Crowing over Clinton
WHILE Hongkong prepares to celebrate the Year of the Cockerel, America gets set to crow over a new generation of leaders, with baby boomer Bill Clinton finally being sworn in as 42nd president of the United States.
It's been a long journey to the White House, starting in 1991 when Clinton began a campaign trail that seemed to go on for ever.
Celebrations surrounding today's ceremony promise to be awesome, with Clinton expected to host a rocking extravaganza designed to make it abundantly clear that the old World War II generation has been retired and its progeny are now in the driving seat.
The US Presidential Inauguration Ceremony (Pearl, 12.30am) is being broadcast live from Washington, though it looks like we're going to miss out on the fun and games afterwards as the link is only open for an hour.
CNN will start its live coverage of the inauguration on World from 12.05 am, replacing tonight's episode of Young Catherine.
THE Josephine Baker Story (Pearl 9.45pm, Original Running Time 130 minutes) is a lavish, award-winning extravaganza about the black singer from St Louis who became the toast of Paris in the 1920s and 30s, yet still faced unremitting racism back home.
She was described by Ernest Hemingway as ''the most sensational woman anybody ever saw, or ever will'', and was famed for her scandalous, semi-nude dances and her signature ballad J'ai Deux Amours.
Lynn Whitfield (Equal Justice) plays the Jazz Age legend, while Ruben Blades (Dead Man Out) is the love of her life, ex-gigolo Pepito Abatino.
Craig T. Nelson (Coach) and Louis Gossett Jr (An Officer and A Gentleman) also appear.
THE hosts of Rough Guide to the World's Journeys (Pearl 8.30pm) are touring Indonesia this week.
Magenta de Vine and Sankha Guha travel from the capital Jakarta, across the island of Java, to Sulawesi. Will Magenta finally take her sun glasses off? We doubt it.
WORLD is the channel if it's laughs you're after. Join Homer, Marge and the brats in The Simpsons (8.30pm) for an episode entitled ''One Fish, Two Fish . . . ''; watch Carol Burnett go loopy in ''Spudnik'' on Carol & Company (10.30pm); and then relax with the rather more gentle humour of The Golden Girls (10.55pm) who this week are ''Scared Straight''.
DON'T you feel for that poor young lass who presents the children's cookery series Cable Cook on Tube Time (World, 5pm)? She has that ''rabbit caught in the headlights look'' every time she stares at the camera, and seems unable to remember what goes into the dishes - most of which only have two ingredients.
IN Film '93, on STAR BBC, at 7.25pm, Barry Norman looks at the new film version of the Broadway musical Serafina. Set in South Africa in 1976, it stars Whoopi Goldberg as a liberal teacher, who helps her pupils become politically aware.
