I was watching - or rather, the BYJW was watching - Who Wants to be a
Millionaire at the weekend, and they had some top fortune teller on
(obviously not good enough to have divined the answers beforehand, but
that's another matter) who, shock horror, was actually going to give
her prize money to charity, some one supporting kiddies' education in
Africa!

Well, after she bought some Edo-era black pottery tea cup she had her
eye on, of course, she'd give the change to a good cause, if there was
any left.

My wife pointed out she already does consultations for up to 3 million
yen a session, so she was just playing for a couple of days' salary,
but even with remarkably easy questions she still failed on the last
one.

Over the holidays, I also watched the Woody Allen film "Small Time
Crooks", where he and Tracey Ullman play two poor, unsophisticated
people who gain far too much money, and fill their new penthouse flat
with exceptionally gaudy, expensive tat in order to try to impress
people. I was taken by how similar their portrayal of that situation
was to the endless Japanese shows where we see inside rich people's
homes and are supposed to be impressed by the price tags on the
wall-to-wall shite they have piled up.

Ken