extremely super

I love the Super Bowl. This time last year I was reporting live on Janet Jackson’s breast expose, and this year’s show has started in equally priceless fashion – Alicia Keys dueting with dead genius/junkie/philanderer Ray Charles, with backing vocals provided by several dozen special needs children, the camera lingering awkwardly on their hopeful, bewildered, innocent faces. The song? ‘America The Beautiful’. Given US television’s obsession with physical perfection, it’s a freakishly brave move by the network – mawkish, cloying televisual slop at its very finest. Add to the mix New England quarterback Tom Brady, whose grandmother died at a nursing home superbowl party this week, and we could be heading for the most schmaltz-ridden sporting event in history. And just think; Paul McCartney is still to come at half-time…