Television
The egg question
Wendy Cope
Apart from switching on for the news a couple of times, I didn't watch television at all for a whole month and it was absolute bliss. I cannot recommend a television-free life too highly, especially at a time of year when the companies put so much energy into tempting us to devote our hours of leisure to their autumn offerings.
Being off duty, though it freed me from the obligation to watch anything, did not enable me to escape the attentions of those whose job it is to try and persuade me to look at one programme rather than another. I don't mind receiving bumf through the post, even if, like the stuff from Central Television, it is addressed to someone called Maggie Cope. The Chan- nel 4 press office is still under the impress- ion that this column is being written by Richard Ingrams and that's OK too. I look at their communications as carefully as they look at the Spectator.
However, my tolerance begins to wear thin when, despite my efforts to prevent it, publicity people succeed in getting through to me on the telephone. Most of them, to be fair, have the sense to be polite. But there are some publicists — I first noticed this when I was the arts editor of a teachers' newspaper — who misguidedly believe they will get what they want by adopting a bullying tone and implying that the publication has a moral obligation to give them lots of coverage. One such person has been having a go at me over the summer, and I gathered from my answer- ing machine that she had also been pester- ing the editor's secretary while I was abroad. The series in question began last Sunday on'BBC 2 and I am not even going to mention its name.
Happily, since no one has leaned on me to do so, I feel free to praise the new serialisation of Vanity Fair (BBC 1), which cheered me up on a grey Sunday afternoon and reminded me that one is grateful for television now and again. I also enjoyed A Wreath of Roses, the Sunday night play on ITV, although the scene where the heroine finds she is alone with a psychopath was so terrifying that I nearly had to switch it off.
The previous Thursday, I felt that I should watch a bit of Channel 4's Japanese season. I skipped the dramas and the historical documentary and watched the game show and the fashion programme. The latter was a good choice because it turned out to be hilarious. The first part of the programme was a profile of an interna- tionally famous (though unheard of by me) model and actress called Sayoko Yama- guchi, who is pale, pretty, flat-chested and quite extraordinarily pretentious. 'Basic elements to me,' she quavered, 'are things like the light of the sun, the gravity of the moon and the earth's atmosphere. Of course all creatures are affected by these.' But I think we are to understand that Sayoko is affected by them in a very special way. 'The word mysterious seems to exist for her,' one commentator said. 'She pos- sesses both immortality and fragility,' opined another. Perhaps I am just envious.
Ms Yamaguchi's ambition in life is to contribute to improving the shape of the kimono. But the most interesting thing she had to say was about her preparations for a career as a performing artist: 'I underwent special training, in which I started learning to eat eggs. It was very strange training but most enjoyable. This will certainly affect my future life.' I would really have liked to know more about it. How long did it take Sayoko to learn to eat an egg? Does she bash them with a spoon like us or is there a special ceremony involved? How many does she put away in a week and what effect do they have on her cholesterol level and her digestive system? These questions were not raised.
According to Murray Sayle's introduc- tion, this programme was part of 'a reason- ably typical night's viewing' in Japan. I don't think British television often de- scends to precious drivel of quite the same quality, except in advertisements for cosmetics. Something else to be grateful for, I suppose.
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