Just slip it into your mouth

Saturday mornings are usually a 'bad start' because we have two young students who have an 8:30 class. That would be painful enough in itself but as their mum takes them to baseball practice afterwards they have a bad habit of turning up fifteen minutes early too. If it was up to me they would be locked out in the rain on the doorstep until the appointed hour, like the 'Good Old Days' at Youth Hostels in England. Anyway, one consequence of all this is that I find myself blearily watching breakfast TV at a different time to the rest of the week, much, much earlier. And it is no improvement.

Around that time there always seems to be some 'down your way' style slot in progress. 'Down Your Way' was a BBC Home Service programme years back where some BBC 'toff' went to visit some undistinguished community in darkest England to meet and interview the 'locals'. I can imagine the months of backstabbing nastiness that must have accompanied the programme planning for this series - just who should be heard on air? The vicar of course and the squire, but who will represent the Women's' Institute or the Allotment Association? The general message that this programme invariably delivered was that Little-Bloggsworth-in-the-Marsh was the most wonderful place in the whole world to live in. Somehow they never went anywhere that had to endure any class of social delinquency. I bet there were a few novels to be written about all THAT eh?

Now there is a big cultural difference with this programme formula when it comes to comparing rain soaked England with sweaty Nihon and that is that here we always have to have food playing a big part in the whole thing. An NHK Outside Broadcast Crew can't go anywhere for five minutes without ending up in some ramen noodle shop or a tonkatsu parlour in a tin shed tasting local delicacies. They are just like big kids - "Oh! Time for 'Tuck' everyone!. Let's all scoff something!"

And every time that interviewer is presented with a plate of this stuff, the camera zooms in as a morsel of the 'goodies' is prised up with hashi, popped into the mouth and .... OISHIKATTA!!!!! Much rolling around on the floor in ecstasy and orgasmic kicking of feet in the air ... this local food is a million times better than even 'you-know-what'! Maybe two million times better!

But it is compulsive viewing. I know it is pointless but I still dream that one day the interviewer is going to take a gob full, spit it out and say to camera "Oh Jeez! That is absolutely GROSS!"

But I'm wasting my time eh? It isn't going to happen, is it?