Nigel and the Fog

Yesterday started in heavy fog and ended in a blizzard of American Idol stories from Nigel Lythgoe - he of American Idol and So You Think You Can Dance?
Now, I know the Fox breakfast show helicopter has been grounded for several days thanks to the fog, but I had to see it to believe it. The freeway heading east at about 8 am was in thick fog, at times with visibility of less than 100 yards. It was a weird experience in what is supposed to be the land of perpetual sunshine. It duly burned off, but for a while it was like being on the M6 on a bad day.
Lynne and I were driving out to Hemet in the San Jaquino valley to see the first branch of Fresh & Easy, the new chain by Tesco, Britain's No 1 supermarketeer. It has outgrown the UK, eastern Europe, Asia and so is now trying its luck in the US - traditionally a graveyard for Brit retailers.
Rather than buy a ready-made chain, with all its built-in faults and bad habits, Tesco is starting from scratch, taking over vacant sites and converting them to the Fresh & Easy format, backed by its own distribution system that in turn relies on many of its trusted UK suppliers. It's effectively launching a whole mini-industry.
Despite the advance claims, there's nothing new about Fresh & Easy. It's another supermarket.
It's smaller than usual - 10,000 sq ft, about a fifth the size of normal US grocers - has a spartan decor with neon lighting to make the point that no money is being wasted. It has a pretty wide range, but you might be hard put to do your whole weekly food and household shop there. It doesn't really compete with Vons or Ralphs or Albertsons.
Advance publicity emphasised fresh, organic, own-label food, giving many people the impression that it would be another Trader Joe's. It is - without the humor. Fresh food is in fact pretty minimal, lots of canned and packaged goods, and an echo of TJs in the Our Kitchen feature offering samples and recipes. Checkout is DIY.
It'll take its place in the retail range, but it won't cause competitors too many sleepless nights, confirming my suspicion that this is just a trial run for when Tesco does the big box version, going head to head with Vons etc. But that's a few years off yet.
Back home in time to file the copy to the London Daily Telegraph, then into glad rags for a party given in LA by the British American Business Council LA (BABCLA) in honor of Lythgoe.
After an hour the great man turned up and gave a lively account of the history of American Idol, especially how difficult it was to sell to the US sponsors and TV networks, even though the format had already been a success in UK as Pop Idol. It's basically the old-fashioned talent show that has been going for more than 50 years on TV. The difference lies in the razmatazz and the way it's done, with mass auditions and three judges with clearly defined personalities - Randy Jackson, Simon Cowell and Paula Abdul - chosen for their chemistry.
After about half an hour Lythgoe introduced a video that he has clearly been showing to selected audiences for quite a while, featuring the Randy Jackson fart in one of the preliminary rounds, while Cowell was pontificating (hardly a coincidence).
Lythgoe, a multi-millionaire and huge success at this narrow area of reality TV, was as he admitted nervous and has an irritating habit of following any joke or point with what he hopes is an appropriate facial expression, just in case we'd missed it.
An entertaining hour, which left me full of admiration for the way the Idol format has been thought out, and wanting to know more. There must be a book in it somewhere. Maybe I'll write it.