Surely this was the moment we’d all been waiting for: Taylor Swift running across the Allegiant Stadium, completely starkers at the Superbowl final.
‘People on the field,’ said a disturbed commentator, his voice filled with the kind of horror you imagine will come with the announcement of World War III. ‘A streaker.’ Come on, let’s see her, then! The camera stayed discreetly away before the relief . . . ‘A partial streaker.’
What’s a partial streaker when it’s at home? The creature either has no clothes on and is therefore worthy of the accolade ‘streaker’, or it is partially dressed, in which case it’s a wandering spectator.
Either way, please, please let it be Taylor, I begged. Alas, no such luck. She was safely ensconced in the VIP box although, given the skimpy nature of her black bodice ensemble, looked for all the world like a partial streaker.
True, the game was exciting, though I admit to being preoccupied throughout with how Taylor and Travis Kelce work in the bedroom. He is six foot five and weighs 250 lbs; and although Taylor is five feet 11, she is a runner bean. I fear for their antics and the possibility she might split open like a dropped water melon.
If Taylor proved an added attraction to the final, Jesus yet again proved a huge distraction. Yes. The Godsquadders of hegetsus.com were back with a bizarre commercial that looked like a begging bowl for a country just hit by a natural disaster.
But this year’s Jesus Loves You theme was feet, and mini scenarios in various forms of foot washing. If only they’d got well known foot fetishist Quentin Tarantino to direct it, the message might have been clearer – certainly it would have been more exciting.
What on Earth was going on? One straggly haired woman sitting on a floor looked as if she was helping her mate give birth. Another older woman was being hosed down outside with a man looking on. The hose was so powerful, it looked like a murder weapon and the guy sitting there living in the hope that his mother might be hosed to death so he could pick up the inheritance.
‘Jesus didn’t teach hate. He washed feet,’ declared the onscreen message.
Well, yes and no. There’s a reference in the Gospel John 13: 2-17 about Jesus washing the feet of his disciples, but he was no reflexologist. And I suspect the disciples wished that he’d hurry up and get that dead skin off between their toes so that he could resume his best party trick of turning water into wine.
In fact, in the Bible, Jesus appeared to enjoy being the recipient rather than the giver. When Mary Magdalene’s tears fell onto his feet and she dried them with her hair before kissing them and anointing them with oil, Jesus appeared much happier. This is more like it.
Either way, if foot washing is the main thing this organization can pull from the Bible on the biggest sporting night of the year, it’s evidence that Jesus doesn’t get us one little bit.
The soap manufacturer Dove was delivering its message about girls and sport. Body confidence, it said, is what makes most girls quit sport by the time they’re 14. Here’s a thought for you, Dove: girls will soon not only be quitting sport by their teens, they won’t be going into it in the first place.
How about you put your energies into publiciziing the real problem? Girls turning away from sport will be for one reason only: the utter disgrace that they will be competing against men and have no chance of standing on podiums that are increasingly taken up by people born with greater strength all round. And penises.
Nothing will knock a girl’s confidence more than the knowledge that all the hard work in the world will count for nothing on the larger sporting stage.
The Uber Eats commercial managed to be funny, which was welcome relief. Victoria Beckham had trouble remembering the name of the group she was once in – The Cinnamon Sisters, suggested David. ‘Paprika girls?’ said Victoria.
Jennifer Aniston was having trouble remembering that she worked for ten years with David Schwimmer on Friends. The message was that while you may forget, Uber Eats doesn’t.
Well, apart from when they either deliver to the wrong zip code turn up with a bucket of chicken wings when you ordered Chinese.
The oddest commercial was one featuring a young girl skating. A man we presumed to be her father looked lovingly at the seat next to him. Oh, no! Her mom’s died, you assumed.
Confusion set in when the dead mom somehow inspired the man to shove his obviously tired daughter into his very smart Kia EV9 electric car and drive through bad weather in the middle of the night to reach a hut in the middle of nowhere.
There, the pair were greeted by an infirm old man who just so happened to have a huge patch of ice in his garden. Then the kid, who must have been exhausted, had to perform all over again for him. Would it have been too much to ask, Dad, for you to have picked him up in your super-dooper car and take him to the empty seat?
And where’s Mom? What can we expect next year? A trip to her grave in the middle of the night?
I would watch all the ads many times over rather than endure another second of Usher’s half-time show. On a stage that was so wobbly, it might have been mistaken for a Jello commercial, the only thing that emanated from the makeshift stage was noise.
Noise, noise and lots more noise.
You could only hope that when Usher and his entourage donned roller skates, they would miraculously wheel off into the sunset and save us all any more torture.
Next year, surely they must look to Taylor Swift to deliver the goods at half time.
All supposing the paramedics have not been called to her water melon remains before then.