GOOD news and bad on the Oscar front, but mainly good. Year after year, TVB screens the Academy Awards live but has to cut off its broadcast at 12 noon (Hong Kong time), just when all the interesting categories are coming up. The reason? Educational Television (ETV), which the authorities say must go ahead as planned. Well, TVB has failed to get an exemption this year, but then it has not tried because this time, ETV finishes at 12 pm - meaning the station will miss two-thirds of the show, but at least will manage to broadcast best actor, best actress, director and all that live. Satellites permitting of course.
Yeah, right 'Who the Dolce & Gabbana Man is Perfectly inside the schemes or perfectly outside of them. The singlet, housecoat, and clothes-clothes define the character of the man who always - and everywhere - remains an Italian. And it is precisely this which is his Mediterranean being, in his education, moods, tradition and evolution, characterising a male figure which has moved on from the Latin lover to the electric horseman, from the provincial loafer to the rockabilly, from the Gattopardo to U2. A man who is not only his clothing but who wears clothes in a certain way, which is not only a style but a lifestyle. A man who has changed, in the same way in which what surrounds him has changed, who has gone away and then come back. A man who to a certain extent is himself.' Extract from a press release that to a certain extent, came from Joyce.
Seat of learning PERHAPS we're just not well enough educated, or maybe the world of learning has changed lately, but a certain claim on Urban Council candidate Jennifer Chow Kit-ping's campaign posters left us scratching our heads.
When we last encountered Jennifer's smiling face on Tin Hau billboards, she was running in the 1991 functional constituency elections. Her posters listed her educational level as Form Five graduate. According to her latest promotional material, she is the holder of a master's degree in foreign diplomacy. Clever lass.
Shanghai Fong? HONG Kong seems determined to reintroduce Chinese culture to the mainland, at least on an entertainment level. Following David Tang's move on Beijing with his China Club, Pearl Lam's Shanghai nightclub manoeuvring, and loud noises from Jackie Chan about Planet Hollywood a la Chinoise, we hear Allan Zeman, the main man himself, is looking to cross the border.
The word from the social set is that Zeman is sniffing around Shanghai with a view to setting up a Lan Kwai Fong-style entertainment district in the city. Maybe he's bored with our local version now that he owns some 70 per cent of it.
RSVP? INVITE of the week: the one to the Shanghai Tang 'expansion' party. It reads 'Invitation to Joyful Shop Open Ceremony. You Come.' Stan, Stan the guitar man THE term 'guitar legend' has provoked more than its fair share of sniggers over the years, but the Jazz Club seems to have one of those legendary types on its hands this week.
