Anyone for tennis?

Well me actually. When I arrived in Japan, one of the first things I did was to check out the Wimbledon website and was delighted to see that they would be showing all matches live and I diligently bookmarked the site and bought the strawberries. On the opening day however, I saw the tiny words 'footage unavailable in Japan'. Always trying to make me happy, M found a timetable of the coverage on TV and last night we ventured to the other side, away from satellite television to a place I had never been before... Japanese terrestrial television.

The news was showing on the channel he had identified as the one showing the tennis. A man and woman sat in cream suits in a muted brown studio. To my delight, as its the main news, the programme is dubbed in English for jonny foreigners like us. Rather interestingly, female voices covered both the male and female newsreaders, often interchanging so it was rather difficult to work out who was saying what. In fact when the newsreaders had a little chat, the same translator covered both which made it very interesting. Then came the news reports.... The big story was of course, Iran. But why bother going there when you can talk to some Iranians living in LA? For 10 minutes... Next, Afghanistan. Due to constitutional arrangements after the war, Japan has no army and cannot be seen to be involved in conflict. But as the US has 'large expectation from Japan to assist', Japan has decided to build some schools to shade pupils from the sun. (Cue shots of children shading their eyes). So off we go to meet Nago, who is working there. Nago appears to be the only Japanese person working there as he turned up in every part of the report. Maybe he is the Japanese effort?

There doesn't appear to be any other news so we go to the Sports. A woman in a striped t shirt stands in front of a poster and talks for 15 minutes about a school baseball league who is struggling. We don't actually see any baseball, just people collecting money. Finally, we go to Wimbledon. Hooray! In fact there are 5 minutes dedicated to Wimbledon so clearly tennis is not that popular here, or deemed as important as the charity lunch for 80 held to raise money for baseball. Who wants to know about Federer or anyone else for that matter when you can hear about Dana, the 38 year old Japanese tennis player who actually retired last year but is playing on the outside courts, a woman 20 years her junior? Dana apparently prefers grass to clay because it is faster? So lets watch Dana practice on grass and talk to her a bit about it. For 5 minutes in fact (she likes grass) .... 'And now over to the coverage of the high jump....'

The news finished with the weather. Possibly the best weather reporting I have ever seen. We start with some footage of people on the beach, splashing in the sea. A voice asks that despite the beaches not being open, wouldn't it be nice to be on the beach? Then back to the studio where the female newsreader in the cream suit has moved to the weather area and is standing next to a man in a pink suit who is holding a bath plunger. They bow to each other, and then she says nothing for 5 minutes whilst he points his plunger at various parts of the country and we see big grey clouds floating up the coast. And some sunshine... So maybe it will be raining and sunny? Actually its not, its torrential rain but maybe that bit was covered by the bath plunger.

So back I come to watch the tennis from a sofa near you. Flying on Tuesday 30th for about 3 weeks. Any requests for darth vader masks or small dogs?