We don't really DO naked, in Britain. Situations where the naked can happily be as naked as they please are few and far between (unless you're a marine, obviously). Birth, for example, is an inevitable nudity-prone situation. As are baths, and other acts of ablution. Your local bakery, however, not so much. It's a tricky balancing act of etiquette.
I'd say dinner parties are generally a bit of a no-no, etiquette wise. Certainly in the case of the guest who arrives at the party naked. If, once the party is in full "swing", as it were, and a culture of nudity would seem to be de rigueur, then it's probably OK to strip off. Slowly. Not just to nip out during the main course and come striding back in starkers. Everyone else might have changed their minds.
Obviously baths are a reasonable situation, but etiquette doesn't cover baths, I don't think. It covers mainly social situations. But in public you've got to walk a much thinner tightrope (and very carefully too, if you're in the nuddy. That could really hurt), as some folk found out when they declared their intention to walk the length of the country naked. There's something about that on telly tonight. Along with a bunch of other stuff, as normal. And, as normal, here are the picks of them all, taken from this week's Guide.
Shipmates 9pm, BBC1 It's New Year's Eve. The crew of HMS Chatham celebrate en route to Sri Lanka, where they're headed to offer assistance after the tsunami. Medic Alison and her team reach an area that's been cut off for days. How do you begin to go about helping when you have three asthma inhalers but you need 3,000? The crew are impressively pragmatic, pitching in to pump out salt-contaminated water supplies, re-float fishing boats and, most mournful task of all, bury unidentified bodies.
Jonathan Wright
One Life: The Naked Rambler 10.35pm, BBC1 A classic slice of British eccentricity which chronicles the 874-mile stroll of Steve Gough and Melanie Roberts, his girlfriend of one-month standing, from Lands End to John O'Groats. Which, as you'd expect, takes in jeering schoolkids, reluctant hoteliers, and the ever-present danger posed by barbed wire. Steve describes their voyage in "the alltogether" as "a spiritual experience where I suddenly feel good about myself", which is as good a reason as any, while Mel feels "self-conscious about my nipples".
Joss Hutton
Born In The USSR: 21 Up 11pm, ITV1 If adolescence is about dreams, then being 21 is all about reality. That's certainly the case here, as this film project following the lives of Russian kids rejoins the subjects as young adults trying hard to make their own way. It's the rise of capitalism which has altered things most drastically here, obviously: the goalposts, in terms of what material wealth they may aspire to, have shifted and some are doing well. Stas and Dennis are trying to get out of a bad area, but elsewhere this contains heart-rending stuff.
John Robinson
Kurt Cobain: All Apologies 9pm, Biography No interviews with the main players in this new Nirvana doc, but it does still make a virtue out of necessity. Concentrating chiefly on British intimates (band PR Anton Brookes and journalist Keith Cameron), this tackles the elephant in the grunge room. Namely: in spite of claiming to loathe his exalted position, Cobain had actually become comfortable in the role of indulged and self-indulgent rock star. It's his music that made him, of course, but sadly here that's replaced by a constant background guitar drone, for which there really is no apology.
John Robinson
Rajan And His Evil Hypnotists 10pm, E4 Tonight Rajan and his evil sidekicks hypnotise a girl whose dream is to meet and interview Kemal (the crossdressing, sari-clad buddhist from Big Brother). Quite a dream -- for her. Kemal, by contrast, is deeply perturbed to find the "chatshow host" he's meeting is in fact just an ordinary member of the public. The horror. "How crashingly F-list!" he screams (internally, natch) fixing the poor girl with a Norman Bates-like stare. But before Kemal can get back to dreaming of Heat magazine features, Rajan naughtily awakens an affliction within the interviewer, with cruel but comic results.
Danielle Proud
Good Bye Lenin! (Wolfgang Becker, 2003) 2.10am, Sky Cinema 2 A cute concept that never quite descends into all-out sweetness, Good Bye Lenin! takes place in East Germany. Or at least, the appearance of East Germany -- after having helped put his staunchly communist mother into a coma, Alex feels that the shock of finding out that the Berlin wall has fallen might kill her, and so begins an elaborate subterfuge to recreate their former conditions. It's humorous and it's satirical -- perhaps we're happier not with progress, but with what we know -- but the film's light touch ensures that the set-up never becomes tiring.
John Robinson
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Maybe there's an argument for this nudity stuff. Less laundry, less inhibitions, we could have a whole naked and free culture. Naked pubs. Naked buses. A naked office.
*Looks around the office*
I think I like the clothes thing.
