Cultural choices

The Superbowl, baby. That's right. I said baby.

To properly immerse oneself in a culture, whatever that may be, it helps to take on board its quirks and twitches.

In Superbowl week, you get more than your fair share of cultural oddities hurled at you from beyond the sea. You can't help but let one or two of them stick. In this case, it's the word baby.

Deal with it.

Nevertheless, American Football is the new Mariah Carey. No one really knows how it works or where all those noises are coming from, but it's the kind of thing you'd pay to go see with your mates, provided you are allowed to shout and drink.

The Chalkboard, for one, owes a lot to its time spent in UL in the company of the all conquering, get-naked-at-the-drop-of-a-hat UL Vikings for its now relatively buoyant knowledge of all things gridiron. Lines of scrimmage. Pass rushing. Gatorade - we know it all. Huzzah!

But in keeping with the Sports Editor, who's done a bit of soul-searching in looking for his football team of choice, I've decided to hoist my flag of allegiance up a mast of ambiguity.

I've sided with the Pittsburgh Steelers. Why? Well firstly, they win a lot. But not in a condescending Patriots way, or through self-important poxiness like last year's champs, the Giants (whose quarter back, Eli Manning, is a tool). They win hard, ugly and often.

Plus, after weeks of watching America's Game (probably the finest sports documentary series of all time), the characters of the dominant Steelers side of the 70s have earned my admiration: Mean Joe Greene, Franco Harris, the flaky and prodigious QB Terry Bradshaw. True sportsmen.

Plus, as you can clearly see from the picture above, yellow and black can work very well.

The decision has been made. Go Steelers.

P.S. The fact that Pittsburgh are in the Superbowl this weekend is inconsequential to this decision. No, really, it is. Honestly.