Why America Will Win
Hollywood. See, here, as in Britain, we've got a long-established and generally revered (when it isn't being reviled or undermined) national broadcaster, producing some very high-quality programming (when they aren't, as in the U.S., just recycling BBC content), and one of the highlights is Andrew Denton's Enough Rope, a talk-show with a very limited number of interviews during its hour-long time slot, which, tonight, upon returning from the summer hiatus, is going to air with the Crown Princess (and Prince) of Denmark, a very nice Tasmanian girl, I'm sure, but so what? Yes, she can out-sail her new husband, which I'd expect, and her itinerary while here shows a deal more public service-class than the Prince of Wales is managing during pretty much the same time period, but her appearance on Denton is just pandering to the worst kind of celebrity obsession. It's almost A Member of the Wedding. And the result is that while half the country spends an hour on the ABC, the rest of us - my household included - will be watching the Academy Awards, and the ones who watched Enough Rope will be switching back to the Oscars as soon as HRH Mary and Frederick are through. Nothing beats Hollywood. Not in the movies themselves, and not in real life. (And by the time I get home, they'll already be long over.)