Random thoughts
Ok, so what’s going on with this whole Livedoor! Horie thing? Lots has been written by far more knowledgeable people than me, but for the uninitiated out there it’s the age old tale of: brash young chap starts up internet-somethingorother firm, pretends to be Steve Jobs by not wearing a tie (annoys other salarymen), buys up lots of other firms (annoys more salarymen), tries to buy a baseball team (annoys anonymous grey suited salaryman-like team owners (old money)), the kids really dig his can do attitude (never a good idea), tries to buy a TV station (annoys you know who), runs for parliament when the Kool Kid boots out the postal rebels and needs new recruits and almost gets in (like, really annoying the entire over-50 great suited mass of Salaryman i.e. the ones with the real power), then gets found out.
Now corporate Japan, as is quite obvious to anyone living here or reading the business pages, is built on a foundation of white-collar crime, fraud, corruption and incompetence. But to join this club you must work your way up, wear a grey suit, put in the hours and prove that you are of the requisite calibre to continue this great tradition of avarice and screwing people over. It is not the done thing to attempt to join these ranks at the tender age of 33, having made your own money and not even owning a tie. Just doesn’t work like that.
That, it seems to me (and other from whom I am cribbing, I freely admit) is why Horie’s fall from grace has been so swift and so absolute. I don’t think it matters now if he and his company did indulge in insider trading and dodgy funding buy-back share deals, or whatever, he is, as far as everyone seems to be concerned, guilty as charged and up a certain creek. And that’s a real shame because he was just the sort of person that Japan Inc. needs to pull the stuttering economy out of its somnolence and back to health. But no, seems he tried to take on the ‘old’ way of doing things with a new approach, whilst retaining the palm-greasing that is necessary (at least he wasn’t some crazy, holier-than-thou, crusading anti-corruption nutter), but found the culture of ‘that’s not exactly how we do things around here, you know’ just a little too tough to crack.
Also interesting that the whole Livedoor! Fall from grace exploded just when the Aneha homes construction scandal was about to get interesting by moving from the people whole designed and built the buildings to those who turned a blind eye or two, which may well have included a few politicians and other assorted bigwigs who would far rather some 33 year old internet yob took a bit of heat than, say, they did. Weird that. But anyway, Horie is now heading for a big fall, as was the Nikkei until people started realising that buying cheap stock was great and so now the Nikkei is at a 5 year high, or something, so looks like he was good for business. One can hope that his fall will force the Kool Kid into doing something about the corruption that seems to pervade all levels of commerce and business in this country, but I doubt it as they are the ones who bank roll all the parties (along with the construction industry which, no doubt, is very happy the Livedoor thing has taken them off the front pages) and the politicians and top businessmen will continue their cosy little relationship.
Haven’t had a rant for a while, quite enjoyed that, so here's another...
OK, so what’s going on with this American foreign policy thing then? In the red corner (so to speak) we have Krazy Kim’s North Korean People Mart – they are, allegedly, a terrorist nation, they kidnapped lots of Japanese from lonely beaches in the 1970s, the country is run by an unpleasant dictator with bad hair and dress sense, they have nukes in contravention of everything that is right a proper in the world according to America (do as I say don’t do as...), and all the other stuff as well, and yet the US cannot wait to get them to a negotiating table.
Similar story, though with notable exceptions, going on with Iran, the biggest being that they haven’t actually got any nukes yet but they have the temerity to suggest that they might like some. Now I am in no way condoning these regimes (especially the nonsense spouted by the new Iranian PM regarding Israel, the holocaust and suchlike) – the world does not need any more nuclear weapons, or weapons of any kind, and so these states should be brought into the world community and their toys taken away.
But what gets me is the American, and indeed world, reaction to the election of Hamas in Palestine. Now again I am in no way condoning Hamas and their methods of action or their desire to destroy, again, Israel – there is enough hate in the world, we don’t need any more, thank you. But, here is a democratically elected government, surprised at their own success, to be sure, but elected they have been. They have a poor state, they have little clout and yet already the US and most other countries have signalled they will refuse to even talk to them unless there is a swift and unanimous split from the military wing. Now, has Krazy Kim been told that he has to distance himself from his army before 6-way talks will begin? No. Has a similar request been made of Iran? Nope. Indeed did anyone, including Bush’s old man, make such a request of Gerry Adams, to spilt from the Provisional IRA, when he took tea at the Whitehouse every fecking year? I don’t think so.
But Hamas, well, they’re only little and in the puny, very new, easily squashed state of Palestine aren’t they, so we can darn well tell them what to do. Ha! No one f*cks with the good ‘ole US of A (unless they also have a very big stick).
Hmm, lucky I’m in a happy place right now, chap could get a touch down if he were to think to much about these things.
Tuesday, 31 January 2006
Monday, 30 January 2006
Tonight's post...
...will now be tomorrow as I've been too busy to write anything down - or indeed think of much to write. But that will change. Anyway, two quick things to mention, first congratulations and felicitations to the McG household on the birth of their first, Sophia, over in Oz somewhere - well done all involved.
Second, more photos of our jaunt back to the UK for crimbo are now on display over at Flickr, so go check them out.
...will now be tomorrow as I've been too busy to write anything down - or indeed think of much to write. But that will change. Anyway, two quick things to mention, first congratulations and felicitations to the McG household on the birth of their first, Sophia, over in Oz somewhere - well done all involved.
Second, more photos of our jaunt back to the UK for crimbo are now on display over at Flickr, so go check them out.
Monday, 23 January 2006
Right, better get on with the story of Christmas, then.
So, Friday finished work with the glorious prospect of a fortnight back in Blighty to look forward to. First job was to pack and this simple task was made all the easier by the fact that the Guru had already done most of it. Indeed such was her foresight that she had actually sent two boxes of stuff on to her parents, with whom we stopped on Saturday night before flying on Sunday, as a sort of staging post or way station...
OK, that was written a few weeks ago before I managed to pour coffee over the computer, so have to now try and remember what went on over the hols – not an easy task from this distance.
So, to the in-laws prior to our departure, this was a cunning plan as it meant that if anything went wrong with our leaving, like forgetting something vital, we would still be in a position to do something about it. Luckily we didn’t, but what I did do, or rather, what I wasn’t sure that I’d done, was about the only thing that the Guru asked me to do, which was not to forget to take the milk out of the fridge before leaving and wash the carton. Ok, simple thing to do I know, but I spent the entire holiday worrying about whether we were going to return to a living fridge covered in green slime. Naturally before we left the house the Guru had asked me about three times to throw it away and of course I replied, probably louder than necessary something like ‘look just leave it to me, I’ll sort it out, alright!’ Ooops...
Anyway that was by the by as we were to the in-laws, where we picked up the boxes already sent, and repacked the suitcases, including borrowing one from the mother-in-law, everything actually fitted into the cases and didn’t seem to weigh too much over the limit – although we did manage to gt all the youngster’s stuff into one separate bag that was ‘hand’ luggage and weighed a ton.
The other thing I had been worrying about was the seats and whether we would get a baby bassinet/cot thing for Marcus. I was worried as Virgin refused to allow us to book specific seats in advance and, as we went through a travel agency rather than booking direct, wouldn’t confirm the availability of aforesaid cot thing until about a month before the flight, which ended up being two weeks before the flight and even then was only a ‘you should be alright, just make sure you check in early...’ (but coming back the other way, you can do his quick check in thing where you can reserve specific seats over the internet, hmm). But on getting to Narita, checking in was a cinch and we got exactly the seats we wanted. Even better was that not only was the airport empty, so, basically, was the flight. Nice. But before we got on the flight we had to go through the security check – of course it was the usual ‘did you pack your bags yourself?’ and ‘any dangerous objects in there?’ type questions, to which the answers were yes and no respectively – we had been very careful to ensure that things like Marcus’ nail scissors were safely in the suitcase. In fact so much attention had been focused on his stuff that the Guru had quite forgotten about her eyebrow scissors in her make up bag...
The security people were very nice about it, realising that a women with a baby strapped to her front was perhaps not an international terrorist hell bent on hijacking a 747 armed only with a tiny pair of eyebrow scissors – but it was a close run thing. Their helpful suggestion was to try to catch the suitcases before they went into the hold, but alas they had already departed and so we had to say goodbye to the scissors, which was a particularly poignant and emotional moment – the Guru had had them for a good few years – but now they are safely stored in the examples box in front of the security check area (should we ever want to visit them in the future).
The flight itself was long, involving and, in the end, not quite as bad as I thought it might have been. We got the middle bulkhead seats, which was good, and the baby cot thing, this wasn’t. The cot thing was placed on a big fold down tray thing in front of us, folded up into a cot shape, fastened together with press studs and then attached to the fold down tray with a couple of straps. This would have been ok except that the straps went across the top of the cot about 10cm from the top end and the bottom end, or exactly where Marcus’ head and knees were when we tried to lie him down. Now the youngster isn’t the best of sleepers in the first place and one of usually has to lie next to him after putting him down to make sure he actually drops off – in a aeroplane with a too small cot thing with straps over the top getting him in and off to sleep proved almost impossible. We succeeded a couple of times, the first was going ok until he tried to roll over and realised that because of the straps he couldn’t – best wake up then. Next time we’d tried again, got there and he’d been asleep for about 15 minutes and seemed to be going well. Then, of course, a mild judder ran through the plane and due to this ‘turbulence’ the seat belt light came on and so we had to take him out of the cot – wouldn’t you just know it. After that we just gave up and kept a hold of him, hard on the arms but easier in the long run.
Arriving in England and once again I was ‘so’ happy that we were able to use the lively and characterful Heathrow rather than the sterile and soulless Narita. But all tings were well, being met by the various family members, for whom this was the first opportunity to meet Marcus, though with his body clock on about 1am Tokyo time whilst it was really 4pm UK time, he did seem a bit fazed by the whole thing, especially when he was strapped into a car seat for the first time in his life.
From then on the whole holiday thing took over. We stayed at golf-playing-brother’s place for about 5 days, were introduced to Charlie, my nephew and Marcus’s cousin all rolled into one (now, at 16 months, a walking and talking ball of energy and snot), met up with old school friends and generally enjoyed ourselves whilst watching Marcus try to come to terms with jet lag. For adults it isn’t too bad as you can tell yourself to not sleep during the days and, reasonably quickly, get over it. Babies, on the other hand, think it is perfectly natural to be up at 3am and wanting to play. At first this isn’t too bad as your body clock is saying the same thing, but after a couple of night, when not a few bottles of red have been seen off, the novelty and enjoyment starts to wear a bit thin. Still, at least g-p-b has satellite and there are plenty of crap channels to watch at 3am. The youngster did eventually get over the jet lag, but it probably wasn’t until the Thursday night, after having arrived on Sunday afternoon.
Christmas itself was at the folks place in deepest, darkest Hampshire, but before we got there we had a brief visit to Hove where Marcus met his great grand parents on my father’s side. As they are both getting on a bit now, great grandfather is in his 90s and generally pretty marble-less, this was perhaps the one and only time for them all to meet. I’m glad to say it was a happy affair, all were on their best behaviour and things all went without a hitch, which doesn’t make for particularly gripping blogging, but hey, it was an important moment for all there.
For Christmas day we had 13 sitting down for lunch. Of course if Agatha Christie had had anything to do with it the butler would have poisoned someone over the chance to acquire a priceless diamond, or something. So, mindful of this, the babies were luckily not included in the seating plan and we gave the butler the afternoon off, thus preventing any sort of nonsense going on. The days carried on much in the same vein, plenty of red wine was consumed, and Father Christmas paid us all a visit on Christmas afternoon to dispense toys and whatnot – I’m not sure that Marcus’ had much clue what was going on, but Charlie was agog at the whole show and I think it made his Christmas. Oddly, though, my father missed out on the whole thing as he was elsewhere in the house at the time. Odd that...
And lastly, of course, the (sort of) annual Christmas backgammon tournament was held. Now last time this happened, as you can see from the link, it was very much a nip and tuck affair, with the advantage tipping one way, then the other. But this time around, well, suffice it to say that a whipping was handed out and, as you can probably tell from the smile on my face at the memory, it was yours truly that handed out the whipping. 30-13 was the final score, almost as sweet as the vintage port that accompanied the victory. I won’t dwell on it as that would appear to be crowing so suffice it to say, nyah nyah nyah!
And then we came home. Again the flight back, leaving the UK on the 31st and arriving in Japan on January 1st 2006, was more or less empty. Again we got decent seats and again Marcus would not sleep in the cot thing. Coming home seemed a lot quicker than going to the UK, even though the flight was only about 30 minutes quicker, but it was still long enough. At one stage there were about 6 parents with their babies all standing in the galley area at the back, no one getting any sleep – it was almost like we had set up a little day care centre. Narita airport was again a dream to navigate and I reckon that it was no more than about 15 minutes from the time we left the plane until we were in a taxi heading for the in-laws. But of course it had to happen somewhere – all holiday we had managed not to drop, step on or otherwise accidentally damage the youngster but in the plane, as we were about to get off I was help the Guru put him into the baby carrier/sling thing. To do this I lift him up, the Guru guides his feet and body into the sling and then he kind of slides down into it. This time, though, as I lifted him up I did it a little too vigorously and managed to smack his head on the luggage compartment above... Doh! No real damage done, thankfully, but a bit of a shock for the poor lad.
Still, at least I had remembered to take the milk out of the fridge. Phew!
So, Friday finished work with the glorious prospect of a fortnight back in Blighty to look forward to. First job was to pack and this simple task was made all the easier by the fact that the Guru had already done most of it. Indeed such was her foresight that she had actually sent two boxes of stuff on to her parents, with whom we stopped on Saturday night before flying on Sunday, as a sort of staging post or way station...
OK, that was written a few weeks ago before I managed to pour coffee over the computer, so have to now try and remember what went on over the hols – not an easy task from this distance.
So, to the in-laws prior to our departure, this was a cunning plan as it meant that if anything went wrong with our leaving, like forgetting something vital, we would still be in a position to do something about it. Luckily we didn’t, but what I did do, or rather, what I wasn’t sure that I’d done, was about the only thing that the Guru asked me to do, which was not to forget to take the milk out of the fridge before leaving and wash the carton. Ok, simple thing to do I know, but I spent the entire holiday worrying about whether we were going to return to a living fridge covered in green slime. Naturally before we left the house the Guru had asked me about three times to throw it away and of course I replied, probably louder than necessary something like ‘look just leave it to me, I’ll sort it out, alright!’ Ooops...
Anyway that was by the by as we were to the in-laws, where we picked up the boxes already sent, and repacked the suitcases, including borrowing one from the mother-in-law, everything actually fitted into the cases and didn’t seem to weigh too much over the limit – although we did manage to gt all the youngster’s stuff into one separate bag that was ‘hand’ luggage and weighed a ton.
The other thing I had been worrying about was the seats and whether we would get a baby bassinet/cot thing for Marcus. I was worried as Virgin refused to allow us to book specific seats in advance and, as we went through a travel agency rather than booking direct, wouldn’t confirm the availability of aforesaid cot thing until about a month before the flight, which ended up being two weeks before the flight and even then was only a ‘you should be alright, just make sure you check in early...’ (but coming back the other way, you can do his quick check in thing where you can reserve specific seats over the internet, hmm). But on getting to Narita, checking in was a cinch and we got exactly the seats we wanted. Even better was that not only was the airport empty, so, basically, was the flight. Nice. But before we got on the flight we had to go through the security check – of course it was the usual ‘did you pack your bags yourself?’ and ‘any dangerous objects in there?’ type questions, to which the answers were yes and no respectively – we had been very careful to ensure that things like Marcus’ nail scissors were safely in the suitcase. In fact so much attention had been focused on his stuff that the Guru had quite forgotten about her eyebrow scissors in her make up bag...
The security people were very nice about it, realising that a women with a baby strapped to her front was perhaps not an international terrorist hell bent on hijacking a 747 armed only with a tiny pair of eyebrow scissors – but it was a close run thing. Their helpful suggestion was to try to catch the suitcases before they went into the hold, but alas they had already departed and so we had to say goodbye to the scissors, which was a particularly poignant and emotional moment – the Guru had had them for a good few years – but now they are safely stored in the examples box in front of the security check area (should we ever want to visit them in the future).
The flight itself was long, involving and, in the end, not quite as bad as I thought it might have been. We got the middle bulkhead seats, which was good, and the baby cot thing, this wasn’t. The cot thing was placed on a big fold down tray thing in front of us, folded up into a cot shape, fastened together with press studs and then attached to the fold down tray with a couple of straps. This would have been ok except that the straps went across the top of the cot about 10cm from the top end and the bottom end, or exactly where Marcus’ head and knees were when we tried to lie him down. Now the youngster isn’t the best of sleepers in the first place and one of usually has to lie next to him after putting him down to make sure he actually drops off – in a aeroplane with a too small cot thing with straps over the top getting him in and off to sleep proved almost impossible. We succeeded a couple of times, the first was going ok until he tried to roll over and realised that because of the straps he couldn’t – best wake up then. Next time we’d tried again, got there and he’d been asleep for about 15 minutes and seemed to be going well. Then, of course, a mild judder ran through the plane and due to this ‘turbulence’ the seat belt light came on and so we had to take him out of the cot – wouldn’t you just know it. After that we just gave up and kept a hold of him, hard on the arms but easier in the long run.
Arriving in England and once again I was ‘so’ happy that we were able to use the lively and characterful Heathrow rather than the sterile and soulless Narita. But all tings were well, being met by the various family members, for whom this was the first opportunity to meet Marcus, though with his body clock on about 1am Tokyo time whilst it was really 4pm UK time, he did seem a bit fazed by the whole thing, especially when he was strapped into a car seat for the first time in his life.
From then on the whole holiday thing took over. We stayed at golf-playing-brother’s place for about 5 days, were introduced to Charlie, my nephew and Marcus’s cousin all rolled into one (now, at 16 months, a walking and talking ball of energy and snot), met up with old school friends and generally enjoyed ourselves whilst watching Marcus try to come to terms with jet lag. For adults it isn’t too bad as you can tell yourself to not sleep during the days and, reasonably quickly, get over it. Babies, on the other hand, think it is perfectly natural to be up at 3am and wanting to play. At first this isn’t too bad as your body clock is saying the same thing, but after a couple of night, when not a few bottles of red have been seen off, the novelty and enjoyment starts to wear a bit thin. Still, at least g-p-b has satellite and there are plenty of crap channels to watch at 3am. The youngster did eventually get over the jet lag, but it probably wasn’t until the Thursday night, after having arrived on Sunday afternoon.
Christmas itself was at the folks place in deepest, darkest Hampshire, but before we got there we had a brief visit to Hove where Marcus met his great grand parents on my father’s side. As they are both getting on a bit now, great grandfather is in his 90s and generally pretty marble-less, this was perhaps the one and only time for them all to meet. I’m glad to say it was a happy affair, all were on their best behaviour and things all went without a hitch, which doesn’t make for particularly gripping blogging, but hey, it was an important moment for all there.
For Christmas day we had 13 sitting down for lunch. Of course if Agatha Christie had had anything to do with it the butler would have poisoned someone over the chance to acquire a priceless diamond, or something. So, mindful of this, the babies were luckily not included in the seating plan and we gave the butler the afternoon off, thus preventing any sort of nonsense going on. The days carried on much in the same vein, plenty of red wine was consumed, and Father Christmas paid us all a visit on Christmas afternoon to dispense toys and whatnot – I’m not sure that Marcus’ had much clue what was going on, but Charlie was agog at the whole show and I think it made his Christmas. Oddly, though, my father missed out on the whole thing as he was elsewhere in the house at the time. Odd that...
And lastly, of course, the (sort of) annual Christmas backgammon tournament was held. Now last time this happened, as you can see from the link, it was very much a nip and tuck affair, with the advantage tipping one way, then the other. But this time around, well, suffice it to say that a whipping was handed out and, as you can probably tell from the smile on my face at the memory, it was yours truly that handed out the whipping. 30-13 was the final score, almost as sweet as the vintage port that accompanied the victory. I won’t dwell on it as that would appear to be crowing so suffice it to say, nyah nyah nyah!
And then we came home. Again the flight back, leaving the UK on the 31st and arriving in Japan on January 1st 2006, was more or less empty. Again we got decent seats and again Marcus would not sleep in the cot thing. Coming home seemed a lot quicker than going to the UK, even though the flight was only about 30 minutes quicker, but it was still long enough. At one stage there were about 6 parents with their babies all standing in the galley area at the back, no one getting any sleep – it was almost like we had set up a little day care centre. Narita airport was again a dream to navigate and I reckon that it was no more than about 15 minutes from the time we left the plane until we were in a taxi heading for the in-laws. But of course it had to happen somewhere – all holiday we had managed not to drop, step on or otherwise accidentally damage the youngster but in the plane, as we were about to get off I was help the Guru put him into the baby carrier/sling thing. To do this I lift him up, the Guru guides his feet and body into the sling and then he kind of slides down into it. This time, though, as I lifted him up I did it a little too vigorously and managed to smack his head on the luggage compartment above... Doh! No real damage done, thankfully, but a bit of a shock for the poor lad.
Still, at least I had remembered to take the milk out of the fridge. Phew!
Wednesday, 18 January 2006
Tuesday, 10 January 2006
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