kEn'S tWiStEd rAnT

Big news!

2008-02-28T17:32:00.003+09:00

I am going to be a father... it's beginning to sink in now, a little... lots of things to think about and plan for... busy times ahead...

2007 end of year round up

2008-02-28T17:09:00.008+09:00

Yes, yes, it's very late and all that, but here it is.. a little round up of things that amused me during the last few months of 2007... here we go:

First of all, I managed my first 9 letter word in Anagrammatic, a nice word game that is a little like Countdown, but without the maths...

Next, I got my high score on Nanaca Crash, a fun little game which starts with a pervert being hit by a schoolgirl's bike...

... and ends with the pervert between the breasts of a different schoolgirl...

Penultimately, Ewan hangs his head in disappointment as Scotland fail to qualify for Euro 2008 thanks to a scandalous decision a minute from time, gifting the Italians a winning goal... a few days later, England crash out in lacklustre fashion...

And then on New Year's Eve, my sister in law watched the "New Year Pop Music Countdown Extravaganza", or as I call it, "one shit song after another"...

September Update

2007-11-18T10:44:00.000+09:00

September began like most months for me - with a bloody funny TV show. This time it was one in which various women from various backgrounds tackled an obstacle course, with mixed results. Naturally, there were professional sportswomen and veterans who do this sort of thing for fun, but their runs were pretty run of the mill. The real fun was in the amateurs, and especially the amateurs who were SHIT. Such as the large lady below.

You're probably thinking the same thing I did.. "not a fucking chance, love!"

And you'd be right... woeful jump, even for a big lass..

Ahh, now I like this photo.. somehow I managed to capture the precise moment when the girl's face met the cold hard wood of the log. With a better camera I'd be tempted to enter it in a competition..

You can probably guess which one I chose..

A bit of a house party at Ewan's, one of the highlights being Roald's boardgame forfeit - eating a natto roll..

A snap of my dad's favourite shop in Kurume, taken from my wife's car..

The lovely Miwae returned to her old workplace to show off her little baby to us.. I could almost pick him up with one hand..

I went to a great bar called Cottonfields in Fukuoka with a chap called Peter. Our wives met eachother on the Japanese site Mixi, and we were soon out on the jag..

Fantastic bar, Cottonfields.. over 600 bottled beers from around the world, including, shock horror!, my favourite beer in the world, Theakston's Old Peculier!

For her health, my wife ate some pickled onions with her curry, and this was her reaction...

Tasted better than the name...

August Update

2007-11-18T10:14:00.000+09:00

August began with two middle aged men on TV building a train set...

Apparently the show was well over an hour long... much of the ten or so minutes I watched were of the guy above growling at his train to go faster..

A few days later I found myself working at Kurume Youme Town, and with Kaori suffering from a touch of the hiccups.. a folktale from my childhood reared it's head, and before she could say "yatta!" I had slipped a cold key down between her shoulder blades and cured her. Here she is with the said key.
(note - putting my hand down a pretty girl's blouse was purely in the interests of Science)..

A few days later, and to local haunt Zawatami, for a few beers with Dunstan, Gerard, Roald and Ewan. We all worked together at Kurume Ekimae back in 2004 so it was something of a reunion for us, and it was a damn good night, despite the lack of pouring prowess of the waitress..

Another amusing TV show. By the way, if any young girls are reading this and thinking about going into the TV presenting game, be aware that you will most likely be surrounded by lots of men, probably men dressed as condoms, and they will take great delight in slapping you or tying you up or pushing you into pits of coloured water... still, this show was really memorable for one guest:

THE GUY WHO PLAYED MONKEY IN MONKEY MAGIC!

Later in the week, and to Yanagawa, where the lovely Hirono was enjoying her last day at Nova. Great English, a sharp dresser and wonderful to work with (as is Saki, wearing her trademark red "furip-u furop-usu")..

I watched quite a lot of TV in August... this was a great game, like Mario Party... contestants had to jump around the markers of a giant clock, trying not to get twatted by the vast hands..

Whilst at my inlaws' family graveyard, I happened upon a cicada shedding it's skin... kind of creepy..

Another party, this time it was Eloise's farewell to Nova thing... pictured are the little fingers of Brian Wilson. Believe it or not, his fingers are unbent... the ends of the little fingers jut out at angles, due to a rare Scandinavian genetic condition, apparently..

And finally.. a leading historian once said that our most poignant question was "what ever happened to Catholic England?"

Surely that is nothing next to "What ever happened to Jo-Ann's students?"

The blogger returns...

2007-11-18T09:53:00.000+09:00

Ah, it's been a while... more than two months in fact. With no job presently due to the farcical end of Nova, I find myself with ample time to spend on my blog... though it took a verbal kick in the arse from Jon Spiker too. So, Jon, and for anyone else out there who reads this, here we go...

With two months having passed, I think a photo recap for August and September is due...

In July...

2007-08-07T10:56:00.000+09:00

I realised, after 3 and a bit years of sitting at the train station, that every day I stare at the word "shite"...

A HUUUUUUUGE spider that was in one of the classrooms in Yanagawa! My goodness...

Gerard and Chand, as we wend our way to Omuta on a sultry Tuesday...

Amusing TV show with latex and make-up..

2007-07-14T00:03:00.000+09:00

Ahh, yet more cool TV, featuring one of the most prolific non-Japanese comedians on TV, Bobby Oregon. Entering into an eating contest in what looked rather like a You Me Town, poor Bobby had no idea that the old lady sat a few people down from him was none other than "Gall Bladder", legendary eating champion, with a ton of prosthetics and make up on!

To give Bobby some credit, he did rather quickly seem to sense that something was amiss... the frail octogenerian was putting away 4 plates for every one of his... even the planted daughter in the audience's claim that "mother has a good appetite" had a suspicious ring to it...

(by the way, yes, in the top right hand corner of the screen there is a Japanese man with a beard and wizard's hat.. he was the host. Why as a beardy wizard? Why not.)

Even so, Bobby, a supermarket full of kids to egg you on, and all you could managed was 10 plates? I could eat 10 plates right now. I certainly could if an 83 year old woman was handing me a beatdown with 54 empty plates piled infront of her, for pride if nothing else...

When it was announced that the victorious grandma was actually Gall, Bobby snatched the photo board from her and tried to beat her with it (sadly I wasn't quick enough to capture that little gem). So you'll have to make do with Bobby's forced grin just beforehand...

A very pleasant weekend...

2007-07-13T23:46:00.000+09:00

My wife and I rarely have two days off together in a row, so this weekend was rather special. We had some great food, great conversation, and -shock! horror! - went bowling twice!

Those of you reading this that know me know that I love bowling... and some of you know that my wife doesn't. Well, my wife didn't. She agreed to come to Sports Garden on a whim, and lo and behold she seems to have caught the bowling bug.

The highlight of the sessions was me making a 200 on the nose, shown in the below video... 3 strikes in the tenth, pressure from a camera... somehow I was Ben Gammon and not Ben Gammon's fool.

I only wish that Linh Dang was still in Kurume, so that I could wave the score sheet under her nose and generally pose in her direction...

So will Yoko keep bowling? I hope so.. she had a lot of fun, made some good shots and had her competitive streak tickled throughout...

Stung!

2007-07-12T17:01:00.000+09:00

Imagine my horror - I walk into the instructors' room to find a CD player blaring out bagpipe music at a high volume...

I had been the victim of a sting, the brainchild of Ewan Macrae and his lackey, Saki...

Did I cut the CD in half with cackhanded scissors? No - I was laughing too hard at the oxymoronic sentence "bagpipe classics" on the face...

Crazy Japanese Eating Contest on TV..

2007-07-12T16:34:00.000+09:00

Comedians in Japan do a lot of crazy things... it must be a hard life for them, always appearing on TV shows, commercials and posters. Living in Tokyo, dressing in ridiculous clothes, acting like wankers in public... and now eating until you almost die.

Yes, the other night saw yet another tart slice of Japanese TV, during which 4 comedians had to eat a succession of different plates of food within a set time limit (the time it takes for a plate to make a circuit of a kaiten zushi belt), with the last comedian eating being able to take home 8万円　(80,000 yen).

My money was on large lad "Banana Man", but as shown below he was done by the 15th plate...

The remaining 3 contestants were still in it by the coming of the 25th plate, and it was a picture to see their faces as the largest dumplings in the world waddled towards them!

It was all too much for the effeminate chap dressed as a drummer boy... once they were all back in the studio, the women inset in the top right hand corner of the screen chastised him for not eating the dumpling, giving him a hefty smack around the ear...

I was quite intrigued to see who would eventually win, but something came up and I couldn't watch the end. Whoever it was, all I can say is that anytime these sissy berks in their pastel shirts want to have a real contest they can come down to kyushu and take on me, Gerard, Dunstan and Jon's Rie ANYTIME...

New Plaza Beer Hall

2007-07-06T11:54:00.000+09:00

With a free evening all round, we headed to the beer hall of the New Plaza Hotel in Kurume for 飲み放題(nomihoudai) and 食べ放題(tabehoudai), "all-you-can-drink" and "all-you-can-eat". In attendance were Yoko's two schoolfriends, Hitomi and Ako, as well as Hitomi's boyfriend Hiroaki, and of course Yoko and myself. All in all it was good, though the atmosphere of the hall was more "wedding reception in a working man's club" than "stylish hotel in Kurume". The beer was fair, the food was too, and at only 2500yen a head it wasn't to be sniffed at.

Hiroaki started off at a blistering pace with his beer, then changed to shochu and slipped down a couple of gears...

Ako laughing at one of my wife's witticisms...

Yoko enjoying the cheese filled spring rolls...

A classic moment... a drunken businessman attempts to fill two pitchers with beer from the tap, and succeeds in getting two pitchers of head... but just when I thought there was no hope for the beer-pullers of Japan:

... Hitomi shows how it should be done with a perfect pint.

Fatal car crash in Omuta...

2007-07-05T07:00:00.000+09:00

Having a look at a Japanese news site today, one of the stories was of a car crash in Omuta... the story can be found here:

http://mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp/national/news/20070704p2a00m0na008000c.html

the Japanese version is here:

http://www.mainichi-msn.co.jp/shakai/jiken/news/20070704k0000e040039000c.html

Terrible... 3 people losing their lives, and two of them only 16 and 17... deepest condolences to the families...

Junko's leaving party...

2007-07-04T20:06:00.001+09:00

Little Junko out of Amagi left the company at the end of June, and was thus given a little send off at local favourite, Dragon Cafe... it was a fun night, with lots of people drinking too much, not a few red faces (Hirono!) and forgotten bags... some of the players, in order of appearance:

Chand was a master of ceremonies of sorts, and dispensed witticisms and advice with equal aplomb, though he did unfortunately pick up a bit of food poisoning along the way... Eloise, on the other hand, seemed content to consider the merits of the grub...

Saki's boyfriend (with chopsticks in mouth) and Eloise's boyfriend, Yama, who put away a tidy amount of ale, with a smoking Ewan...

Gerard and wife Naoko, the latter looking on with her "here he goes again" face as G launches into another anecdote...

Omuta manager Kanade "the sponge" Nakanishi, so named due to her prowess with alcohol, and new staff member Eri...

Staff members Emi and Hitomi, working at Kurume and Tosu respectively (and a quick cameo from yours truly)..

The guest of honour herself, Junko, and Omuta staff member Rie..

Nishijin Yuko, pouting like it's the start of shimebi...

Yuko and Kurume Kaori, at the tail end of a stupendous joke...

Get togethers like this are always fun - the only downside is that they are usually because someone is leaving... much like Ben and others from the area, Junko, it has been great working with you, and you will be missed very much. Good luck in the future! もがんばって下さい！

Wednesday update...

2007-07-04T19:54:00.000+09:00

A bargain hunting granny at Omuta YMT... where on earth did she get those clothes??????

Dr Heli, an emergency medical chopper, in the grounds of Kurume University Hospital (with either helipad or felled rugby posts next to it)..

The proof that Omuta YMT runs on energy drinks.. or at least, that Rod and I do...

And Trinity, new instructor, who walks a fine line between the man from del monte and a cracking villain from a film...

Stooooooooorm!

2007-07-04T09:01:00.001+09:00

So there I was at Hanabatake station, slap bang in the middle of a monster storm.. rain bouncing a foot in the air, the defeaning roar of raspberry sized droplets on the station roof, the rumbling thunder a few octaves too low..

... and best of all, an old lady glaring at me like it's all my fault!

Omuta Bowling Night

2007-06-29T20:05:00.000+09:00

It had long been on the cards - a staff and instructors bowling night in Omuta. The last one I went to was back in the autumn of 2004, where the main protagonists were Pete, Linda, James, Christine, Mayumi, Mariko, Maki and me... this time, only me and Maki were survivors from that first time, and we were joined by Nicole, Stephen, Tarah, Travis, Dorry, Rie, Chie and Mikiko.

It was a good night... we split into two lanes, and had two games... on one side, Nicole, Stephen, Tarah, Rie and Chie. On the other, Travis, Dorry, me, Maki and Mikiko. Things got off to a bright start, and over on our side, everybody managed to break 100.

One of the best things about bowling is that you can compare styles... Travis has a very elegant reverse roll, whereas his beau, Dorry, sends her ball thundering down the lane from a standing start like a wrecking ball. Stephen gets down low and sends it hard and straight, like the Kentucky Bourbon he was drinking on the night, whereas his beau, Tarah, gives a slow roll with plenty of flip at the back end.

As to be expected, a fair proportion of the evening was spent by the girls discussing which student they thought was the best looking (incidentally this is exactly what happened last time, and it was the same student too!)

The night wouldn't have been the same without a bit of "Ahh, Japan"-eseness though.. when we went to get our shoes, we found that from 27.5cm and up, there was only one pair available... by some strange coincidence, Travis, Stephen and myself have shoe sizes 0.5 of a cm apart... but going for a night out with a gaggle of foreigners could have proved problematic...

A very pleasant day...

2007-06-29T19:34:00.000+09:00

With both my wife and I having a day off, we decided to go out in the car for a bit of lunch, and perhaps some cake..

First port of call was a great little Italian restaurant near JR Kurume called タベルナ石 (taberu na ishi), and a very reasonable lunchtime set for 1000yen.

Next we decided to revisit the shrine at which we got married, 篠山神社 (sasayama jinja)..

After that, we drove all around the back streets of 小郡 (Ogoori) to get to a very famous cake shop, Nico. My wife has been there countless times, and one of her best friends lives a stones throw away.. I am a rather old fashioned chap, and on the whole I am traditionally English in that I consider food something to be eaten, and don't really care much for fancy stuff. Given the choice between expensive delicacies and all-you-can-eat, I'll mostly go for the latter. However, the following cakes...

were ABSOLUTELY incredible, and well worth the 300 plus yen they each cost.

With the eating over, we headed back to Kurume, and passing alongside the nishitetsu train line, I spotted one of my favourite sights of the city...

Yes, a little old metal bridge, now rendered useless due to a wall... rather quaint and sad... I often like to spend a moment or two there whenever I pass by..

A couple of things...

2007-06-28T11:04:00.000+09:00

A classic piece from Brass Eye... not polishing the brass moustache was unforgivable!

Here is possibly my only claim to fame, and a tenuous one at that... my dad was in an episode of Tales of the Unexpected, playing a guy called Sebastian... he makes a couple of brief appearances, at 3:30 and 7:05 respectively...

An idea for Japanese cell phones...

2007-06-21T11:31:00.000+09:00

Technology is big here in Japan, and cell phones are no exception... some of you may be surprised to know that a great many phones in Japan have a "flower mode". This has something to do with the lens of the camera, and makes for clearer, brighter photos when taking photos of roses, etc.

Well, useful as that is for millions of females in Japan, what about some other options for other demographics? For purely selfish reasons, I would like the following:

- awful wig mode... that is, with the flick of a switch, my phone would be able to clearly depict the many barnet disgraces I see during my travels around Kyushu.

With this, I would have been able to better capture the brass-necked chap in the photo below, whose wig, in the words of Travis Waugh, was "quite the example of what not to do".

More entertaining TV!

2007-06-18T23:56:00.000+09:00

Well, well... what a treat this was! Put pretty but essentially stupid girls in bikinis, put them on slippery slides above a vat of flour and then ask them basic general knowledge questions, increasing the steepness of the slide when they answer incorrectly, until all three eventually slide screaming to a powdery demise! Superb!

Stupid they were, but very plucky and happy-go-lucky... some of the questions they got wrong... "name 3 Japanese pro baseball teams", "what's the name of the Prime Minister"... and one of the few they got right.. "what is this a picture of?" (it was Tokyo dome)...

So who won? Well, after a dismal start, it seemed a shoe-in that the girl in the blue helmet would be first down the chute, as she was already having to (ahem) spread her legs to grip the sides...

but it turned out to be the yellow helmeted idol that prevailed, with the girl in red snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, shooting down at quite a click to end up with a face full of pre-cake...

But the final word should go to the girl in the blue, who was by far the dimmest of the three, and the program ended with her grinning into the camera and saying that the flour was "sweet!!"

Just one of the characters that frequent Omuta you me town...

2007-06-15T21:22:00.000+09:00

There she is, the bag lady of Omuta (or one of them at least)... every weekend, without fail, I see her struggling along the road, mumbling to herself about random things. And then there she is, hours later, in the supermarket, still mumbling and carrying around a big red stained knapsack. Who is she? What's in the sack? WHAT IN THE NAME OF GOD IS IN HER SACK??

Random English seen in Kurume...

2007-06-15T21:18:00.000+09:00

First of all, from the 100yen shop near Narita-san...

And next, from the new second hand clothes store on the kamitsu bypass.. I say!

The one and only Molly Ringwald...

2007-06-15T11:07:00.000+09:00

My wife has a couple of pinups, the foremost of these being Johnny Depp and Tobey Maguire (surprise surprise! well, she is Japanese....)

And me? Molly Ringwald...

Ah, Molly Ringwald...

I'm not really sure why I like her so much... perhaps it's because she's in two of my favourite films (The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles)... perhaps it's because she's from the mid 80s, one of the scenes I like to feast on during my nostalgia binges... whatever the reason, she definitely has something about her... and when I see her she dance in The Breakfast Club the world seems a perfect place...

A very Japanese hairstyle...

2007-06-03T20:24:00.000+09:00

Ah yes, the combover, or the barcode head as it is called here in Japan... admittedly, this guy does have quite a lot of hair at the front, but just look at the glaring bald bit at the back.

Poor girl!

2007-05-29T00:16:00.000+09:00

She has every reason to look in pain... there she was, minding her own business on a Japanese comedy show when all of a sudden a man in a dog suit appeared, flipped her over and put her in a painful wrestling hold. Sore back in the morning and no mistake...

Bad day at the office...

2007-05-27T20:14:00.000+09:00

Grrr... one of those days... why does it always rain on me, born under a bad sign, etc... what happened? here's the low down...

- woke up late, had to get up without the usual coffee and contemplation infront of the internet time.

- found that my handlebars are almost falling off, due to a loose bolt.. also tyres very soft.

- train to work was cancelled.. and the next one was 20 minutes late, so i had to miss one lesson and thus one lesson's worth of money.

- taught a boy who doesn't speak. 40 minutes of me asking him closed questions.

- needed some time for office admin, but things kept cropping up. called boss for a quick question, ended up speaking for whole lunchbreak.

- almost had an open lesson at end in which to do much needed paperwork, but a student turned up with 20 minutes to go.

- contact lens almost fell out on walk to train station.

- no coffee in house.

True, there have been worse days... and I quite enjoy being able to complain...

Japan, Japan, Japan...

2007-05-26T22:59:00.001+09:00

Where but in Japan could you find the following things?

First of all, the worst shoes imaginable, so laughable and pretentious that no more needs to be said.

And second, in a contry of bizarre posters, something that even a seasoned ex-pat would do a double take at... a girl, eating a massive shaved ice thing (I think), being waited on by a sheep?... only in Japan!

Another lazy weekend...

2007-05-25T23:25:00.001+09:00

Ahh, the weekend.. a time for lazing about, sipping at coffee and sofa time with the wife. That and more this weekend, with firstly the alarmingly middle aged pleasure to be had in finishing a jigsaw puzzle yesterday.

And then today, a little sojourn to the local art museum for an exhibition of nudes...

Admittedly, I am no real fan of art museums. I'd rather go to an art museum than watch motorsport or motorbike racing, but then I'd rather eat wet dog shit out of Jocelyn Wildenstein's hand than watch that. It was an ok exhibition though, bar one thing... the group of salarymen on an outing who kept shouting and laughing and acting like arses throughout. Every painting was greeted with "aahhh!" and stupid comments about their offices. Here's a photo of them posing for a group photo outside.

One of them did have a stupendous wig though, which was by far the most interesting thing about the visit. Following the art, there came the obligatory taking photos of flowers...

Viewing the average Japanese photo album is a very mundane affair... all you see is photos of people giving peace signs in front of various landmarks, fireworks and flowers up close...

Mixed emotions...

2007-05-24T16:29:00.000+09:00

I woke this morning at 4.30am, early but not early enough to catch the first half of the Champions League final... to my dismay, Liverpool couldn't win it, and Milan celebrated their 7th European crown.

In low spirits, I went back to bed, trying not to wake my wife...

Waking up a few hours later, my feeling was still low, especially when my wife pointed out that Liverpool lost because I had overslept (curse her Eastern zen mindset!). However, things suddenly took a turn for the better, when she presented me with a package from England. A birthday gift from Diamond, and what a gift! Ninja Warrior on vhs! Perhaps the worst film ever made, yet essential for just that fact! To honour the greatness of this gift, here is the jacket...

I really want to put together a full movie review, in the style of Matt from x-entertainment, but for now all I will say is look at the blurb, laugh, and then look again at who is in this movie...

Ken. Watanabe. Yes, THE Ken Watanabe! I'll bet this one isn't on his cv...

------------UPDATE------------------------

Apparently, this is NOT the famous Ken Watanabe but someone else... sorry Ken-san!

Laughing fit!

2007-05-14T22:46:00.000+09:00

It hadn't happened to me for a long time... the last time I had a really good laugh was whilst watching an episode of the Japanese show "Silent Library", but that wasn't a bona fide laughing fit, more of a suppressed giggle with a watery eye..

The last proper laughing fit was probably when I was at Sixth Form and me, Ian Drakard and a few others were in a music assembly. The time before that was at primary school, when Liam Price gave an assembly about Bonny Prince Charlie, causing Richard Godfrey and myself to nearly die of hysterics...

Well, it finally happened again, this time at 1.19pm on a Monday afternoon in Omuta... a combination of thinking about some of the more humorous students we were going to teach and some of the witty adlibs in the teachers room sent me tittering over the edge. It was quite a sight.. I was bent over at the waist, eyes streaming and trying not to die, the bell frantically ringing... walking into the first class, the deadpan look on the face of my highschool student had the same effect, and with a muffled apology I put my head on the desk and wetted it with my shoulder-heaving giggle tears.

I somehow made it through the day, and later learned that another teacher, Jenny, had a similar experience a few lessons after, laughing so much that her chest hurt. It was a day of one-liners and belly laughs, doubling over and booming with laughter until the tears wouldn't come any more. And it was WONDERFUL!

Some things that are on the tip of my tongue...

2007-05-14T09:56:00.000+09:00

- will the security guys be ultra arsey today, or just usual-arsey?
- will YMT finally replenish their stock of non sugar cafe latte?
- when will the weather finally ascend into summer heatedness?
- how on earth am i going to complete challenges 22, 26 and 27 of Perfect Dark?
- how many young Japanese people realise that Japanese pop culture is utterly superficial and shallow?

Update: Jessica Alba Queen of the Mouth now, but still a pale second next to Natalie Imbruglia circa 1997-1998...

2007-05-13T20:55:00.000+09:00

What would you do with a time machine?

2007-05-13T08:42:00.000+09:00

i have to admit that the first thing that came to mind was to go back to late 1998 and start taping the entire output of 4later...

(What's 4later? Are you kidding?? 4later was channel 4's late night lineup from 1998 until sometime in 2001, running at around 10pm-5am, Thursday to Sunday. Including such shows as Vidz, Bits, Exploitica, Late Night Poker and many others, it was a an integral part of University life back then...)

This just in...

2007-05-08T01:10:00.000+09:00

Bobby "Borris" Pickett, singer of The Monster Mash, is dead... he was 69, and succumbed to leukaemia...

Those of you in Kurume who head to karaoke nights with that ragtaggle swathe of Novaites will know that the song in question is my juu-hachi ban (十八番）, or number 18, or "go-to song"... the big bash on May 15th will see a rendition in tribute, no doubt...

In Kurume...

2007-05-08T01:01:00.000+09:00

The new dentist's surgery to the side of Hanabatake Station looks great, and more like something from a Lynch cheese dream...

Whenever I take the inlaws dogs for a walk, I end up with one of my father in law's questionable shirts to stave off the cold, and end up resembling a poor extra from Miami Vice, whereas the fragrant Kate always looks effortlessly cool, in this case a vision in 70s chic...

A few thoughts...

2007-05-08T00:50:00.000+09:00

1. You are in a cable car with a pro bodybuilder and a pro gymnast, and suddenly it lurches and you topple out, hanging by the fingertips of one hand. Who would you want to pull you to safety - the bodybuilder or the gymnast? (Got to be the gymnast... infinitely stronger)

2. Which famous person's face would you like to smack the most? (Tough one...)

3. Coffee and cheese before bed is glorious.

4. The next time I see a ridiculous wig in Kurume/Omuta I'm going to take it off the person's head and hide it somewhere.

5. It's quite late and it'll be a struggle during tomorrow's early jog.

Bike troubles...

2007-05-08T00:13:00.000+09:00

I have a love hate relationship with my latest mama chari (grandma style) bike... it's very comfortable, and has gears... but the chain has an annoying habit of coming off and getting wedged in the gears... the wedging is annoying, but not nearly as much as the fact that it always seems to happen at really inopportune moments, such as when i am in a hurry, or, as was the case on Saturday, when it was pissing down with rain...

Yes, the rain was tumbling down, yes, I wanted to get home early, and yes, my chain had come off and had lodged itself all greasy and black in the gears... yes, it was messy to fix it, yes, it did take about 20 minutes (no tools), and yes, not a few old ladies stopped to say "it's raining."

At this moment I hate my bike chain.. so much so that I have decided to post a photo of it next to one of UB40, a scathing blow if ever there was one..

Why why why...

2007-05-04T02:18:00.000+09:00

... would anyone in their right mind pay the better part of 6 quid for a small bottle of fruit juice???

Things of note recently...

2007-05-03T16:23:00.000+09:00

Another manager change at work... Yumi, pictured here next to my spectacular shirt and tie combination, is off to Kagoshima, so that means a bit of a shakeup...

The new line-up at work... stalwart Rie (centre) has been joined by new manager, Kanade (to her left) and Chie, both from Kurume...

Another departure, this time Carly. Farm gal, calming influence, rock, she is many things, and will be missed...

At Carly's farewell party, I managed to somehow become the sole heir to the prestigious drinking game "1 Red Hen"...

This is why I love Japan...

Ah Japan... buy a tiny bottle and they give you a big bag and a basket...

On a rare shift working with Eloise in Yanagawa, we ate Christmas pudding with double cream! Superb stuff!

Jon's girlfriend Rie, who is an eating machine!

The teacher's paradox: teach correct English, love flawed grammar...

Success!!!

2007-03-10T23:50:00.000+09:00

At a house party, the Australian contingent were being their usual annoying selves and claiming that the clearly flawed Vegemite was superior to the delicious gift from the gods, Marmite. Calling upon impartial witnesses (that is, a couple of game Canadians) the decision was far from clear.

Until! Enter the Yuko!, who, to my apparent delight, tastes both and gleefully lets the whole room now which is elite.... she is so right!

A first...

2007-03-10T23:46:00.000+09:00

So I found myself with a lemon... I peeled it as if it'were an orange, pulled it into segments as if it'were an orange, and ate it as if it'were an orange... it was sharp, and I shuddered with every bite. Saliva ran down my chin as the tartness hit my taste buds. I thought of Christopher Lee dancing down to the beach in The Wicker Man...

I feel very strange sometimes...

Post fever...

2007-02-23T23:28:00.000+09:00

Having been suffering from a cold-cum-fever for the last few days, the vast amounts of medication that I've been necking have just started to set in... I feel incredibly lightheaded, and my body feels tingly and light, as if I have had too many drinks.

Being sick is never good, but there is one upside - cool dreams. A few days ago I dreamt that Richard Simmons was the new teacher at our school...

My first culinary creation of note

2007-02-15T22:24:00.000+09:00

With my wife with a slight hand injury, it was up to me to make the dinner tonight. Apprehensive? Yes, a little. Throughout my childhood the only person that cooked in my house was my mum (my dad's torn-up-bread-floating-in-a-bowl-of-bovril doesn't really count), and the meals of my university years, though a little more sophisticated than merely instant noodles and toast, certainly wouldn't feature in any food magazines.

So, following my wife's sofa-ridden instructions, I managed to knock together a fairly serviceable Shepherd's Pie.

The trouble now is, the wife wants me to cook more often...

Our first wedding anniversary

2007-02-15T22:13:00.000+09:00

Growing up where and when I did, anniversaries have always held a certain stigma - that is, it's the time when the hapless husband forgets, the wife gets mad, and no amount of flowers or chocolates an remedy things. To believe the films and tv soaps, it's a night of missed restaurant appointments, bouquets in the rubbish bin and the dog house.

With all this in mind, I was determined not to live up to my tv forebears. So, I opted for a very traditional yet suitable gift for my wife for our first anniversary together - a dozen red roses.

And as you can see by her little face, they were well appreciated. (Note to guys with a first anniversary on the horizon - if she says "I don't want anything", it's a trap!)

All-you-can-drink with the inlaws

2007-02-11T00:55:00.000+09:00

With all the stuff that the inlaws have done for me and my wife, I had been planning to do something in return for them. Dropping in at my wife's ex-co-worker's drinking party last week gave me an idea - nomihoudai! All you can drink! With my mother in law being a stern drinker and my father in law being rather partial to a drop, we made it happen this evening. The venue: a yaki tori place in Kurume. The participants: my inlaws, the wife and me.

Things got off to a brisk start, with the mother in law necking a stout glass of wheat shochu and immediately ordering more. I started on beer, and was able to comfortably keep up. The father in law was silently supping, as is his wont, and the wife was lagging a bit, her solitary glass of "sour plum wine" looking very mediocre indeed.

Food came and went, including (pay attention Englanders) torii tataki, aka raw chicken, which was rather delicious.

The drinks kept coming, the meat kept coming, and, just as is the case back in the family house, my father in law decided to go to sleep..

A bit of gentle teasing from the mother in law turned out to be pride before a fall, as she descended into what could only be called a highschool party-esque descent into vomity drunkeness. Going to the toilet and remaining there for 15 minutes was the first sign that something was amiss...

Joining her comatose husband in a kip was the second... and then, the coup de grace....

filling a soup bowl (blue rimmed, behind the black pot) with vomit. No, that's not rice in soup in that bowl, it's genuine mother in law's multicoloured yawn.

The verdict: a grand night, one of Japanese language, interesting and colourful drinks and delicious meats, and one in which it was proved, at least in my Japanese family, that the inlaws can't handle a bog standard nomihoudai without passing out and/or blowing bits...

A legend departs...

2007-02-09T17:37:00.000+09:00

At the end of January, one of my best friends left Kurume for Hiroshima. Ben Gammon, my longtime bowling companion and pool parter, has gone, and the hole he left is wide and gaping.
The first time I ever met Ben was at a Halloween party in 2004. I was dressed as a shadow, Ben as the You Me Town train driver (or Mario, as some people said), complete with canary yellow shirt and red dungarees. Our first conversation? He was talking to a Japanese girl and showing her on a map of the UK where all the bands were from. Turning to me, he asked me if he was correct. I nodded and mumbled that he was - in fact, apart from the more obvious ones, I didn't know. Amongst other things, Ben is a UK music encyclopaedia.

In our second conversation, it turned out that for a portion of his youth, Ben lived in Stowmarket, not too far from where I grew up. This was the first inkling that we had a lot of things in common, and lots to talk about.

For the next couple of years, we met chiefly on the bowling lanes of Kurume, with Thursday nights being the initial choice, then Saturday mornings, and then Friday mornings. Many people came and went during our bowling days, but we always remained. Ben is a fine bowler... he uses a houseballs, which are less responsive and consistent than my own, and without custom finger holes. He bowls straight, which means that he has to be more accurate than I do.

Bowling aside, our paths would cross at the many parties that pepper the Kurume social calendar. A nomihoudai here, a curry there, a costume here, a video night there. Perhaps my fondest memories are those in which we simply had a cup of tea of an evening, watching a bit of cable or playing a bit of Winning Eleven.

For the bowling memories, for understanding my asides about Don Estelle and other 70s references, and for the mushroom cushion wedding present that is proving incredibly useful, and most of all for being such a great guy, I thank you Ben.

Proof that people from Australia called Jon Spiker cannot pour a beer...

2007-01-29T23:48:00.000+09:00

Poor Gerard - a glum face and no wonder, what with the veritable glass of froth that Jon just magicked up. Disgraceful!

I am officially somebody's fool...

2007-01-29T23:43:00.000+09:00

There, it's official... I am, in the best Mr T sense, somebody's fool. I spent a frantic five minutes searching for the above file yesterday, despite the fact that it was in my hand the whole time. Shocking...

Calgary Mike

2007-01-27T22:25:00.000+09:00

I feel that a big shout out should go to Mike, Carly's man from Calgary, who was in town for Christmas and left a big mark. Many things were memorable, such as his custom of choosing a different beer from the convenience store every time, and whacking his sushi on the hotplate to cook it before eating, but the moment that will stick in my mind is when we sang the Kenny Rogers song, Lucille, at karaoke. The big man carried me throughout the song, doing it all sorts of justice, despite not wanting to sing at all. Though he may be gone, his presence is still felt, and Kurume is looking forward to the day big Mike decides to drop by again.

A dark dream...

2007-01-27T22:16:00.000+09:00

In a dark dream, even for me, the dreamer of very dark dreams, this was one... I was a pathologist, carrying out an autopsy with Asami from Audition (above) as my attending nurse. She was giggling at inopportune moments, so I turned to her and said:

"Nurse, when I am doing an autopsy, don't get on my nerves."

To which she looked at me in almost the same way as the above photo and said, in a very soft voice:

"Doctor, when I am doing your autopsy, I will get all your nerves."

Just as she said this, I had a horrific mind flash of me prostrate on the operating table, with Asami winding out my nerves on a skewer...

Japanese TV

2006-12-19T01:13:00.000+09:00

Japanese TV is, as this blog has mentioned numerous times over the past couple of years, very much a mixed bag. Much of it is dross, a load of old ladies fawning over soup, some travel shows revolving around food, some poor domestic sporting events. But occasionally a little bit of cream surfaces. The other night was no exception, and I can safely say that it was the best thing I've seen for a long time.

The premise was simple - take a gaggle of TV "personalities", dress them like giant condoms, place them at the end of a long catwalk with a vat of green water behind them and send a giant fibreglass board with a shape cut out of it flying down and hope that the hapless TV stars have the quickness of mind to assume the shape of the hole with their bodies else be walloped into the drink. Here they are, in all their non-glory.

Following the formula that you'd expect, the early shapes were very simple and the boards moved relatively slowly. The "personalities" got a bit cocky here, which is what made the next stages so much sweeter. The shapes got progressively more difficult, and the boards faster, until it turned into a watery farce. There was too much to show everything here, so I'm afraid you'll have to settle for a top 5 (alas, for some reason I can't seem to post that many photos on this entry, so only number 5 will have one)...

Coming in at number 5, a moment from the show before it even got going - the rather cute girl on the left is looking decidedly chipper, considering that just a moment before the host next to her had tried to wrap a large plastic chain around her neck, knocking her to the floor as he did so. As if that wasn't strange enough, a few moments after this photo was taken, she was again attacked, this time with a long length of black masking tape, which was duly slapped onto her unsuspecting face by her mischievious co-presenter...

At number 4, the shocked, hand hidden face of the only girl on the team, clearly embarrassed after misjudging a very straightforward standing pose to be smacked backwards into the water, to the chortles of her companions.

At number 3, a very decent attempt at a handstand pose, which, considering the circumstances and the fact that the board was moving rather rapidly now, was impressive. Unfortunately for the contestant, he left one of his legs hanging and got a hefty crack on his knee for good measure.

At number 2, a hillariously woeful attempt at a lying pose in which the contestant is off by a good foot. His reward was to be royally whacked across his left side and left thrashing in the green drink.

And at number 1, a very bizarre moment in which one of the competitiors, who chose to wear country and western style arm tassles on his wetsuit, smugly poses as the hole passes him, only to find that his said tassles got caught up in the board and dragged him backwards into the water. The moment when he realised that his posturing and grin were in vain was a treasure, and sadly only hinted at in this photo.

And that was it really. It was over as soon as it had started, and it was back to a travel style show in which women opened their eyes wide and mumbled "oishiii!" with their mouths full as if they had never eaten the much eaten food in their lives, and men opened their eyes wide and mumbled "umai!" with their mouths full as if they were ever going to say anything else.

The trouble with Japanese TV is that the good stuff is so few and far between, and not advertised so much, that you can only really watch it if you happen to stumble upon it. I have seen some cracking stuff in my near 3 years in Nippon, but I can't help wondering about the stuff that I missed...

In the year 1995...

2006-12-12T00:53:00.000+09:00

Here are the friends that shared my halcyon highschool days, from 1991 to 1996... from left to right back row first, we have James Diamond, my closest friend and a literary genius, able to conjure stories and images as a young teen that shook students and teachers alike. Next we have James Young, a musical genius who taught himself to play guitar in a few months, and went on to write scores of wonderful, resonant songs before his 17th birthday. Next we have Luke Andrews, a Scientific genius, who knew and still knows pretty much all there is to know about Science and famously used to score 130% on tests and quizzes by correcting the teachers. Front row next, and we have Ian Drakard, an electronics genius, who was a literal wizard with a soldering iron and a circuit board, and famously built an enormous stack bass amplifier called Dweezil back in 1997. And finally we have me, complete with ridiculous glasses, and sadly none of the genius with which I was surrounded at highschool.

In March, for the first time in nigh on ten years we were reunited at an Indian restaurant in Norwich, and it was as if we were back in 1995, thinking 1995 thoughts, doing 1995 things... highschool may have long since gone, but really it's still there, everyday, in every way.

A weekend in Korea, November 2006

2006-12-11T23:58:00.000+09:00

With mainland South Korea being closer to where I live in Kyushu than much of the rest of Japan, it was inevitable that I'd visit there someday. Well, fate afforded my wife and I a trip in the middle of November, so off we went, bound for Seoul, a city that was nothing short of impressive.

Opting for a very cheap package tour (that is, minibus to and from the airport with a rather flaccid obligatory stop off at an overpriced gift shop and forced lecture on kimchi), we found ourselves slap bang in the middle of one of the emerging cities of Asia. Having been dropped off at the hotel, we went for a wander and soon were tempted by the powerful tang of a street vendor selling spicy snacks... this was my first taste of Korean food, and it was as I expected - orange and spicy...

That evening, we met up with two of Yoko's friends and headed off to a yaki niku restaurant. Now yaki niku is very famous and popular in Japan, but it's a Korean meal really, and it turned out to be very different from what I was used to back in Kurume. First of all, the rice, salad and kimchi is free, and can be refilled as much as you like (within reason I surmise). Secondly, the set up of the hot plate...

It slants down to one side, and as the above photo somewhat shows, the kimchi is placed at the bottom of the slant, and all the meat and garlic and other things above it. The reason for this is that the juices of these other things all run down into the kimchi and make it very tasty. All in all, it was a fantastic feed, and much better than the yaki niku I've experienced in Japan.

When we went to leave the restaurant, I was delighted to find that you could help yourself to a machine coffee free of charge. Alan Partridge would have been so proud. Unfortunately, the evening turned sour, when, with my wife being led by her Korean chums, we marched through the city on the pretense of showing us some good places to buy souvenirs, whereas in fact we were just following the Korean girls around as they shopped for trinkets of their fancy. We walked for what seemed like hours, and, as is the husband's lament the world over, I was entirely forgotten, left to carry bags and stamp my feet outside in the freezing November night as shoes, jackets and baubles were sought. I came to the conclusion that shopping with girls, especially Korean girls, was boring and awful. I came to a few other conclusions during our trip, namely:

- the Koreans are pushier and more aggressive than the Japanese

- overy plastic surgery is quite common amongst young and old

- make up is a religion in Korea

Anyway, we headed back to the hotel, and on the way I managed to find some very cheap Korean beer (which tasted great) so all was not lost.

The next day proved to be a bit of an adventure for us, as we were on our own for the day in a city where neither of us could read anything or speak anything more than a few basic pleasantries. We opted for a typical touristy kind of day, first negotiating the very straight-forward subway system to visit the Royal Palace, and then on to a coffee shop to recharge before having lunch at a pretty famous spot. The speciality was "rice in a chicken's stomach in soup", or something along those lines, and is apparently very healthy and good for gaining stamina.

It was pretty good, and certainly something different, but to be perfectly honest it wasn't anything that special. The yaki niku the night before was far and away the better of the two. All that remained was for a spot of casual shopping (that is, having a gentle meander with a vague desire to buy ginger tea, but not really worrying if we didn't find anywhere suitable). The central part of Seoul reminded me a little of (don't laugh) Norwich city centre, though vastly bigger and better.

I am not a shopper, but even I can appreciate that Seoul is a virtual mecca for the commercially-minded. My mum would have been hard pressed to find enough hours in the day to take in all the handbags, shoes and accessories on display, and with prices markedly lower than those in Japan it's no wonder that Seoul is so popular.

We had to be up and off at 5.30am the next day, but that didn't stop us watching Payback on a cable tv channel in the hotel, nor me partaking in another bottle of fine beer, which was very much like Seoul as a whole - inexpensive, surprising and encouraging you to come back for more.

Questionable drink, questionable jackets...

2006-12-11T01:26:00.000+09:00

Only in Japan could you find a drink in a machine that's called, in all innocence, Nob King...

... and it's reassuring to know that, even when wearing a rather rubbish jacket and preparing to go and hand out tissues in the mall, staff member Miwae has the presence of mind to pose for a photo... and within the hour, to use the pencil sharpener to tidy up her lip pencil...

Alternative Heroes - Donald Pleasence

2006-11-20T00:27:00.000+09:00

Really, there is nothing alternative about Donald Pleasence... he is a bona fide hero in capital letters with an exclamation mark afterwards. In such groundbreaking films as Escape from New York, Halloween and The Great Escape, Pleasence is nothing short of a movie god...

Known as the "hypnotic eye", he manages to bring a presence to his films that transcends mere script and direction and touches on something very special...

For being the Blofeld that is finally revealed to Bond, for being a very believeable forger in the epochal The Great Escape, and for being the one person that I can successfully impersonate without looking a complete fool, Donald Pleasence, you are an alternative hero...

I'm lazy! Oh, how I'm lazy...

2006-11-12T21:08:00.000+09:00

Well... my last post was way back at the mid-part of August, and though my intentions were to keep a blog going steadily, it hasn't panned out...

BUT...

I'm going to try from now on... for the time being, I will try to sum up the nodworthy moments during the last couple of months via the medium of photos... so here we go:

A wonderful poster at Shinsakaemachi station in Omuta, in which glasses of liquid suggest the keys of a piano...

This was a quick snap of the Japanese version of Deal or No Deal (which, bizarrely, only ran for a single episode)... a host of gaijin models stood in front of the boxes, and the usual troupe of Japanese comedians ummed and ahhed over which girl to choose...

A great poster from Yanagawa station... the old man must think Christmas has come early...

One of my favourite gameshows in Japan.. the peerless "Is the Maid under or over 40?"...

From the office window, a couple of ne'er do well yankee boys looking very suspicious... what are they up to?

A bloody big spider that I found in the classroom I was teaching in!

A crafty snap of a convenience store shirking his duties and reading a manga... should have been a policeman...

A giant hornet in another classroom! This thing was gigantic!!

High drama at the bowling alley!

2006-08-18T15:45:00.000+09:00

Having overslept, dragged myself out of a very comfortable futon, grabbed my ball and cycled at full tilt to the bowling alley in driving rain, my friday match with fellow bowling enthusiast Ben finally got under way.

It was all going fairly well, and then in the 10th and final game, the incredible happened and I got within a sniff of a perfect game. Eleven perfect strikes and then a slightly soft one, getting me only 8 in the last frame to leave me with a quite absoludacrous 298...

I HAVE JUST ROLLED A 298!

Am I happy? Yes!
Am I disappointed not to have got a perfect game? Not really!
Am I going to wear my lucky Liverpool shirt again next time? Hells yes!

Japan is a strange place #8

2006-08-04T10:22:00.000+09:00

Via: VideoSift

Japanese toilet training video...!

Japan is a strange place #6

2006-08-04T10:20:00.000+09:00

Via: VideoSift

Water powered jet pack (naturally)!

Japan is a strange place #5

2006-08-04T10:18:00.000+09:00

Via: VideoSift

The terrible secret of Japan is finally out!

Japan is a strange place #4

2006-08-04T10:17:00.000+09:00

Via: VideoSift

How to make ramen in Japan!

Japan is a strange place #3

2006-08-03T02:16:00.000+09:00

Via: VideoSift

How to wake people up in Japan!

Japan is a strange place #1

2006-08-03T01:52:00.000+09:00

Via: VideoSift

A guy loses all of his clothes in mere seconds..!

Elderly Japanese Motorists...

2006-07-27T14:01:00.000+09:00

I have witnessed numerous bouts of crazy driving from the elderly of Japan, and for the most part it's the men that are the worst. Today I saw another two examples of dangerous behaviour behind the wheel that almost beggar belief.

Having dropped my wife off at work, I went on to the nearby supermarket to pick up some milk and water. Getting back to my car, I noticed that there was an old couple in the next car but one. They were facing forwards, and I was facing backwards (having parked front end in, as is my wont). Anyway, looking across and noticing that they were ready to leave, I gestured that they could go first. No response. I gestured again, this time mouthing "DOZO" and "ONEGAISHIMASU". Still no response, so I started the engine, and started to edge back. Looking across, they were still there. When I had almost pulled out of the space, the pensioners' car suddenly lurched forwards and swung around me, narrowly missing the rear wing. Was this a premeditated attack? I think so...

The second incident happened on the bypass not 500 metres from the supermarket. As I drove along, a car at the crossroads slowly pulled out in front of me, despite the fact that I was going 50km/h and there was no one behind me. What made it even worse was that the old man behind the wheel was lighting his cigarette at the time AND DIDN'T EVEN LOOK AT THE ROAD TO WHICH HE WAS JOINING. To make things even worse, at the traffic lights a click or so further along, he sat making a cup of coffee in his car (that is, with a coffee jar, a cup, a flask of presumably hot water and milk and sugar). As the lights changed to green (or blue, as they say here in Japan), he gave a quick glance up, and carried on spooning coffee and sugar into the cup, WITH NO HANDS ON THE WHEEL.

I have seen a lot of bad driving, much of it here in Japan, but this really took the biscuit, which the old man no doubt slowly took out of the packet whilst going over a pedestrian crossing...

The biggest beetle I have ever seen!

2006-07-25T23:32:00.000+09:00

At work today, Jessica left her kids class yelling something along the lines of "OHMYGODTHEY'VEGOTSOMEKINDAFRIKKIN'BEETLEFROMHELLINHERE!!", so naturally I went to investigate... lo and behold, one of the kids in my subsequent class had a Kabuto Mushi beetle crawling on his arm.

Now, I've seen some big insects (big for England that is), but this was something else... "here, hold him, sensei!" they pleaded. No. Way.

The little devils then tried to smuggle him into the class, but they hadn't reckoned on Super Saki, staff member par excellence, to save the day and insist the little stomper was put back in his glass tank...

Winkie's farewell part 1: at the ramen shop from hell

2006-07-20T18:41:00.000+09:00

With fellow co-worker and fellow sometimes-Omuta-commuter Winkie back to Canada next month, time was fast running out on a long held promise - to sample the ramen of the fetid-smelling ramen shop opposite YouMe Town in Omuta.

Having walked past it for months and months, swearing and cursing about the smell that is distinctly "pig's arse", "old man's arse" or "old pig's arse", we made a pact that sometime before August, we'd pay it a visit. There was an abortive attempt (my hangover prevented me eating much of anything, let alone stuff that smelled like a fat nan's pits after a bit of huffy puffy) but we finally bit the bullet and ended up there last Sunday.

Standing outside, Winkie wrinkled her nose and said some not-too positive words about the aroma. Surely it would be better inside? Well, no... if anything it was worse, as we then had a greasy-shop smell to go with the pig's arse. At first sitting behind a giant pillar, we then moved to a normal table.

Ramen times two was the order of the day, and stench of the shop aside it was quite paletable, as Winks' cheerful grin attests... one little boy across the shop spent the whole time staring at us open mouthed, but generally it was a pretty good meal.

Though we did refrain from drinking the broth...

And our clothes and hair stank of pig's arse all the way home on the train...

Insane BT caller abuse!

2006-07-16T22:45:00.000+09:00

Via: VideoSift

Muppet attempts zippo tricks!

2006-07-16T22:43:00.000+09:00

Amusing newsroom mistakes

2006-07-14T23:25:00.000+09:00

This is why I would be useless at reading the news... I would die of laughter..

Via: VideoSift

Superfly Live!

2006-07-14T23:11:00.000+09:00

Here he is, the man, the song, THE year (1973).. the one and only Curtis Mayfield

Via: VideoSift

World Cup 2006

2006-07-14T23:07:00.000+09:00

Well, it's over... a month of intense footy action, late nights here in Japan and groggy days, struggling through the long afternoons and evenings until the next fixtures. It started explosively, but the second phase went a bit Italia 90 and defensive on us all... nonetheless, what the hell are we going to do now that it's gone?.. whilst we ponder that, how about a video montage of some of the best goals, to the tune of Eye of the Tiger? (a song that incidentally used to set a certain high school compatriot by the name of Ben Chilvers into a battle frenzy during games lessons, but that's another story..)

Via: VideoSift

Winks! Why so glum??

2006-07-13T00:11:00.000+09:00

Allow me to introduce Winkie, aka Winks, who I sometimes work with... usually a veritable barrel of smiles and vim, she was noticeably grizzly yesterday... but why?

Well, having found a lot of bugs outside, Winks was very perturbed to find...

the shell of a long gone cicada stuck to a leaf! If an expression could speak, what a tale it would tell...

All your base are belong to us.

2006-07-13T00:00:00.000+09:00

This whole thing has been done to death for years, but I managed to track down the original and it's a classic... so Japanese. Fantastical desu.

The worst "angle" in pro wrestling history!

2006-07-10T23:42:00.000+09:00

On live television... a 400lb man wearing a sparkly stormtrooper helmet and a cape mistimes his entrance, falls headfirst through the paper wall and loses said helmet... but the show must go on! Absolute gold... The Dang, this one is for YOU!

This video especially for James Diamond...

2006-07-10T22:26:00.000+09:00

Mr T... and a NINJA!

Mr T's Commandments!

2006-07-10T22:22:00.000+09:00

A sublime music video...

Enter the Dragon

2006-07-10T09:03:00.000+09:00

Bruce Lee owns Bob Wall

More Riki Oh!

2006-07-09T23:07:00.000+09:00

The greatest UK TV ad of all time

2006-07-09T22:59:00.000+09:00

Beware the judder man my dear, when the moon is fat!
Sharp of tongue and spindle-limbed he is... and cunning!

How to fold a t-shirt in Japan

2006-07-09T22:30:00.000+09:00

Via: VideoSift

2006-07-09T22:28:00.000+09:00

Wonderful short clip about the Lyrebird that imitates sounds that it hears...

Via: VideoSift

Mr T on fashion!

2006-07-09T22:02:00.000+09:00

The "stylin'" section of Mr T's seminal "Be Somebody... or be somebody's fool!" is arguably the most cringeworthy part of a uniquely cringeworthy video.. enjoy!

Via: VideoSift

"I am a real American!"

2006-07-09T21:59:00.000+09:00

There is no excuse for this scandalous music video... interesting side points: look at the way the hulkster (aka the biggest one trick pony in the history of the world) spits on the USSR flag and tears up the picture of Gaddhafi.

Via: VideoSift

2006-07-09T21:32:00.000+09:00

Scenes from arguably the worst film ever made... Troll 2!

Via: VideoSift

The history of video games

2006-07-09T20:35:00.000+09:00

I realise that I have posted rather a few video links today, and I don't want this blog to become one of those kinds of sites... but some things deserve to be shared, so I'll be posting cool stuff as and when I find it... for instance, a documentary on the history of video games!

Via: VideoSift

Kewpie Mayonnaise Advert - I LOVE JAPAN!

2006-07-09T20:33:00.000+09:00

Cute and a little poignant, with heavy lashings of sentimentality and creepy as hell... Japanese tv adverts are incredible!

Via: VideoSift

My word! More quality fighting!

2006-07-09T20:16:00.000+09:00

This is.... well.. too amazing for words!

Via: VideoSift

Great Scenes from Riki Oh!

2006-07-09T20:12:00.000+09:00

Oh my christ... I nearly choked on my own tongue when I saw this! Great stuff...

Pickled Onions 2006

2006-06-29T14:55:00.000+09:00

Having crushed, twisted, split and torn a record number of chilli peppers, and mixed a record number of chilli sauces, I can safely say that this years batch of pickled onions will be lethal...

A childhood dream realised...

2006-06-29T14:33:00.000+09:00

Growing up where and when I did, I was a Liverpool fan. It was a time of John Barnes and Peter Beardsley, when teams like QPR and Oxford were still fairly handy, and when Man Utd were just another first division team.

With all my primary school friends sporting Liverpool shirts, I was desperate to have one. Some friends of my parents were going shopping, and they said that they would buy the kit for me (shirt, shorts and socks). I couldn't wait... I remember the day clearly.. it was at the start of the 1989 season, and I was playing with my lego and watching Carry on Henry on TV. Towards the end of the film, my mum came in with a sports shop bag. I opened it and found...

My Liverpool strip! I was ecstatic. But... I had always loved the Crown Paints logo on the front, and unbeknownst to me, the sponsor had changed to Candy in the 1989 season. The strip was exactly the same, except the logo. I went on to wear the strip continuously, until I finally grew out of it about 2 or 3 years later. But still there was a niggling acorn of disappointment that I had missed the chance to get a Crown Paints shirt.

Well, skip forward 17 or so years, and by the grace of the internet I happened to be on ebay, and more out of curiosity than anything else, decided to see if they had the 1987/88 shirt. There was only one, and a fair few number of bids. I was about to close the window and go back to watching ridiculous Japanese TV, but something made me sign in and put a bid in. Before I knew what had happened I had become the high bidder, and was absolutely determined to claim the shirt that had eluded me all those years ago. Starting out at around 20 quid, three of us steadily raised the pot, until one dropped out when it got to 45.

I thought that I had it in the bag at 50, but a late flurry with only a few hours to go left me still as the high bidder, but the price had crept up to a dizzying 67 quid... I know what you're thinking. Two thirds of a ton for a 19 year old second hand shirt? You fool. Well yes, I am a fool... but it's more what the shirt represents than the shirt itself. It represents the best liverpool team that has ever been, it represents all those gloriously sunny saturday afternoons in the garden with my dad and brother, practicing John Barnes free kicks. It represents being 8 years old and in the glory of childhood.

The shirt arrived yesterday. I took it out of the plastic wrap, hung it up and just looked at it for a while. Then I put it on. Then I took it off and looked at it again. True, I could have put my 67 quid to a more constructive use, but the feeling of youth recaptured makes it money well spent...

2006-06-28T11:51:00.000+09:00

Dressing for work yesterday, I couldn't help noticing a Junior High School student sat on the road outside, craftily smoking a cigarette... by the time I found my camera, he had finished and was in the process of theatrically stamping it out...

He then skipped down the road and, glancing around to see that no one was watching, dropped the empty packet down a drainage pipe. Strangest of all, he then skipped away, doing some kind of dance, perhaps boxercise, perhaps ballet...

Paper bag please...

2006-06-28T11:48:00.000+09:00

Good lord... are British sportswomen really this hideous or have I been in Japan too long?...

Australia 0 - 1 Italy SCANDALOUS!

2006-06-27T10:37:00.000+09:00

I have lost what little respect I had for Italy after watching the second round match last night... the Australians outplayed them throughout, the Azzuri dived and overreacted to tackles and the penalty decision in the final seconds was a terrible one. The Italian deliberately walked over the prone Aussie defender and made it look like he had been shot with a rifle. He knew he'd pulled the wool over the ref's eyes - after going to ground, he appealed and then when it was awarded he laid prone, clearly to hide his laughter - just look at his face when he finally got up. Disgraceful...

What with the scandal involving Milan, Juventus, Lazio and Fiorentina raging at the moment, and with all the whining and accusations from previous tournaments, this was another poor advertisement for Italian football. Shame on you Italy.

Classic TV

2006-06-22T10:47:00.000+09:00

There was a pretty cool game show on tv last night. Predictably centred around food with a World Cup twist, it involved two teams (a Korean boy band and a hotchpotch of Japanese comedians dressed as famous people) and a giant 3x3 board with pictures of ridiculously expensive sushi on the squares. Taking it in turns, the players kicked a football towards the board, and the square they knocked out denoted the sushi that their team would eat. The great twist though was that once a square was knocked out, it was replaced with a chilli pepper square...

... and if one of the players put the ball through it, they would have to eat a fiendishly hot chilli pepper. The players were remarkably accuarate, and were able to pick their spots pretty well, as demonstrated by one of the Koreans below.

Bang! Right on the money... this lead to a handful of flaccid beige sushi being wheeled out, at the astronomical cost of 2000 yen each (and that's just one piece, not the usual two).. naturally, there were wide-eyed calls of "amai!" and "oishii!", though for that price I would have expected Konishi Manami to serve it on a gold platter, dressed in a nurse's uniform... next up in the shootout was the Japanese version of Ronaldinho, who had been incredibly smug throughout and trying - in vain - to emulate his namesake's tricks and skills...

It was inevitable that he would tap the ball through one of the chilli pepper squares, and he did. Cue the dramatic entrance of a bright red pepper on a square of rice, a tentative nibble and then a lot of huffing and puffing and drinking of water. Classic.

And finally, with this being wednesday, there was an appearance by Gorie, aka huge man in a pink dress. He/She was sat at a picnic table having lunch, inexplicably with a painted green face, whilst a naked man with a lizard tail writhed about in the background...

It's testament to the fact that I have been in Japan for a long time that the previous paragraph seems completely normal to me now...

A little beer to go with your head, sir?

2006-06-16T21:24:00.000+09:00

Ordinarily I would have complained about this, but the beer was big (over a pint, even with the head), cheap (400 yen) and the food that accompanied it was served in less than 5 minutes...

Appalling hair

2006-06-16T21:22:00.000+09:00

What on earth was this guy thinking... if you're going to get a wig, why opt for the North Korean look?...

JAPAN 1 - 3 AUSTRALIA

2006-06-13T00:11:00.000+09:00

The photo above says it all... the three pundits in the studio are shellshocked.. their team, complete with flowing dyed brown hair and teen magazine looks, left clutching a stinging 3-1 loss, despite being in control for 84 minutes and coasting to a well-earned victory. It was a painful 8 minutes for the Samurai Blue, but with Croatia and Brazil still to come, it's probably going to get worse...

ENGLAND 1 - 0 PARAGUAY

2006-06-11T08:40:00.000+09:00

A disappointing game.. after a fairly bright opening and a goal, England protected their one goal lead for 50 minutes, resulting in a welcome but frustrating Italian 3 points.

The second half was dull, Crouch was woeful and the Paraguyans had so much space in midfield due to England backing off. Tellingly, at the Japanese bar last night, at the final whistle all the Japanese bargoers clapped and muttered "sugoi", whilst all the English (and Irish, Canadians and a New Zealander) all remained stony faced and shook their heads gently.

Just one of the reasons I like working in Japan more than in England...

2006-06-09T11:02:00.000+09:00

3 and half years ago, I worked for a small boiler company in Diss. Aside from a few other males, it was a female zone, and a volatile one at that. There were daily spats and spiteful altercations, and plenty of tears before bedtime. Outfits for the christmas party were chosen months in advance, and a day didn't go by when at least 4 girls didn't run off to the bathroom in tears over something trivial. It was immature, it was dull, it was superficial, and I hated every moment of my two months there.

Having experienced this in England, I came to Japan with hopes for something better and my goodness did I get it. Although there has been a lot of bureaucratic silliness in my 2 and a third years here, there have been some wonderful things that make each day a pleasure. One of the best things about my job is the Japanese girls that we work with. Under incredible pressure from above, and facing a job that doesn't seem to have any benefits, they somehow manage to maintain a state of cheerfulness and brightness, and add a bit of sparkle to every day. Aside from being nice girls, the staff also control the teacher schedules, so it makes good sense to treat them nicely. A lot of the teachers bad mouth the staff, and treat them with indifference and then wonder why they seem to be unlucky with their schedules. More fool them...

Most of the staff are fantastic, but I think a special mention should go to Mari.

Mari is quite new to the job, and is always smiley and full of vim. Not only that but last wednesday, we got to work to discover the following...

Yes, she had made cheesecake for everyone! Wow... and I can say without reservation that it was the best cheesecake I have ever tasted.

I sometimes think back to those few chaps working away in Diss, outnumbered by those shrill, unpleasant girls, and breathe a sigh of relief that I got away...