'Our sources told us about the visit but we weren't allowed anywhere near. We had to climb on to the roof of a nearby building in order to see anything,' announced Martin Bashir as he stood atop an office block with views over a primary school in downtown Tokyo. Far from having to 'climb', Spidermartin had ascended effortlessly with the aid of a staircase.
'It's now just gone a quarter past 12. David Beckham was due to arrive at midday. The children have been sitting on the ground in stifling heat for about 15 minutes.' Oh dearie me, dry my eyes with a rolled-up copy of the Daily Mail.
If you hadn't been paying close attention to Monday's banal little Tonight With Trevor McDonald report, entitled Branded Like Beckham, you might easily have missed this subtle censoriousness, notable for being primetime telly's first attempt to hack away at the nation's tallest poppy.
The gist of this damning 'report' (which involved Bashir resorting to journalism's last resort - interviewing other journalists) was that the Beckhams were in Tokyo to amass shedloads of cash by prostituting themselves in dreadful commercials for companies such as the Tokyo Beauty Clinic, where Victoria has allegedly 'developed' a face cream; a second-hand car dealership called Renewcar; and the Meiji chocolate corporation, for whom Becks extols the yumminess of choccie-coated almonds and macadamias.
The couple's greed was evidenced by Bashir telling us that the Beckhams rejected a package of classier corporate endorsements put together by the Far East's biggest ad agency, Dentsu (Bashir: 'You tried to offer money, but it wasn't enough?'; discreet Dentsu spokesperson: 'I cannot say') in favour of a bigger pay packet from less glamorous companies.
The advertising clips and sphincter-clenching meet-and-greets and press briefings were, of course, amusing. David at the Tokyo Beauty Clinic press junket: 'I do like sushi but my favourite is Californian [sic] rolls.' Victoria: 'But you also like tempura...' David, to the poor schoolchildren who had suffered 15 minutes of stifling heat: 'I'd like to thank you all and be happy and enjoy life because you know I love you all and the love you have given to me is pretty amazing...' David, unveiling a giant chocolate statue of himself in front of the massed ranks of the Meiji choc corp: 'I'm sure it tastes absolutely delicious.' But, journalistically, this was a non-starter of a story.
For years now, American celebrities, from Madonna to Brad and Jennifer, have been receiving container-loads of yen in return for endorsing Japanese whisky, cars, beer, chocolate, electronic goods and whatever else they're offered on the understanding that the ads must never be screened on home territory lest their image is undermined. Meanwhile, the Japanese, with their wildly indiscriminate toddler-style approach to consumerism, are happy to oblige: they get the aspirational glamour of the West's shiniest-haired, peachiest-skinned, widest-eyed superstars (ideally the ones that look most like Japanese cartoons, which explains why Victoria Beckham, with her boyish figure, big breasts, round eyes, snub nose and cupid's bow-pout is almost as popular as her husband) and at a price they're happy to afford.
The real story about the Beckhams coining it in Japan - and one entirely missed by Bashir - is that by so doing, St David and Princess Victoria have become the first British celebrities to enter the global marketing stratosphere. Call me a capitalist pig but I think that's worthy of celebration rather than censure - a Queen's Award for Industry would coordinate nicely with Beckham's OBE.
Five's Being Sarah Ferguson showed the Duchess of York doing her admittedly cut-price version of the Beckham's super-marketing sweep over in the US. We don't hear much about Sarah these days. If you mention 'Fergie' in casual conversation it's assumed you're referring to David Beckham's charmless ex-boss rather than the former Duchess of Pork, and I think this is a bit of a shame. Still shunned by the royal family (though after last weekend's security debacle Sarah might harbour dreams of a comedy terrorist-style assault on some of their private parties), she's out there doing it her way, earning an alleged £2.8 million a year by talking up Weight Watchers and Wedgwood.
Almost inadvertently, the programme offered a few interesting facts: did you know the Duchess has published 15 books (six for kids, two on Queen Victoria, four about Weight Watchers, two self-help tomes and her autobiography)? Were you aware that these days she is not only fabulously slim (a contractual obligation, presumably) but also dresses like a stylish female CEO in elegantly cut dark trouser suits? Did you have any idea that, despite confessing to nerves, she can stride around a stage lecturing skilfully and surprisingly entertainingly - just the right combination of self-deprecation, confession and warmth for the target audience - without any notes? Could you ever imagine that, during a US book signing, she can reduce adult women to tears by the mere fact of her presence ('I've - sob - lost a lot of weight and - sob - she's been such an inspiration to me...')? No, quite - me neither.
When she sets foot on American soil she is a star, but this stateside profile is in inverse proportion to her status at home, where she is still forced to confine herself to the sort of drizzly, plaque-unveiling, hospital-visiting, tree-planting charity work to which a handful of tabloid smudgers turn up even though they know their pictures will no longer be published. What, after all, could be less newsworthy than a solvent, single, slim and stylish Duchess of York bringing joy (and laptop computers) to teenage cancer sufferers?
If, post-Diana, Camilla can be transformed from evil witch to decorous consort-in-waiting, surely it's time Fergie was given a break? Mind you, I'll admit to having had a soft spot for Sarah ever since I met her, briefly, the best part of a decade ago and was disarmed by her niceness while being horrified that she was wearing a pair of airs-and-graces white gloves in order to none-too-cleverly delineate the distance between HRH and the commoners. Needless to say, these days she's had to ditch the gloves along with the title.
Still in mourning for State of Play ? Disappointed by the fact that the MP dunnit? Dazzled by the sheer excitement offered by a career in investigative journalism? I'm slightly concerned by the news that the star reporters will be back for a second series because in these times of instant gratification the smartest thing would have been to have left us yearning for more - particularly given that, as the final credits rolled, John Simm's Cal looked as if he was about to hand in his notice and sign up for Voluntary Service Overseas.
Incidentally, that last scene was, in journalistic terms, the most implausible of them all: in the real world Cal wouldn't have gone to watch his miserable scoop roll off the press but would have been curled up in the foetal position in a fetid corner of the office local, nursing a hundred yards of double vodkas.
With the demise of SOP , I went in search of surrogate fine drama and on Tuesday stumbled across BBC3's The Announcement, in which a bogglingly fine cast - Morwenna Banks, who wrote it, Toby Stephens, Mark Addy, Kate Hardy, Tom Hollander, Lennie James, Fay Ripley, David Baddiel and more besides - played a bunch of friends at a dinner party who had just been told that their hosts, Banks and Stephens, had got married. For 45 minutes I watched them sit around, snort cocaine, get drunk and start picking apart their relationships.
So convincing was this depiction of north London middle-class navel-gazing that I felt like a fellow guest and therefore able to, metaphorically at least, step outside with a glass of wine and a cigarette. In actual fact I turned over and caught Tony Bennett and k.d. lang singing 'Wonderful World' on Graham Norton, which was so lovely that I suddenly didn't fancy staying at the dinner party so I called a metaphorical cab and went home for an early night. It could be taken as a compliment to the impressive verisimilitude of the script and cast, but if I really want to indulge myself in 90 minutes of middle-class thirtysomethings and their miserable relationship crises I'll pop round and see my mates, ta very much.
