Japan: I seldom watch regular TV these days, there's a repetitive blandness about it all that I can't be bothered with, anyway in a rare moment I accidentally stumbled upon Joanna Lumley's tour of Japan in glorious HD and strangely enough it was glorious. I only caught the last half hour, a victim of channel surfing but I may search for the first segments in slow time. The visuals, slow shots, colour and sharpness painted Japan in vivid, electric tones moving from soft landscapes to the hard details of temples, tall trees, snowy mountains and radioactive wastelands all captured beautifully while Joanna burbled her glowing narrative and purred her stunned reactions. It was a seductive piece of filming and tourist baiting set at a high level, or maybe it was just plain cheesy, I don't quite no where one ends and the other begins. Ms Lumley, well into her sixties but still alluring remains the star of the show, she has all the wide eyed wonder and enthusiasm of a convent girl out on her first school trip outside of England. Japan never seemed so attractive, pity that it's a tough destination to plan into any forthcoming road trip.
The story of Indie: BBC4 had an endurance test style programme of made up Indie historicals rolling out all the craggy and balding pioneers of a sometimes dull and tuneless genre. There was a lot of good stuff but the most of the self indulgent dross is really bad Prog-Rock dressed in eighties clothes with added Ska or electronics to beef it up. I wonder where all the money went, money was never cool in that circle, too many idealists. Anyway I gave up after about 1130. Too much warped, grey haired nostalgia for me to take.
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