England, but at the same time I love to leave." The most welcome question of the session was probably the one relating to Palin's first love sheffield wednes-the day football team. How would they fare in the league? "They're doing some very dainty foot-
work. They have
a
choreographer, I think rather than a trainer. They'll be on the West End stage rather than winning the premier league, but we have hopes." Talk of Palin's film career gradually drew the other members of the Monty Python team into the dialogue, starting with Terry Gilliam, the director oÍ Brazil. "Terry had a great battle with Hollywood about happy endings. He wanted
his happy ending - people being tortured and they thought this was not
Finally the inevitable question came. Monty Python?
tortured after a bit
going on in Europe for some reason. lt coincided with the reunification of 'Germany. The Germans got very keen on
so good. Terry said 'but they stop being -
that's happy isn't
it?' lt wasn't quite what they had
in
mind."
Palin's big screen career is currently
on hold while he gets on with other projects, but there is the prospect of another film with John Cleese on the horizon. "John Cleese is supposed to be writ-
A Fish Called Wanda. Deathfish 2 at the mo-
ing a follow-uplo
He's calling
il
ment. He hopes to get the same cast but
we'll all be playing completely different characters in a different story which is rather a nice way to do a sequel."
"There's quite
a
NEWS AND VIEV/S
revival of Python
Python. Perhaps they just thought it was two mad ideas coming at the same time. Always Look on the Bright Srde is extremely popular in Germany." For a man with Palin's comic history the question "What's the funniest thing you've ever done in your life?" can't be that easy to answer, but he was able to single out one outstanding moment. "The fish slapping dance. lt was just one of those things we did on Python which defies explanation. lt was an in-
Watching the media watch itself Zoo night regulars are missing Hong Kong's newest media event Media Watch W programme-'aweekly devoted to the Fourth Estate. Copresenter Steve Vines explains.
stinctive moment. We were doing a
TH=ZOO (v { (
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BY ARTHUF. HACKEÞ.
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cussions about the media from
two pilchards, did a small dance and
the premises of Hong Kong's
slapped John lightly on the side of the face at the end of each bit of the music.
leading media clubonce a month. "Outrageous naval contemplation," you may say. Absolutely Medin not, comes the reply from the writer of this article who rapidly declares an interest being both a journalist and co-presenter of the programme which is called 'Media Watch', produced by Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK) and broadcast weekly on ATV. Media Watch covers a subject which thank goodness, interests a great many people. They tend to be avid readers of
This went on for about 45 seconds and John then produced a huge fish from behind his back, hit me on the side of the head and I fell 15 ft into the canal. Completely pointless, defies explanation, but that I would use as the test for detecting someone's sense of humour. lf you don't laugh at that then you obviously don't like fish." having quipped at the beginning that one of the offers for public appearances in Hong Kong that he had turned down
was "a concert with Madonna", I MAÞE AN EXTRA
TWO HUNDREÞ ANÞ
NINETY,SIX BUCKS ON AAY LAST STORY WHIc'H BEGAN\.HONG koNG...HoNG KoNc... YouR HoNG KoNo!/'
CLEVER./ .. . CLEVER./ ...ARE THÉY STILL PAYING TEN CENTS A WORD ?
Palin was asked how it felt to have passed up
that opporlunity for the FCC. lt turned out that he actually does have a connec-
tion with the Material Girl. "One of my proudest moments was when Poleto Pole cameoutand knocked Madonna off the top of the bestseller lists after one week. So I can actually say I knocked off Madonna!" Then came the giving of the FCC tie. "This is something Madonna doesn't have. Well it's not leather, is it? I shall wear it with pride."
Robin Lynam is a freelance writer and correspondent member of the FCC.
q
4
THECORRESPONDENT SEPTEMBER
1993
e
round up of strange British customs Maypole dancing and allthat, and one of them was the fish slapping dance. lt took place by the side of a canal. John Cleese stood there with a pith helmet and long colonial shorts, and I produced
have squared the
circle. A weekly programme about the media, produced by media employees, is now broadcasting dis-
newspapers,
or listeners to radio or
watchers of television. ln most cases a combination of all three. Following the media has become part of daily life and it is therefore not surprising that people have become interested in how it works, why it does certain things and why not others and this is why we hold the
-
meetings at the FCC
- it tends
to
produce a great deal of comment about its activities. There is also another element, particular to Hong Kong, which should be mentioned at this stage. This is the existence of a bilingual media. Many, indeed the majority of consumers of the English language media, are Chinese speakers, whereas very few English speakers are able to follow the Chinese
Wqtch presenters Claudia Mo and Steve Vines. language media. Oneof MediaWatch's aims is to give English speaking audiences a window on the Chinese media, much of which is provided by our sister programme produced in Chinese, but edited and translated to make it accessible to an English speaking audience. That, however, is not the purpose of the monthly forum discussions at the FCC, the first of which took place at the beginning of August. These discussions are open to the general public. ln practise we expect most pafticipants to be media professionals, more specifically, FCC members. Whén the subject of a media forum at the FCC was first raised by the people at RTHK, they looked rather purposefully at me, saying things like, 'well you do have a lot of people shouting their views round the bar'. Less realistically there were suggestions that the FCC's inhabitants were not habitually drunk and did seem to know a lot about the media. So this august institution was ap-
proached while I happened to be its President. Suggestions of nepotism in this matter should be quickly disregarded
as the current club President is not a participant in the programme, although his wife (Claudia Mo) happens to be the
co-presenter. When we held our first Media Forum in Pacific Place, thanks to the generosity of Swire Properties. However, this act of civic mindedness soon turned sour when one of the company's totally
ridiculous officials suddenly informed the producer that all political topics were banned from discussion and that one of her operatives would march across the stage and pull the plug if this rule was ignored. For reasons which everybody, bar a few government officials, will readily understand, these conditions were unacceptable and it took a direct appeal to PeterSutch, the head honcho atSwire's, to get the matter sorted out. lit should be
said that he grasped the situation a great deal more quickly than his underlings. Anyway we are now sort of installed at the FCC and hope that members willjoin the public to participate in the forum sesstons.
@
THE CORRESPONDENT SEPTEMBER 1993
5