Today was my second failed attempt at trying to see Inside Man: Last month in New York, Martin and me arrived too late at the cinema (and saw American Dreamz instead - 6 points), today Imai-san and me were confronted with the reality that weekend screenings in Tokyo are sometimes sold out.

7 points

A case study on the effects of privatisation from the perspective of a less-than-semi-informed casual observer.

If I were allowed to watch only three hours of television every year (in fact, I am not watching much more than that anyway these days, especially if one discounts the World Cup), I would probably choose the annual MTV Movie Awards show. Thus, I was extremely happy to find out that the recently installed flat-screen monitor in front of the indoor-bike-workout-machine that I had just mounted carries MTV, and said show was on. Not otherwise having access to cable TV, that rare chance would probably have made me spend two hours there, which for a thoroughly unathletic person like me would have been quite remarkable, if not for the unfortunate fact that I had already missed everything except the grand finale (the following Making The Movie: MI-III could not capture me for longer than up to the second commercial break).

The sub-arena of the Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium at Sendagaya, houses a workout room and a swimming pool. Management of this public facility has recently been turned over to Tipness, a company that operates a chain of sports clubs throughout the country. The first big change this has brought about was a complete remodelling. For me, that has been a definite improvement: while the training room is as small and packed as before, the locker rooms and showers are much nicer now. They have thrown in TV sets, which of course should make no difference to the serious athlete, but discount me from that group. They play background music now, on which I am impartial thanks to my iPod. In the past, you were not supposed to use shampoo or soap in the shower, because the water was being recycled. That policy has probably been abandoned, which would be another win of convenience over conscience. A Japanese style hot bath has been added. The price of admittance remains to same, but it only gets you two hours now instead of the whole day, which for me makes no difference. Tipness also offers additional services, such as instructor-led classes, health assessments, or massages, all of which have to be paid for extra, which seems fair to me.

But there are other sentiments. I was still high on first impressions when I ran into an elderly Western gentleman, who very passionately voiced his disappointment with the new management. As it turns out, he was a pool user. I have never been to the pool, so I cannot really speak on this, but apparently it has been an Olympic size pool before (maybe the only one publicly accessible in central Tokyo) that has now been downsized to 25 meters. He also complained about the increased ticket prizes, and the locker rooms being less spacious (so I suppose that the pool facilities, which have been separate from the training room facilities, have been quite fancy all along). He blamed all this on the controversial Tokyo governor, and called it an enormous (and typical for Japan) waste of tax money. I, too, wonder about, and of course have no insight into, the financial implications of this project. Theoretically, Tipness should be able to run the gym more efficiently than the government, but who knows what sweat deal they maybe struck.