Macca keeps it clean to Bowl 'em over

A year after the Janet Jackson boob, US television has come up with the perfect way to clean up its act at halftime of the Super Bowl on Sunday: hire Paul McCartney to entertain.

Paul McCartney will be the only performer during the National Football League’s 12 minute extravaganza in Jacksonville, Florida.

He promises not to cause the same furore Jackson stirred up last season when Justin Timberlake tore open her top at the end of the show and revealed her bare breast - the infamous “wardrobe malfunction”.

And so, the former Beatles star has come full circle. Considered among the most edgy entertainers in the world during the 1960s, he has now become the safe choice.

“I had a slight inkling that there might be something like that attached to it,” McCartney said last night.

“That’s OK. It’s an honour to do it.”

McCartney’s play list – he has hundreds of songs to choose from – is a secret, although everything has been vetted and approved by the NFL to ensure he doesn’t sing anything that might be offensive.

The 62-year-old icon joked about the possibility of exposing flesh during the halftime show.

“I can assure you I won’t,” McCartney said, “because I’ll be naked”.

Fox, which is televising the game, has opted against an eight-second delay of the telecast as a way of preventing something inappropriate from airing. Short delays on live events became much more popular in the aftermath of the Jackson affair.

“Basically, we’re treating the Super Bowl as a news event,” spokesman Dan Hill said. “We don’t believe in tape delaying news events.”

The Jackson episode dominated conversation about the game for weeks afterward. It prompted congressional hearings, stricter Federal Communication Commission rules and triggered fines against the US stations that carried the game.