her of the toxins of her marriage, but that’s another story). I pondered that if I could look like her at the end of it, the trauma would have been worthwhile.

   

The problem was that I was supposed to go out on a bender with alcohol and a Vindaloo one night and, the next day, have the colonic to get rid of all the evil debris. Owing to the tight schedule, we had to shoot the scenes in reverse, so in the morning I had the colonic and in the evening went out for my monstrous meal. Alas, by that time, there was precious little to hold the food in and I recall running across the restaurant floor to the restroom, desperately trying to hold everything together. And failing.

   

The doctor had earlier said I had “stubborn stools” as I lay patiently on my back, awaiting the great swirling movie of my bowels he encouraged me to watch in the overhead mirror. By the time the Vindaloo had done its stuff later on, they weren’t so much stubborn as eagerly trying to sell themselves on the Black Market.

   

The American doctors were stunned I had never had a colonoscopy, which they perform as a matter of course here after the age of 50. Three days before, you are required to eat a low-fibre diet, so I had fish, potato without skin, eggs and herbal teas.

   

The day before, the great purge began. No solids, just clear fluids, four tablets and a whole 8oz bottle of powder to be dissolved in 64ozs liquid - 32ozs of which has to be drunk six to eight hours before the procedure, which in my case meant setting the alarm for 4am.

   

Niagara Falls doesn’t begin to describe what happened to my bowels (stop reading now if you are squeamish); but by the time morning came round, I was peeing in stereo, with only my vagina a safe dry crevice separating the geysers either side.

   

Fussed over by no fewer than nine medics in all, I wafted around in a gown that could have housed three Texans and still had room for a multi-story. I was told I would have a twilight anaesthetic, which is like sedated sleep (although I was given the option to stay awake throughout if I wanted to. No thanks: give me The Twilight Zone every time). 

As with general anaesthetic, I had no memory of falling unconscious; I just recall being woken, when I started to tell them about a dream I’d just had; I think there were hamburgers in it which, not having eaten for 48 hours, was understandable.

   

The doctor arrived with photos of my super clean colon (I tell you, Donald Trump’s penthouse does not look more polished; there was not a molecule of waste in evidence. “It’s very clean, isn’t it?” I boasted. “Yes, you did really well,” she replied. I felt strangely proud; I may use one of the pics as my Christmas card). 

There was one polyp, which I had given them permission to remove, and now  that goes away for examination. Even if it comes back showing potential risk, it still means five years until my next colonoscopy, although most polyps are benign anyway.

   

I read more about colons, bowels and intestines in a week than I ever thought I would have to do in a lifetime. I lost just two pounds in weight, my stomach is still flabby, my tongue is sore as I bit on it throughout (clearly why no means no in the colonic vicinity) and I’m right out of toilet paper. 

But somewhere in West Hollywood, I’ve doubtless made some plumber’s day. 

HOW TO BE . . . GAY IN AMERICA

The message was clear. At least, they thought it was. On a glorious hot weekend in Los Angeles, rainbow colored flags, clothes, scarves, jewelry, dogs (you name it, rainbows owned it) took to the streets to celebrate Pride.

   

Except for THEM. The tiny group being penned in behind a metal barrier and being carefully watched by the police. They were like the Cybermen, sinisterly lurking in wait to attack the Tardis of pleasure. Their banners said it all - or would have done, had one man not also had a microphone, into which he bellowed the terrifying message. God’s pronouncement on the ten plagues of Egypt could not have been more sinister. I tell you, ten minutes later I could barely keep my cost price Pride Special Breakfast down.

   

Putting things in your “rear end” is WRONG! the beast declared. God is going to punish you for using your bottom as a parking lot (my words; you really don’t want to hear how explicit he was). So there. Engaging in this heinous activity will give you AIDS. “How many of your friends have DIED. . . Do you WANT HIV?” The capital letters rained down like a plague of locusts.

   

Then he got started on lesbians, for whom he had saved most of his wrath. “Wait till you get licked out by God!” (To be honest, he seemed to know a little bit too much about it all for my comfort. Does God even know what licking out means?). “Your vagina was not meant for a dildo!” He declared. Hey, mate, it wasn’t meant for yoghurt, either, but sometimes a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.

   

I was in two minds whether to go over and bring him up on a point of order: straight women use dildos, too - usually when pricks like this make us lose all hope of ever finding a man.

   

Here was the legal issue: was it lesbians per se who were going to hell, or just the dildo-wielding lesbians? Or was the dildo itself the real crime of the drama? If a straight woman uses a dildo, does she stand more chance of passing the pearly gates than the heinous gay one? If a straight woman’s man is away on business, is she allowed to indulge as a point of desperation? I was so anxious to try to clear this up; it’s a moot point.

   

And back to the rear end. The voice boomed out that there were all sorts of unspeakable things that men were putting there (dildos suddenly sounded the least of everyone’s problems). Indeed, we wouldn’t believe what men were capable of in their uphill gardening (ok, the gardening bit is again mine, not the speaker’s; he had all sorts of words for the unsavory trough awaiting planting). The suspense was killing me. For the love of God, mate, tell us! My imagination was running riot. What goes up there? A toaster? Air con unit? A condo?

   

I have a lot of gay friends, male and female, and rear ends hardly ever enter the conversation; in fact, a lot of my gay male friends are rather averse to that part of the proceedings. Maybe they need to buy a toaster.

   

Apparently, the God Squad group gets smaller every year, which is a blessing. On a day celebrating diversity and tolerance, it’s ironic that it was only the Born Again Christians yelling their messages of hatred. If cars had been allowed on the street, I’d have been sorely tempted to...well, rear-end them.

   

How do people find the time to worry so much about what others are doing in their sex lives? I can barely get it together to think about whether I can be arsed to reach the remote for the telly, let alone hire a speaker system to discuss what people get up to amongst themselves. Who cares? Unless there is evidence of abuse, you can build a multi-storey in your vagina or rear end and you won’t hear any complaints from me.

   

Homophobes and lunatics aside, it was a joyous weekend. T-shirts backed their various causes - “I support planned parenthood”, “Lesbian single mom strong” - and strangers mingled with likeminded people as if they were long lost family.

   

I will admit to having felt a little bit out of it though - The Only Straight in the Village (the opposite of the UK’s Little Britain show featuring The Only Gay in the Village). With the exception of the friend I met for drinks, I didn’t meet one straight person the whole weekend. That’s nothing new, really. As friends have pointed out in the past, if I will take up residence in Soho (London), West Hollywood (Los Angeles) and Hell’s Kitchen (New York), I’m not going to meet Mr Right or, as I now prefer to say: I’m going to have to kiss a lot of toasters before I meet my Prince. And, let’s be honest, time’s running out. I’m 60 years old now: at the rate my underused innards are shrinking, I’ll be lucky if I’ll be able to harbor a cocktail stick, let alone a dildo.

   

One thing I took away from the day was what a family day Pride has become. Rainbow-decked kids were out in force with their families, gay or straight (I didn’t ask), and I felt proud (yes, pride with a small “p”) to be living in a time (at least, in our part of the world), where being gay does not make you an outcast; where those young people I saw on the street will know that being gay is not an affliction. To thine own self be true (Shakespeare). Be good to one another (Jesus - so stick that up your rear end, arseholes!).

   

Alas, much of the world and much of our own society in the so-called civilised world does not concur, as witnessed by the fanatics behind the barrier. But that barrier served as a metaphor: the bigots are behind bars, screaming to ever-decreasing circles as the world changes and evolves. Be proud.

   

And if I ever do meet Mr Right, I don’t want an effing toaster for a wedding present. Goddit?

  

HOW TO BE . . . A POLITICIAN IN AMERICA

OMG! I am a political genius. 

Why didn’t I think of it sooner? I’m getting straight on the phone to the White House as I think I’ve found the solution to the whole wall problem. Within hours, I could bring to a halt the shutdown that is crippling America. I could be next year’s Time Magazine Person of the Year. I might get freedom of the City of Washington. I could become President Trump’s New Best Friend.

   

I think he’d like me. Not least because I predicted he would be President the second he said he was standing. I suspect he’s probably got a wicked sense of humor (hey, come on – I can be as sycophantic as the next soon-to-be-sacked official). I certainly think I have something to resolve the current crisis engulfing the country, which I think would endear me to the President greatly. And I can say it in 10 characters, thereby leaving him a whole lot of others to bang on about whatever else he chooses on Twitter (apologies; I know that’s no way to talk about my NBF).

   

Until I got my Green Card last year (legally, since you ask), I’d never thought of a career in politics, much less American politics. But now I’m gripped by the daily soap opera it appears to have become. I’m so gripped, I’m taking Russian language classes (even though I’m already fluent after a bottle of Chianti). In the category in which I was applying for the Green Card, I had to state, under the “National Interest Waiver” (i.e. not having a job), what I was going to contribute as a legal immigrant - financial, social, artistic et al – and now I have it. I’m going to contribute to the political health of this great country.

   

True, I can’t stand for President, as I wasn’t born here, but maybe I could get all that changed. You see? I am already well into this narrative. But would I want to live in Washington DC? They go to bed before 2am there! How old am I? Four? 

And what if the Oval Office is too oval for me? How oval is it? American football oval, or Kiwi fruit oval? Can you hang paintings with rectangles in an oval office? Would I have to have an oval husband? I have a bit of an OCD thing going on with shapes, so this might prove something of an issue. I think I’d prefer a rectangular office. Or a hectagon. Is that allowed under the Constitution?

   

While we’re at it, I’m not too fond of the color white, either. Would I be allowed to paint the White House blue? How is anyone even supposed to find it in an East Coast snowstorm?

  

Sometimes, I think I over-think things. 

And maybe I’m getting ahead of myself.

   

So, back to the main point and my solution for solving America’s current problems. Brace yourselves.

   

Here goes.

   

Forget the wall.

   

Build a moat!

   

Yes, a moat.

   

As an island, the UK has natural borders. Yes, I know you can fly in and bypass all that stuff, but if the President banned all flights from Mexico and the only way into the US was by water, how difficult would it be for people to get here?

   

Unless they had a Moses among them, doing his parting of the Red Sea party trick, it would be pretty much foolproof. No bricks, no steel: just a whacking great river with hyped-up rates for the dinghies so that only people earning upwards of a million dollars a year can afford them.

   

I’ve looked at a map of the world. Here’s how the moat’s going to work. You start digging at the Pacific Ocean and don’t stop until you reach the Gulf of Mexico. True, it’ll be expensive, but with a few men in hard hats and a couple of shovels, I think it could easily be accomplished. And Voila! Problem solved.

   

Britain’s prowess in ancient wartimes was the protection its geographic placement as an island offered it. Quite simply, they could see the enemy coming. They’d get up in the morning and, over bacon and eggs, look out of the window and ask “Hey, what’s that whacking great lump of metal coming towards us, bobbing along?”

   

“What, that whacking great thing that’s not going to reach us before Christmas next year?”

   

Then they had ample time to finish their breakfast (several), gather their weaponry, lie in wait, and before you could say “Hello, sailor”, everyone on said great piece of metal would be dead.

   

Water is by far the superior material for keeping the enemy at bay (in this case, literally and metaphorically) than any bricks, mortar or steel are ever going to manage, and I don’t know why anyone has not thought of it.

   

So, President Trump, I am putting myself forward as Head of Wall Planning (water division), and it’s going to work like this.

1.     Look at map. Slice land from left to right.

2.     Dig deep. Water will eventually appear.

3.     Ban all Mexicans from taking swimming lessons.

4.     Ban all flights in and out of Mexico.

5.     Tickets for boat trips to be bought in advance and only with ID (no swimmers allowed. Olympian medallists banned for life).

6.     Ban all men with the Christian name Moses from boarding said boats. Men with names Noah and Jonah subject to additional scrutiny. Look carefully into their working background regarding ark building and whale-hiding.

7.     Strictly no fishing in the moat (non-swimmers might hook themselves to a rod and goodness how many illegal immigrants that might bring in).

8.     No one knowing the words to River Deep Mountain High, Cry Me a River or, especially, Last Boat to America allowed in the moat at any time (check to see if in possession of a David Gray CD in relation to the latter – definitely a No No).

9.     No taco vendors allowed at water’s edge on Mexican side.

10.  No towels offered at water’s edge on American side.

I am America’s savior. Just floating it as a solution, Mr President.

  

HOW TO BE . . . A MINORITY IN AMERICA

Let me say at the outset that I have the utmost respect for the LGBTQ community.

I have seen too many lives destroyed by issues surrounding sexuality, gender and identity not to have the utmost sympathy for those who struggle and face prejudice and hatred every day of their lives.

The lack of empathy with those who are different from the norm is truly terrifying, particularly in government. How can anyone profess to being Christian when they ignore the basic tenet of that religion? It’s simple: “Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving of one another” (Ephesians 4:32). Irrespective of whether you believe in God, how hard can that be?

  

But the LGBTQ’s growing inclusiveness is rather hijacking the alphabet; and so, before the movement takes up any more letters than the near quarter they have already monopolized, I want to draw attention to a hitherto little discussed group to which I belong: SOFMI. Straight Old Female Minuscule Immigrant.

I feel a march and a placard coming on – albeit currently a march and a placard with a supporter of one.

But give me time. Who knows, I might even take more letters as the popularity of my movement grows. Perhaps, A (I am very Ambitious – not something people particularly warm to in women); P (people like Poor even less); S (Sexy – okay, I’m lying a bit now, but you have to grab these letters while they’re available and before the LGBTQ alphabet-jumpers steal any more).

  

I find myself in a minority in just about every area of my life these days. News headlines are dominated by those whose voices have previously been denied – and that’s how it should be; life is hard enough negotiating buying a pint of milk (try standing in line in Food Emporium on Friday nights), without having to argue the case for simply being who you want to be.

  

However, that doesn’t prevent my feeling constantly out of the loop, in no small part due to living in a country that is more foreign to me than France (where I lived for seven years). Britain and the USA: “two nations separated by a common language – attributed to Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw, sometimes both. So, let’s go through my minority status letter by letter.

1.     S. I am straight. Nearly everyone I know is gay. I’ve lived in Soho in London, West Hollywood in LA and now reside in Hell’s Kitchen in New York’s Manhattan. If you’re not familiar with these areas, just think Liza Minnelli meets Liberace meets Sarah Paulson/Ellen De Generes (fill in the gaps with any living lesbian for these two). I love my gay (mostly male) friends, but gosh, they like their drama. I try to subtly suggest that maybe they’d be happier if they didn’t end every night stressed/crying/hitting each other, went home and just watched Netflix with a pizza.

2.     O. Old. It seems I am officially old now. Days away from my 60^th birthday, my phone does not stop ringing with people trying to ease my journey to the grave. “My name is Carol and you are on a recorded line. We notice you are of an age when you will need hearing aids and we . . . ” “PARDON?” Yep, just for the hell of it. Stair lift sales people have also started bombarding me. “My name is Jim and you are on a recorded line. We notice you are of an age when you will be having a lot of falls . . . ” You bet. Because I keep going to the bar to get over the stress of your harassment.

3.     F. Female. Yes, I am. I was born with female genitals, to which I have become particularly attached over the years. Apart from a brief time in my childhood when I identified with an imaginary character called André (my own invention – he was rather terrific, actually), I am and have always identified as a girl/woman. I know, I know, it’s weird, but there it is. I don’t want to be referred to as “them” because there is only one of me; in fact, I’d prefer “it,” which at least is grammatically accurate.

4.     M. Minuscule. Yes, I am a small person. I am only five feet tall and, on most days, weigh between 112 and 117 lbs. You have no idea how that isolates me from the rest of American society. I don’t hold coffee cups on the street; I don’t share my lunch on corners with rodents and large birds. Call me old-fashioned, but I have things called plates, knives and forks in my apartment. And, heaven forbid, a dining table to put them on. Did you know, by the way that Americans eat 20% of their meals in cars? I don’t even have a car, so I’m going to add C for Carless to my list (watch out, LGBTQ, I’m coming for your letters!).

5.     I. Immigrant. Yes, I am. I came to the USA through official channels, qualifying as an Alien of Exceptional Ability. That’s a minority, too, by the way (*smug expression*), as is Alien of Exceptional Ability with a National Interest Waiver (*smug broadens*). The former explains itself, although my Master’s Degree was a huge plus (actors, incidentally, are Aliens of Extraordinary Ability – okay, it’s a rung down - just sayin’). The latter meant that I could be here without a job, so long as I could prove myself to be of some benefit (it can be economic, cultural, social etc., but the goalposts are constantly changing).

6.     Carless. I just added that. Ha! That’s another letter you can’t kidnap, LGBTQ!

The truth is, though, I’m okay with it: minority or majority status. I’m grateful to be alive; let’s be honest, so many aren’t. People say, with ageing, that they wish they’d known ‘then’ what they know ‘now.’

I’m the opposite. I am so glad that I lived (and still live) the fun and the laughter; that I endured heartbreak and job loss; enjoyed heady years with no commitment to property; that I smiled, cried and came through it all to be living in New York, which I regard as the greatest city in the world.

I’m just human, but I was always on my way to you, New York.

In the lyrics of Cody Johnson:

All the boats I’ve missed
All the hell I’ve caused
All the lips I’ve kissed
All the love I’ve lost
I thank God for that
I guess he always knew
I was on my way to you

And to quote that other great lyricist, Bernie Taupin: I’m still standing.

Stair lift sales people, take note.

HOW TO BE . . . A (RECOVERING) GROUPONOHOLIC IN AMERICA

My name is Jaci and I am a Grouponoholic.

   

I didn’t even know I was one until I came to the US, where anything ending with the letters "ic" is an incentive to start a society/self-help group/therapy session. Groupons exist the world over, but in the US, Grouponism is an hysterical urge that takes over one’s life.

   

I realised I had become an addict when I found myself waking up halfway through the night and going to my computer, for fear of having missed a bargain while I was sleeping.

   

It started out like any other addiction. At first, a small pleasure, with me innocently signing up to what appeared to be a great bargain. A mere $35 for a $60 meal? What could go wrong? A $40 facial for $20? All the things I loved, suddenly at my fingertips, for considerably less money.

   

Then there were deals for things I didn’t even know I needed until Groupons came into my life. Boot camp! Of course! Why hadn’t I thought of it before! Six $80 sessions down to the bargain price of $25! I’ll take it!

   

More things followed. Rally driving. Golf. Rambling. Scuba diving. Infra-red sauna treatments. Microdermabrasion (whatever that was). Tattoos. If it was a bargain, I wanted it. And, down to three hours’ sleep a night and needing to grab the best Groupon deals before everyone else, I invariably got them.

   

Incredible. I was rich, and the more I spent, the richer I seemed to become.

   

I was living a double life and loving it.

   

I had easily been able to segregate my Groupon life from what I called my normal life. My own Grouponism was a guilty secret - I Grouponed alone, I hid my Grouponism from friends and family, I blacked out from ODing on Groupons – but, to all outward appearances, I carried on with my Groupon-free existence, never wishing to openly acknowledge what was happening in that dark place.

   

How I sneered at Grouponites’ open desperation and their sweaty little hands, frantically waving their pieces of paper proclaiming the deal, and making demands upon staff whose eyes you could see burning with Groupon hatred.

   

And how they multiplied: dozens of people, with sheafs – reams - of paper scrabbling for air space, and angry voices demanding why they couldn’t use their Thursday Groupon on a Friday, and why the sliders had lamb rather than beef fillings, and why you couldn’t use the Groupon for a Martini instead of a glass of house wine.

   

They are everywhere now. Having got the bargain, they have to find something wrong with it and are never happy. And they never tip. The deal spells it out: you have to tip the staff, as tips are not part of the Groupon; but the Grouponites are so intent on landing a bargain, they ignore the small print of the deal.

   

I feel permanently incensed on the staff’s behalf – usually after picking myself up off the floor after being trampled on by a veritable herd of Grouponites. All my favourite places have been turned into scenes from the Alamo. Heartbreaking. There was a moment when I knew - and they say that admitting the problem is the first step to recovery.

   

I no longer wanted to be associated with these people, but had I left it too late? Had my addiction already taken too strong a hold? I began to loathe the very sound of the word.

   

Groupon. The monster that is Groupon.

   

Was there a Dr Groupon in a dark office, pondering, like me, how his wonderful creation got so out of hand? How all of us, wanting a bargain and signing up for our discounts, turned so resentful, owing to the fact that in our favourite social destination, we had to hack down Grouponites who stood in our way?

   

I resolved to wean myself off, but discovered that there was no help available, no known cure: no counselling groups, no programmes, no newspaper articles revealing how we might dig ourselves out of this mire. And so I set about devising my own 12 Step Programme (with thanks to AA’s Big Book) that I hope might be of use to those finding themselves in the grip of the same addiction and wishing to step off the Groupon ladder once and for all.

   

So, WE:-

1. Admitted we were powerless over Groupons – that our lives without bargains had become unmanageable.

2. Came to believe that a Power lesser than our consumerist selves could restore us to sanity – Debt.

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of Debt, as we understood It.

4. Made a searching and fearless financial inventory of ourselves.

5. Admitted to Debt, to ourselves, and to another human being, the exact nature of our Groupon inclinations.

6. Were entirely ready to have Debt remove all these defects of consumerism from our weak and feeble characters.

7. Humbly asked Debt to remove the word Groupon from our computers and to block all invitations from future Groupons.

8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed in our fight to beat them to a bargain, and became willing to make amends by returning all gifts purchased by Groupons.

9. Made direct amends to such people, wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them even more than we already had, when we trampled them while rushing to the discounted Martini.

10. Continued to take personal inventory of our bank accounts and, when we noticed our savings mounting up, promptly admitted it.

11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with Debt, as we understood It, praying only for knowledge of Its will for us and the power to carry that out in getting our bank accounts back into the red.

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to other Grouponoholics, and to practise these principles in all of our financial affairs.

My book on the subject will hopefully soon be available on Amazon, by the way, price $29.99. $10 with a Groupon.

HOW TO BE . . . AN NFL FAN IN AMERICA

Tom Brady’s balls. 

More to the point: Tom Brady’s under-inflated balls. 

   

If you can talk about a man’s balls, inflated or otherwise, and keep a straight face, you are halfway to being a true NFL fan. Having arrived in the US with zilch knowledge of American Football, I had to get in the know very quickly if I was to stand any chance of talking to people.

   

The New England Patriots’ alleged deflation of balls in their defeat of the Indianapolis Colts in January 2015 gave rise to the scandal that is Deflategate. I love a good story, and now, I discover, everyone hates Tom Brady, who received a four game suspension for his part in the cheating.

   

That’s all I know about the NFL, though I really try when the summer season starts. I’ve read Football for Dummies several times, but think maybe they need a book titled Football for Dummies’ Dummies that might make the whole thing more comprehensible.

   

You just can’t avoid it though, just as you can’t avoid sport in almost every US bar. Nearly every hostelry I’ve visited has a TV screen; usually, several. Seated in front of them will be men with beers, shouting a lot. Shouting is essential to NFL fandom, in particular. So is throwing chairs across the room when somebody does something really bad, like touching another man and bringing a halt to the game. This happens a lot, but it seems there are recent new rules, about which everyone is complaining, and now even a semblance of touchy-feely is grounds for punishment.

   

So, having learned why Tom Brady and the New England Patriots were in the balls doghouse, I had to start learning the behaviour of fans. Shouting a lot came easily to me (heck, I grew up on the terraces of the Cardiff Arms Park and Welsh rugby Internationals); the rules, less so.

   

As far as I can make out, the basics of American Football are that a lot of men in Hannibal Lecter style masks and Dallas style shoulder pads run out onto a field and throw something the same shape as a rugby ball. Then, just as they’re getting into their stride, they are tackled and brought to the ground.

   

Then, everything stops. I have no idea why. Is there a tea-break? Are the teams required to nip to a bar to have a pint, before turning refreshed and ready for more action?

   

During the tea-breaks, a lot of overweight men with clipboards and the first signs of a heart attack frown a lot and run around frantically, shouting at more overweight men and waving to the Hannibals.

   

This, I learn, is what’s called Time Out: not, as it seems to me, pure laziness and a period in which shoulder pads have to be adjusted. 

   

Sometimes, a man is thrown over one of the sidelines, and that’s a cue for another tea-break and also one for the men with clipboards to start self-combusting.

   

Now, back to Mr Brady. I learn he is very successful and plays quarterback (that’s somewhere near the back, I presume; or is it at the front, ahead of a halfback, threequarterback, or twothirdsback? Who knows) for the New England Patriots. He’s the only player to have won five Super Bowls for the same team, but I’ll get to the Super Bowl shortly.

   

Let’s get back to the rules. So, the Hannibals are required to run over markings on a big field and, each one they cross, they get some points. They can also get points for kicking the ball over the goalposts. Then they all stop again. Think rugby with Bank Holidays in between. Making it over the final line is called a Touchdown, and this is when the men in the bar really start shouting (if their man is the Touch-downer) and throwing furniture (if their man has been bypassed by the Touch-downer).

   

This carries on for hours - possibly days; you could run a couple of marathons and return to find the guys still on tea-break. “What are they doing now?” I asked one of the shouting men, as I recently tried to comprehend another stoppage. Having patiently tried to explain to me the finer details of whichever game it was (they all look the same to me), he responded: “You’re outta questions.” Oh, well; I tried.

   

All of this interminable excitement culminates in the Super Bowl, or the Big Game, and takes place at the beginning of the year and, in 2019, on February 3rd. I can hardly wait.

   

Being a fan means you have to start getting excited about Super Bowl Sunday the moment Christmas is over and it’s a day that comes second only to Thanksgiving (the penultimate Thursday in November) in terms of food consumption.

   

In fact, food is essential; so is beer. Bud Light is currently the official sponsor, a contract that has been extended to 2022. Now, you see? I’m getting into it. The highlights of the event are a superstar belting out his or her greatest hits (with varying degrees of success) and the TV commercials.

   

Oh, the commercials. If there’s one thing that Bud Light does not take lightly, it’s their advertising during the Super Bowl. There’s always a message hidden in there, last year delivered by Bud Knight, a hero who “arriveth to smite thine enemies and pick up thy 24-packs.” Actually, the only message is “Drink more beer.” 

Maybe next year, self-confessed beer enthusiast Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh will feature. 

   

The food commercials are not in the same league - last year’s Wendy’s Burgers just made everyone thirsty for Bud Light. Why not just stick to chicken wings, the staple diet of pretty much every American? Twenty wings for $5 in thousands of bars across the country? In a place as big as America? 

Don’t male chickens have lessons in birth control? 

Maybe someone should cut their balls off. 

Now there’s a job for Tom Brady when he retires.