"This world is big and wild and half-insane" sang the Kinks' Ray Davies, way back when Football Sherpa was just a lad. All these years later the world's still the same, just not quite as big, but even wilder and more insane, thanks to transportation and information technology, plus a little sprinkling of bonkers-dust, dropped from on high by strange beings only Football Sherpa has truly seen, up there in the high altitudes of Football Sherpadom. Even a legendary party animal like Davies failed to scale the heights required to catch a glimpse of what went on way up there. In fact, most rock 'n' rollers probably wouldn't have the stomach for it, with the possible exception of that crinkly-faced geezer who used to be human and still plays for the Rolling Stones. In fact, Football Sherpa says Keith Richards reminds him of his great-great-great-sherpa-grandfather, who lived at sub-zilch temperatures way up in the Himalayan ethers. But he had an excuse.

Ray Davies was a limey, like me, though, a fan of Arsenal Football Club, the game we think of as "real" football. But we limeys are forever captured by the nature of the game Americans also call football. It is the most straightforwardly linear affair we have ever seen, and not completely different from rugby, but different enough to warrant guffaws and scowls at the very least. But through it all, I wondered what it felt like to attend an NFL game, to actually have tickets to NFL games, and to sit in the bleachers, to discuss the NFL schedule, the various NFL team rosters and yardage with other American Football fanatics. Through the rare altitude of Football Sherpa's diamond-like mind, I was introduced to the glistening facets of NHL and its mysteries.

Speaking of altitudes containing rare beings, one glance at a photo taken from the plush interior of the Goodyear Blimp's hanging sky-lounge (I know, it probably sucks, but I like to picture the lounge as a very ornate chamber, a thickly carpeted room with antique settees and a rather fetching cocktail cabinet, from which media personnel take cut glass decanters full of whisky and gin and drink themselves into a crazed, howling frenzy, exhilarated and terrified by the sight of a packed American football stadium, while hanging from the belly of a gigantic helium-filled death-sausage) reveals a playing surface which is much longer than it is wide - reflecting this linearity of thought inherent in the American football philosophy. In short, an American football field is long and thin, and to be honest it really isn't all that long. I am tempted to suggest the helium-filled death sausage is as long, but that might be taking things too far.

As a child, I marveled at the astronaut-like appearance of American footballers, with what I believed to be their broad shoulders (pads - hhmmpphhh!!!), and funny boots and towels hanging from their waistbands (were they called into play while doing the dishes in the locker room, and simply forgot the pot-towel was tucked back there?), but they looked cool as hell to a kid growing up at the height of the Space Age. Teams like the Pittsburgh Steelers, the Dallas Cowboys, and the New York Jets fascinated me, with their cartoon-like names, and bizarre logos. In fact, I actually owned a New England Patriots jersey once! Added to that, the bizarre pixellation conversions between European and American television technology lent a video-like quality to the scene, thereby washing the whole spectacle in an Apollo-to-the-moon atmosphere I shall never forget. American football was definitely one of the chief contributors to my fascination with Americana (and so was baseball), and for that I shall always be grateful. But it wasn't until I met Football Sherpa that I finally held NFL tickets in my hands, and saw the thing for real.