Not in the news this week
Well, not in the Japanese news anyway, which is odd. I was watching BBC world news this afternoon (having a relaxingly pleasant day not at work) and caught an odd story. It was a typical ‘dog bites man’ story in that it was about a dog that bit a man. What was odd about this was that firstly the dog was Romanian (not, in itself, odd, I grant you), whereas secondly, the man was Japanese. The third oddity in all of this was the fact that the man died of this bite to, if memory serves, his thigh. The fourth and oddest thing about all of this was that a Japanese man, a businessman as well, had died on a foreign shore and no one in Japan had reported it. To check that it was not just me that had missed it I checked with the Guru, who watches several TV news programmes a day and she had not heard of it either.
So, why the media conspiracy? What was the man doing? Why did the dog bite him? What are they trying to hide? And why are the authorities in Romania trying to silence the only witness to the whole affair – the dog? All very suspicious, if you ask me. Usually if something happens to a Japanese person in the big wide world it is a huge story here (and just to balanced about this, I think the news media every country takes a similar stance), but about this one there seems to be little. Although having said that there doesn’t seem to be much on the BBC news site now either, though there is a video news report about it that I am not going to watch, having seem it already. The Japanese media seem to be quite happy to show Japanese people getting in a muddle abroad – I seem to remember a report from a few years ago where a couple were in the middle east having a wander around and inadvertently found themselves in the middle of one of the Palestinian camps, Ramalla I think, just as the Israeli army sent in the troops to destroy the place. The Japanese couple looked extremely bewildered and not a little shocked – “we’ve been travelling for a while so were out of the loop” was their sheepish response.
Anyway back to this shaggy dog story. Apparently the carnivorous canine is now residing at the state’s pleasure and is scheduled to be put down, along with a large number of other dogs in Bucharest, as they seem to have something of a strays problem. One of the things I’m wondering about, though, is quite how a bite to the thigh can lead to death? I mean, if the dog was rabid or diseased you would think that it would have been put down immediately, but no, it is still around. Its plight is such that Brigitte Bardot is giving her two penny worth and trying to save aforesaid dog – and has been trying to save the stray population of Bucharest for a number of years. Interestingly the news report said that an agreement existed where, at the moment, only aggressive, dangerous or ill/diseased dogs would be put down – now I don’t know about you, but I think that a dog that attacks and kills a foreign businessman could quite possibly fall into all three categories and yet clemency has so far been the order of the day.
All very suspicious, if you ask me. Perhaps the dog is in the pay of the state, a hitdog, if you will. Perhaps the businessman wasn’t, actually, a businessman. Who knows...?
This doesn’t, of course, explain the lack of comment in the Japanese media. As I mentioned above, pretty much any country’s media, should one of their own fall on foreign soil, will be there in droves, talking to anyone they can get their hands on. Especially, in this country, the right wing, isolationist, be wary of foreigners section of the media who, one would have thought, would have pounced on this as yet more proof that it is a dangerous world out there so you are better off staying here. All, as I said, very odd
One thing that is odd but in a very different way is Taro Aso – current foreign minister and possible future PM. Poor old Taro, everything he says the media (them again) take out of context and twist his words. So, when the media report that he said the Chinese should ‘just get over’ the fact that the Kool Kid prays at Yasukuni shrine (praising, as we know, class A war criminals), what he really said was the Chinese and all those other moaning Asians should get over it (possibly). And he didn’t really say that the occupation and colonisation of Taiwan was good for them (the Taiwanese) as it raised education standards – he said that it raised education standards as well as everything else on that emperor-forsaken rock (allegedly). Anyway what is odd is that this chap, with his record of foot-in-mouth disease, is the man entrusted with talking to the Iranians about their current uranium enrichment plans. I mean, a slightly unbalanced, doctrinaire, twitchy Middle Eastern power with a lot of oil and a nuclear power station half built is moving slowly but surely along a path to nuclear weapon capability which the US and the west will not allow to come to pass and the guy who is charged with trying to talk them out of it is Taro? Uh oh...
Tuesday, 28 February 2006
Friday, 24 February 2006
Blog wins Gold!
In an international Olympic first a skater representing the popular and well known Blog Arakawa Riverview has won a gold medal. See this BBC report for more details.
Go Arakawa Go!
In an international Olympic first a skater representing the popular and well known Blog Arakawa Riverview has won a gold medal. See this BBC report for more details.
Go Arakawa Go!
Monday, 20 February 2006
Headlines
So it was a happy weekend for Japan, this one just gone. First up a Chinese born woman with a Japanese husband stabs two 5 yr old girls to death – she was taking them to kindergarten with her own 5 year by car, a system introduced to protect kids from strangers and, it was hoped, danger. Then in the paper today there were the headlines ‘Woman stabs son, self in apparent suicide bid’, followed by ‘Man hangs self after strangling daughter’. Oh what a happy world we live in.
I don’t know, seems like there are more and more of these kinds of things going on, indeed I think I might have written about it only a few weeks or months ago, and here I am again. What I find stranger is that, well, I know suicide is quite a big thing in Japan, not frowned upon as the coward’s way out as it is in the West, but rather more a heroic thing to do (at least it was, I mean the old connotations of suicide are more glorified than in the west – death or glory, you’ll never take me alive, seppuku, that sort of thing), but now there seems to be a definite ‘not just me but I’ll take someone with me as well, as in the two headlines from the paper.
The first case, with the mother killing the two little kids, is truly shocking as there seems to be little, so far, in the way of motive, except that the woman seemed a little upset that she had to take part in the car-pooling for the kids and that she blamed the other kids (and, I guess, mothers) for her kid not being able to fit in and make friends (which, of course, the little kid will be very able to do from now on!). But of course this sort of thing is not without precedent. A few years ago, before this blog started perhaps (or maybe not, I forget), a mother in Tokyo murdered the friend of her daughter, again about 5 years old or so, as she was jealous of the girl getting into a prestigious kindergarten (no doubt paying a wad of ‘gift’ money into the bargain as well). That one shocked the nation: ‘how could she do it?’; ‘all because of a kindergarten?’ and ‘how could jealousy drive a mother to kill a little girl?’. But I reckon there were a few, in the long dark nights, given the extremely competitive nature of schooling in this country, and especially Tokyo, who could see what drove the mind of that particular woman and, whilst never sympathise with her, could find a tiny bit of empathy for her. Or I could be completely wrong, of course.
But no, the other two in the headlines strike a different kind of chord. OK, end of tether has been reached and you just can’t go on with your life. Suicide seems to be the only option open to you and a decision is made. But this is not a spontaneous decision as not only do you plan to do away with yourself, but you decide that someone else is going to come with you. And not only that but a member of your own family as well. Maybe I don’t remember reading about this stuff in the UK, or maybe t happens all the time now I don’t live there, I don’t know, but it seems to be happening more and more in this country and, I guess this is my point, no one really seems to be that bothered about it. I mean, I would expect politicians to be up in arms about this, or at least appear to be as family groups would be putting pressure on them to do something about it. But no, not a mention. Don’t get me wrong, politicians do get up in arms about the breakdown of moral fibre in this country, but that is invariably focused on kids and teenagers who are disrespectful to their elders (i.e. the politicians, to whom everyone should be disrespectful), who talk funny, are slovenly and who are, generally, teenagers. But parents killing their kids and then committing suicide, well, that seems to be acceptable, or, at least, not something anyone can do anything about, so best keep quiet about it.
Snow etc
But luckily for Japan we have the Winter Olympics in Turin to take our minds off all the nasty stuff going on. What with all the gold, silver and bronze medals the boys and girls have bee raking in the ski jumping, speed skating and...sorry...ah. As of this morning’s newspaper even Team GB had more medals than Japan, with its proud heritage and great expectations – OK, GB has only a lone silver in the skeleton, whatever that is, but it is better than nothing. And Japan may well overtake us seeing as they have the women’s figure skating to come and their women’s curling team beat GB putting us, it looks, out of contention for a medal. But it is interesting to watch the events, late in the evening before going to bed, and wonder if there are any sports going on which Team Japan are not involved in – there are, of course, like ice hockey and bobsledding, but as Japan aren’t in those, NHK doesn’t care and wont show them. But hey, we’ve been here before with the summer games in Greece in ’04 so we know all about the tv coverage.
On a lighter note
In the last week the young ‘un has made great strides, literally. On Valentine’s day last week he finally decided that ok, maybe he would give this crawling lark a try and set off around the living room but in the ‘commando’ style of pulling himself along with his arms. Then on maybe Friday he thought he’d try a new stage so started doing the crab style thing on hands and toes, not moving, just getting into the position (if you don’t know, this is a precursor to standing up). Then today he managed to pull himself into a standing position all by himself (well, with the help of the sofa, but all the upwardness of thrust came from his legs, not mum or dad). And finally, this evening, he actually crawled properly for the first time, i.e. moving arms and legs at the same time.
So, well done youngster, a very productive week.
So it was a happy weekend for Japan, this one just gone. First up a Chinese born woman with a Japanese husband stabs two 5 yr old girls to death – she was taking them to kindergarten with her own 5 year by car, a system introduced to protect kids from strangers and, it was hoped, danger. Then in the paper today there were the headlines ‘Woman stabs son, self in apparent suicide bid’, followed by ‘Man hangs self after strangling daughter’. Oh what a happy world we live in.
I don’t know, seems like there are more and more of these kinds of things going on, indeed I think I might have written about it only a few weeks or months ago, and here I am again. What I find stranger is that, well, I know suicide is quite a big thing in Japan, not frowned upon as the coward’s way out as it is in the West, but rather more a heroic thing to do (at least it was, I mean the old connotations of suicide are more glorified than in the west – death or glory, you’ll never take me alive, seppuku, that sort of thing), but now there seems to be a definite ‘not just me but I’ll take someone with me as well, as in the two headlines from the paper.
The first case, with the mother killing the two little kids, is truly shocking as there seems to be little, so far, in the way of motive, except that the woman seemed a little upset that she had to take part in the car-pooling for the kids and that she blamed the other kids (and, I guess, mothers) for her kid not being able to fit in and make friends (which, of course, the little kid will be very able to do from now on!). But of course this sort of thing is not without precedent. A few years ago, before this blog started perhaps (or maybe not, I forget), a mother in Tokyo murdered the friend of her daughter, again about 5 years old or so, as she was jealous of the girl getting into a prestigious kindergarten (no doubt paying a wad of ‘gift’ money into the bargain as well). That one shocked the nation: ‘how could she do it?’; ‘all because of a kindergarten?’ and ‘how could jealousy drive a mother to kill a little girl?’. But I reckon there were a few, in the long dark nights, given the extremely competitive nature of schooling in this country, and especially Tokyo, who could see what drove the mind of that particular woman and, whilst never sympathise with her, could find a tiny bit of empathy for her. Or I could be completely wrong, of course.
But no, the other two in the headlines strike a different kind of chord. OK, end of tether has been reached and you just can’t go on with your life. Suicide seems to be the only option open to you and a decision is made. But this is not a spontaneous decision as not only do you plan to do away with yourself, but you decide that someone else is going to come with you. And not only that but a member of your own family as well. Maybe I don’t remember reading about this stuff in the UK, or maybe t happens all the time now I don’t live there, I don’t know, but it seems to be happening more and more in this country and, I guess this is my point, no one really seems to be that bothered about it. I mean, I would expect politicians to be up in arms about this, or at least appear to be as family groups would be putting pressure on them to do something about it. But no, not a mention. Don’t get me wrong, politicians do get up in arms about the breakdown of moral fibre in this country, but that is invariably focused on kids and teenagers who are disrespectful to their elders (i.e. the politicians, to whom everyone should be disrespectful), who talk funny, are slovenly and who are, generally, teenagers. But parents killing their kids and then committing suicide, well, that seems to be acceptable, or, at least, not something anyone can do anything about, so best keep quiet about it.
Snow etc
But luckily for Japan we have the Winter Olympics in Turin to take our minds off all the nasty stuff going on. What with all the gold, silver and bronze medals the boys and girls have bee raking in the ski jumping, speed skating and...sorry...ah. As of this morning’s newspaper even Team GB had more medals than Japan, with its proud heritage and great expectations – OK, GB has only a lone silver in the skeleton, whatever that is, but it is better than nothing. And Japan may well overtake us seeing as they have the women’s figure skating to come and their women’s curling team beat GB putting us, it looks, out of contention for a medal. But it is interesting to watch the events, late in the evening before going to bed, and wonder if there are any sports going on which Team Japan are not involved in – there are, of course, like ice hockey and bobsledding, but as Japan aren’t in those, NHK doesn’t care and wont show them. But hey, we’ve been here before with the summer games in Greece in ’04 so we know all about the tv coverage.
On a lighter note
In the last week the young ‘un has made great strides, literally. On Valentine’s day last week he finally decided that ok, maybe he would give this crawling lark a try and set off around the living room but in the ‘commando’ style of pulling himself along with his arms. Then on maybe Friday he thought he’d try a new stage so started doing the crab style thing on hands and toes, not moving, just getting into the position (if you don’t know, this is a precursor to standing up). Then today he managed to pull himself into a standing position all by himself (well, with the help of the sofa, but all the upwardness of thrust came from his legs, not mum or dad). And finally, this evening, he actually crawled properly for the first time, i.e. moving arms and legs at the same time.
So, well done youngster, a very productive week.
Monday, 13 February 2006
Thank goodness
Was studying on Sunday, as I am wont to do and as mentioned in last week’s post. Also mentioned in the post last week was that I am getting a little worried as I couldn’t find the angle to hang the dissertation on. Well, that is now past tense as yesterday, luckily, finally, I got my epiphany, that moment of insight where suddenly you can see the form, see the structure, see what it is you are going to do and, more importantly, just how you are going to be able to do it. I’m just a tad relieved by this, as you may have guessed, as I was getting quite worried about the whole dissertation thing. I won’t bore you with the details as I am sure that you are not really that interested and am hoping that I might write something more interesting soon (not sure if I can help with that one this week, I’m afraid), but suffice it to say that, after having come through the other side, I can look back and think that it is so obvious that how on earth could I miss it? But I did, for quite a while, but no longer – now I can see where to go, what research needs to be done, who I need to research and what sort of thing to ask them. Phew!
Otherwise it was a quiet week. The boss was away on hols, which was good, but it meant that the MD came to me with questions, rather than the boss. This is not good as the MD is thick, doesn’t listen, speaks without thinking, says yes to the CE and no to everyone else and is generally crap and for whom nothing is ever her fault. And no, I don’t like her either. Luckily she only came to me with one question over the budget, for which I gave her the correct answer, which she didn’t like, then realised there was no way around what I told her so appropriated my answer as her own idea and told the CE. No response yet from the CE but if he doesn’t like what he hears you can be sure that the answer will be appropriated back to me with alacrity. But the boss is back now so the deflector shield is back in operation.
In the news it seems another of the royals is going to have a baby. This is interesting for me only the sense of the succession, which I may have mentioned over the recent weeks. As you know currently only men may become head of state of Japan i.e. Emperor (obviously as a woman cannot be Emperor only Empress, but currently that cannot happen was what I meant). This is an issue as there are no male children ready after the current crown prince accedes the throne – he only has a daughter, princess Akiko, and that one was hard enough to come by, if the tabloids are to be read. Anyway the Kool Kid has proposed changing the law to allow women the top job, for which the country has become divided – most people think it is a good idea, whilst a bunch of bigoted, misogynistic old farts who happen to be vocal and quite powerful (including members of the royal family) disagree. Anyway it was announced last week that another member of the royal family is now preggers, I think it is the wife of one of the crown prince’s brothers, perhaps. So now everyone, including the Kool Kid, has said ‘whoa there, maybe we have been a bit hasty in saying we’ll change the constitution as the couple might have a boy’. That the princess is only 6 weeks pregnant (i.e. in prime ‘problem’ territory) seems not to have occurred to anyone. Also, no one seems to have asked the crown prince his views on his daughter being bumped out of the way, or indeed if it is constitutionally possible, seeing as the unborn prince/princess-ling is not in direct, oldest male heir to the throne lineage thing. And of course it might be a girl anyway.
But hey, Japan was trying to take another step into the 20th century, so you have to give them credit for that.
Anyway, here are some photos of the youngster, who is in fine fettle indeed.
Er...
Standing #1
Who farted?
Playing #1
Smiley
Paparazzi shot
Was studying on Sunday, as I am wont to do and as mentioned in last week’s post. Also mentioned in the post last week was that I am getting a little worried as I couldn’t find the angle to hang the dissertation on. Well, that is now past tense as yesterday, luckily, finally, I got my epiphany, that moment of insight where suddenly you can see the form, see the structure, see what it is you are going to do and, more importantly, just how you are going to be able to do it. I’m just a tad relieved by this, as you may have guessed, as I was getting quite worried about the whole dissertation thing. I won’t bore you with the details as I am sure that you are not really that interested and am hoping that I might write something more interesting soon (not sure if I can help with that one this week, I’m afraid), but suffice it to say that, after having come through the other side, I can look back and think that it is so obvious that how on earth could I miss it? But I did, for quite a while, but no longer – now I can see where to go, what research needs to be done, who I need to research and what sort of thing to ask them. Phew!
Otherwise it was a quiet week. The boss was away on hols, which was good, but it meant that the MD came to me with questions, rather than the boss. This is not good as the MD is thick, doesn’t listen, speaks without thinking, says yes to the CE and no to everyone else and is generally crap and for whom nothing is ever her fault. And no, I don’t like her either. Luckily she only came to me with one question over the budget, for which I gave her the correct answer, which she didn’t like, then realised there was no way around what I told her so appropriated my answer as her own idea and told the CE. No response yet from the CE but if he doesn’t like what he hears you can be sure that the answer will be appropriated back to me with alacrity. But the boss is back now so the deflector shield is back in operation.
In the news it seems another of the royals is going to have a baby. This is interesting for me only the sense of the succession, which I may have mentioned over the recent weeks. As you know currently only men may become head of state of Japan i.e. Emperor (obviously as a woman cannot be Emperor only Empress, but currently that cannot happen was what I meant). This is an issue as there are no male children ready after the current crown prince accedes the throne – he only has a daughter, princess Akiko, and that one was hard enough to come by, if the tabloids are to be read. Anyway the Kool Kid has proposed changing the law to allow women the top job, for which the country has become divided – most people think it is a good idea, whilst a bunch of bigoted, misogynistic old farts who happen to be vocal and quite powerful (including members of the royal family) disagree. Anyway it was announced last week that another member of the royal family is now preggers, I think it is the wife of one of the crown prince’s brothers, perhaps. So now everyone, including the Kool Kid, has said ‘whoa there, maybe we have been a bit hasty in saying we’ll change the constitution as the couple might have a boy’. That the princess is only 6 weeks pregnant (i.e. in prime ‘problem’ territory) seems not to have occurred to anyone. Also, no one seems to have asked the crown prince his views on his daughter being bumped out of the way, or indeed if it is constitutionally possible, seeing as the unborn prince/princess-ling is not in direct, oldest male heir to the throne lineage thing. And of course it might be a girl anyway.
But hey, Japan was trying to take another step into the 20th century, so you have to give them credit for that.
Anyway, here are some photos of the youngster, who is in fine fettle indeed.
Er...
Standing #1
Who farted?
Playing #1
Smiley
Paparazzi shot
Tuesday, 7 February 2006
Monday, 6 February 2006
Pardon?
All seems a bit quiet at the moment, and I’m not just talking about this house now that the young ‘un is in bed and snoozing away (though he did just wake up for his three hourly ‘where’s my food?’ grizzle, all quiet now).
No, Japan itself seems on the quiet side, perhaps it is the weather. The Livedoor thing that I wrote about last week is still rumbling on and Horie has decided to go with the cunning defence of ‘I’m not guilty of anything’, which seems to have temporarily stumped the inquisition and so who are getting their best man onto it (whoever he may be, though the Yomiuri did allude to the fact that the person investigating was a super top dog in the investigative dept, usually the sort of bloke who investigates war crimes and terrorist activities – obviously a dangerous man then, Horie...)
Also the construction scandal is ongoing – this was a little bit cooler today as they inspectors went to one of the suspect buildings that is located about 200metres from this very computer desk. The Guru saw it on telly was tempted, only for a second mind, to go down and wave at the camera. Anyway I may well walk past the block tomorrow on the way to work, just to be nosy of course, see if there is anything interesting going on – though I doubt it as that was probably today and, more importantly, it will likely be snowing tomorrow morning so I fear the inspectors with their hard hats will be holed up somewhere with a nice cup of tea.
Japan also seems quiet in comparison to the rest of the world, especially in connection with the whole Danish cartoon imbroglio. I don’t know if there is a large Moslem community in Japan, I figure there must be as there seem to be a community pretty much everywhere you go, but I have yet to see of any demonstrations outside the Danish embassy here (just noticed that word capitalises the major religions of the world – never knew that). Perhaps if there is a Moslem community here they have been influenced by the Japanese laissez-faire attitude to religion and so just go with it, I don’t know, but seems a little odd to me. Not that I am complaining, of course, as has been said before there is enough hate in the world already without people adding to it, but I feel it is being taken a little bit too far when some radical cleric starts on about trying and executing the cartoonists for blasphemy, especially in a secular European country – no sense of humour, obviously. Then again the western world realises (or at least should) that doing something like drawing cartoons of Mohammed is going to provoke a pretty serious, negative reaction. But of course that shouldn’t mean they don’t do it, if that were the case then freedom of speech would go out of the window (where if may be going anyway). Anyhoo not much of a reaction that I have seen on these shores.
So, what with all this deafening non-committance going on I thought ‘well, if George W can have a state of the union speech about what’s going in his life, I shall do the same’.
Er...
The young ‘un is coming along a treat, right now. He is slowly but surely becoming more mobile, when we were back in Blighty for Christmas it looked as if he was making very rapid progress towards crawling, but since we came back he sort of gave up the ghost. Until this last week gone by, really, when I think he decided enough was enough and he’d better get moving. So he started scooting about on his arse, pushing himself backwards and moving happily from sprawling to sitting and back again, but always in a rearwards direction. This weekend he started lifting his tummy off the floor in a kind of press-up (or push-up, for our US audience) pose – not crawling, that, but only a small leap, as it were, from there to standing on his own. He hasn’t managed that leap, yet, but with a help he is standing quite happily, supporting himself (though holding on to who or whatever is closest) and smiling mightily at the enjoyment of it. Indeed he is a most smiley baby and seems to be enjoying himself almost all the time – some kids sound like they are ultra hard work but Marcus just looks like he’s having a ball. His motor skills are also coming on a treat, picking stuff up, throwing stuff at mum and dad, exploring what he can do and getting into activities like ‘open the cupboard door’ and ‘what happens if I pull this cord really hard?’ – and no, it doesn’t matter how much you think you have baby-proofed your house, they’ll always find something else to pull/push/shake/etc. He’s also very much enjoying his food, onto three square meals a day now, which means that the poor Guru is either cooking, or thinking of things to cook, pretty much all day.
Talking of the Guru she is doing very well except for the fact she is tired and shagged out by the end of each day. This would be easier to cope with if the little ‘un was able to sleep through the night, but this has so far eluded him and he still awakens around midnight and 3 am, looking for a tasty morsel to get his chops around, something which due to biology I cannot help with, if you get my drift. Thus the Guru’s days, and nights, seem to be spent dealing with food for him in some respect. And thinking of things to feed him isn’t easy as for about 10 days he had diarrhoea, which might have been to do with what he was eating, but it didn’t seem to bother him in the slightest and then the doc said it was because of a cold (er, so let’s get this straight, it’s a cold that involves no snot, no fever, no cough, just lots of watery shit? Right...). Anyway that meant he missed his polio shot at the beginning of Feb as it would have gone straight through him, apparently, and will miss the next available one in May as he will be having another shot, MMR perhaps, so will have to wait until September as for some reason you can’t just pitch up and get a polio shot in Japan, they are only given at specific times by specific doctors. No idea why it is (dis)organised like that, but it means that our trip to west Africa has had to be postponed.
As for yours truly, my dissertation is uppermost in my mind at the moment (well, uppermost in what’s left of my mind that isn’t think ‘I don’t want to be here, I want to be at home with Marcus’, which isn’t a lot). The studying is going at the moment, but I’m not sure if it going ‘well’ or not. I know what the theme of the dissertation is, that’ll be teacher recruitment, selection and induction, but what I don’t have is a conceptual framework to hang it all on at the moment (that’ll be nonsense jargon for not knowing how to structure my research, what exactly to research or how to go about it). Still, at least I know what I want to look at, which is a start, but I need to get a bit more focused as the research methods module I’m doing has to be submitted in May and is essentially two sections of the dissertation itself (how the research will be done and the literature review), so better get some ideas soon or could be a little stuck in a couple of months – I think having 6 months off, a month back on then a three weekend holiday to the UK has meant I am out of practice and the stop-start return hasn’t helped. But mustn’t whinge as it won’t help and, looking on the bright side, it will all be over by December.
Right, that’s enough for now, off to bed for me.
Oh, and well done England for stuffing the Welsh on Saturday evening! A fine performance all round (and well done to Scotland as well, what a result), shame JSkySports has got such piss poor coverage of the rest of the 6 nations.
All seems a bit quiet at the moment, and I’m not just talking about this house now that the young ‘un is in bed and snoozing away (though he did just wake up for his three hourly ‘where’s my food?’ grizzle, all quiet now).
No, Japan itself seems on the quiet side, perhaps it is the weather. The Livedoor thing that I wrote about last week is still rumbling on and Horie has decided to go with the cunning defence of ‘I’m not guilty of anything’, which seems to have temporarily stumped the inquisition and so who are getting their best man onto it (whoever he may be, though the Yomiuri did allude to the fact that the person investigating was a super top dog in the investigative dept, usually the sort of bloke who investigates war crimes and terrorist activities – obviously a dangerous man then, Horie...)
Also the construction scandal is ongoing – this was a little bit cooler today as they inspectors went to one of the suspect buildings that is located about 200metres from this very computer desk. The Guru saw it on telly was tempted, only for a second mind, to go down and wave at the camera. Anyway I may well walk past the block tomorrow on the way to work, just to be nosy of course, see if there is anything interesting going on – though I doubt it as that was probably today and, more importantly, it will likely be snowing tomorrow morning so I fear the inspectors with their hard hats will be holed up somewhere with a nice cup of tea.
Japan also seems quiet in comparison to the rest of the world, especially in connection with the whole Danish cartoon imbroglio. I don’t know if there is a large Moslem community in Japan, I figure there must be as there seem to be a community pretty much everywhere you go, but I have yet to see of any demonstrations outside the Danish embassy here (just noticed that word capitalises the major religions of the world – never knew that). Perhaps if there is a Moslem community here they have been influenced by the Japanese laissez-faire attitude to religion and so just go with it, I don’t know, but seems a little odd to me. Not that I am complaining, of course, as has been said before there is enough hate in the world already without people adding to it, but I feel it is being taken a little bit too far when some radical cleric starts on about trying and executing the cartoonists for blasphemy, especially in a secular European country – no sense of humour, obviously. Then again the western world realises (or at least should) that doing something like drawing cartoons of Mohammed is going to provoke a pretty serious, negative reaction. But of course that shouldn’t mean they don’t do it, if that were the case then freedom of speech would go out of the window (where if may be going anyway). Anyhoo not much of a reaction that I have seen on these shores.
So, what with all this deafening non-committance going on I thought ‘well, if George W can have a state of the union speech about what’s going in his life, I shall do the same’.
Er...
The young ‘un is coming along a treat, right now. He is slowly but surely becoming more mobile, when we were back in Blighty for Christmas it looked as if he was making very rapid progress towards crawling, but since we came back he sort of gave up the ghost. Until this last week gone by, really, when I think he decided enough was enough and he’d better get moving. So he started scooting about on his arse, pushing himself backwards and moving happily from sprawling to sitting and back again, but always in a rearwards direction. This weekend he started lifting his tummy off the floor in a kind of press-up (or push-up, for our US audience) pose – not crawling, that, but only a small leap, as it were, from there to standing on his own. He hasn’t managed that leap, yet, but with a help he is standing quite happily, supporting himself (though holding on to who or whatever is closest) and smiling mightily at the enjoyment of it. Indeed he is a most smiley baby and seems to be enjoying himself almost all the time – some kids sound like they are ultra hard work but Marcus just looks like he’s having a ball. His motor skills are also coming on a treat, picking stuff up, throwing stuff at mum and dad, exploring what he can do and getting into activities like ‘open the cupboard door’ and ‘what happens if I pull this cord really hard?’ – and no, it doesn’t matter how much you think you have baby-proofed your house, they’ll always find something else to pull/push/shake/etc. He’s also very much enjoying his food, onto three square meals a day now, which means that the poor Guru is either cooking, or thinking of things to cook, pretty much all day.
Talking of the Guru she is doing very well except for the fact she is tired and shagged out by the end of each day. This would be easier to cope with if the little ‘un was able to sleep through the night, but this has so far eluded him and he still awakens around midnight and 3 am, looking for a tasty morsel to get his chops around, something which due to biology I cannot help with, if you get my drift. Thus the Guru’s days, and nights, seem to be spent dealing with food for him in some respect. And thinking of things to feed him isn’t easy as for about 10 days he had diarrhoea, which might have been to do with what he was eating, but it didn’t seem to bother him in the slightest and then the doc said it was because of a cold (er, so let’s get this straight, it’s a cold that involves no snot, no fever, no cough, just lots of watery shit? Right...). Anyway that meant he missed his polio shot at the beginning of Feb as it would have gone straight through him, apparently, and will miss the next available one in May as he will be having another shot, MMR perhaps, so will have to wait until September as for some reason you can’t just pitch up and get a polio shot in Japan, they are only given at specific times by specific doctors. No idea why it is (dis)organised like that, but it means that our trip to west Africa has had to be postponed.
As for yours truly, my dissertation is uppermost in my mind at the moment (well, uppermost in what’s left of my mind that isn’t think ‘I don’t want to be here, I want to be at home with Marcus’, which isn’t a lot). The studying is going at the moment, but I’m not sure if it going ‘well’ or not. I know what the theme of the dissertation is, that’ll be teacher recruitment, selection and induction, but what I don’t have is a conceptual framework to hang it all on at the moment (that’ll be nonsense jargon for not knowing how to structure my research, what exactly to research or how to go about it). Still, at least I know what I want to look at, which is a start, but I need to get a bit more focused as the research methods module I’m doing has to be submitted in May and is essentially two sections of the dissertation itself (how the research will be done and the literature review), so better get some ideas soon or could be a little stuck in a couple of months – I think having 6 months off, a month back on then a three weekend holiday to the UK has meant I am out of practice and the stop-start return hasn’t helped. But mustn’t whinge as it won’t help and, looking on the bright side, it will all be over by December.
Right, that’s enough for now, off to bed for me.
Oh, and well done England for stuffing the Welsh on Saturday evening! A fine performance all round (and well done to Scotland as well, what a result), shame JSkySports has got such piss poor coverage of the rest of the 6 nations.
Tuesday, 31 January 2006
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.
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.
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
Friday, 16 December 2005
Merry Christmas one and all...
We are off back to the old country for mince pies and egg nog so postings unlikely for the next couple of weeks. I will ty, but can guarantee nothing.
So, hope everyone has a fine and jolly christmas and a splendid new year, I certainly intend to and hope everyone else does likewise.
See you in 2006
We are off back to the old country for mince pies and egg nog so postings unlikely for the next couple of weeks. I will ty, but can guarantee nothing.
So, hope everyone has a fine and jolly christmas and a splendid new year, I certainly intend to and hope everyone else does likewise.
See you in 2006
Monday, 12 December 2005
Christmas is coming
And plans, as I mentioned last week, are well under way for our return to the UK for a two-week sojourn. Logistically this is proving quite a challenge as neither myself nor the Guru have ever been to a foreign country with a seven month old baby, indeed we have only ever been away for one night with the little ‘un and that was an over nighter at the parents-in-law down in Chiba. This time that will just be the precusor as we will be staying with them on Saturday night before heading to Narita on Sunday for the flight – they live quite close to Narita, you see, or at least an awful lot closer than we do. Anyway on that first away trip we seemed to take enough gear to supply Caesar’s 15th Legion (including support staff and baggage train), so heaven knows how much stuff Virgin is going to have to stow in its holds, or how much excess we’ll have to pay for that matter. I’m hoping that as we are flying before the peak period, and on a Sunday, that the flight will be relatively quiet and so they’ll be a little bit less strict with the baggage limits, which with Virgin is a pretty puny 20kgs, even BA gives you more than that.
Along with the baggage issue is the ‘in-a-big-metal-tube-with-a-7-month-old-who-has-just-discovered-screaming-for-fun-for-12-hours’ conundrum. Not that it is actually much of a conundrum, really, as if he wants to scream, he will and there doesn’t seem to be an awful lot we can do about it at the moment, so more a case of feeling sorry for anyone sitting near us. Still, if the flight is quiet they might put us in a part of the plane where there aren’t too many others, such as upper class – well, one can hope. I, personally, am also banking on the kawaii, or cute, factor of the youngster. Being both British and Japanese (not half, thank you), and having inherited his mother’s looks (i.e. the better looking side of the relationship), he is an exceptionally cute looking baby, not that I am in any way biased, you realise, just stating fact. So much so that old women cross the road to get a better look at him and passers by shake me by the hand and congratulate me on having such a fine looking son. Anyway, hopefully we can use his good looks and charm to wangle something better for ourselves, or at least some good treatment by the staff (although I expect nothing less from Virgin, going on what I have heard).
The other problem we have is that with all of our baggage are Christmas presents for the whole family, plus electronic doohickies for golf-playing-brother, one of his work chums and another friend of the family. When I agreed to get all these things I wasn’t, of course, thinking about the packing because, as a man, I think about packing no more than 12 hours before I leave on holiday – now looking at the spare room I realise I should have thought about this more deeply, or at least asked the Guru if she thought we had room. So anyway it looks as if I will be packing a minimum of clothes for when I am over as I won’t be able to get any more in the suitcase even if I wanted to. Oh well.
But who cares as this time next week we will be back in Blighty with real beer, real sausages, real bacon and real(ly) crap service. Please note the “real sausages” and “real bacon” there, those upon whom we will be imposing...
Anyway in Japan right now the talk of the town, as it were, is infanticide. Last year I wrote about how parricide was all the rage, but that seems to have abated this year and it is adult men murdering young girls that is hitting the headlines. Not sure why these things come in spates, can’t believe it is copycatting, but you never know. Interestingly one of the horrible crimes was committed by the Peruvian chap of Japanese descent (there are a lot of big Japanese communities in South America and Peru, with ex-PM Alberto Fujimori, a favourite emigration destination early in the last century), the interesting bit being that the media didn’t make his foreign-ness a huge part of the story. It was part of the story, obviously, but more because the papers and whatnot were surprised he was allowed into the country after gaining a rather unsavoury reputation in Peru and having, therefore, to falsify his documents to get into Japan. The media focused more on the immigration lapses than the fact he wasn’t wholly Japanese, which is progress of a sort. In another story a cram school teacher stabbed a 7 year old girl to death in his classroom, no one is quite sure why, whilst elsewhere a spurned, lovesick boy killed the object of his lust and sometime killed two hostesses in their apartment, all of them stabbed.
Not exactly sure why I am writing about these grisly happenings. Obviously they are very sad, tragic, for the families and victims, perhaps now as a father these things seems to leap in the consciousness more, resonate more, I don’t know. But just goes to show that whoever says Japan is a safe country hasn’t been here for a while.
On a happier note there have been some particularly spectacular sunrises and sunsets recently. This time of year, about 2-3 weeks before the winter solstice, is wonderful as the sun sets behind Mt Fuji if you are looking at it from Kawaguchi, and especially if you happen to be on our balcony. So, here are some snaps, more over at those wonderful people at Flickr
Sunset behind Mt Fuji #1
Sunset behind Mt Fuji #3
Twilight on the Arakawa #1
Sunrise over Tokyo #1
And plans, as I mentioned last week, are well under way for our return to the UK for a two-week sojourn. Logistically this is proving quite a challenge as neither myself nor the Guru have ever been to a foreign country with a seven month old baby, indeed we have only ever been away for one night with the little ‘un and that was an over nighter at the parents-in-law down in Chiba. This time that will just be the precusor as we will be staying with them on Saturday night before heading to Narita on Sunday for the flight – they live quite close to Narita, you see, or at least an awful lot closer than we do. Anyway on that first away trip we seemed to take enough gear to supply Caesar’s 15th Legion (including support staff and baggage train), so heaven knows how much stuff Virgin is going to have to stow in its holds, or how much excess we’ll have to pay for that matter. I’m hoping that as we are flying before the peak period, and on a Sunday, that the flight will be relatively quiet and so they’ll be a little bit less strict with the baggage limits, which with Virgin is a pretty puny 20kgs, even BA gives you more than that.
Along with the baggage issue is the ‘in-a-big-metal-tube-with-a-7-month-old-who-has-just-discovered-screaming-for-fun-for-12-hours’ conundrum. Not that it is actually much of a conundrum, really, as if he wants to scream, he will and there doesn’t seem to be an awful lot we can do about it at the moment, so more a case of feeling sorry for anyone sitting near us. Still, if the flight is quiet they might put us in a part of the plane where there aren’t too many others, such as upper class – well, one can hope. I, personally, am also banking on the kawaii, or cute, factor of the youngster. Being both British and Japanese (not half, thank you), and having inherited his mother’s looks (i.e. the better looking side of the relationship), he is an exceptionally cute looking baby, not that I am in any way biased, you realise, just stating fact. So much so that old women cross the road to get a better look at him and passers by shake me by the hand and congratulate me on having such a fine looking son. Anyway, hopefully we can use his good looks and charm to wangle something better for ourselves, or at least some good treatment by the staff (although I expect nothing less from Virgin, going on what I have heard).
The other problem we have is that with all of our baggage are Christmas presents for the whole family, plus electronic doohickies for golf-playing-brother, one of his work chums and another friend of the family. When I agreed to get all these things I wasn’t, of course, thinking about the packing because, as a man, I think about packing no more than 12 hours before I leave on holiday – now looking at the spare room I realise I should have thought about this more deeply, or at least asked the Guru if she thought we had room. So anyway it looks as if I will be packing a minimum of clothes for when I am over as I won’t be able to get any more in the suitcase even if I wanted to. Oh well.
But who cares as this time next week we will be back in Blighty with real beer, real sausages, real bacon and real(ly) crap service. Please note the “real sausages” and “real bacon” there, those upon whom we will be imposing...
Anyway in Japan right now the talk of the town, as it were, is infanticide. Last year I wrote about how parricide was all the rage, but that seems to have abated this year and it is adult men murdering young girls that is hitting the headlines. Not sure why these things come in spates, can’t believe it is copycatting, but you never know. Interestingly one of the horrible crimes was committed by the Peruvian chap of Japanese descent (there are a lot of big Japanese communities in South America and Peru, with ex-PM Alberto Fujimori, a favourite emigration destination early in the last century), the interesting bit being that the media didn’t make his foreign-ness a huge part of the story. It was part of the story, obviously, but more because the papers and whatnot were surprised he was allowed into the country after gaining a rather unsavoury reputation in Peru and having, therefore, to falsify his documents to get into Japan. The media focused more on the immigration lapses than the fact he wasn’t wholly Japanese, which is progress of a sort. In another story a cram school teacher stabbed a 7 year old girl to death in his classroom, no one is quite sure why, whilst elsewhere a spurned, lovesick boy killed the object of his lust and sometime killed two hostesses in their apartment, all of them stabbed.
Not exactly sure why I am writing about these grisly happenings. Obviously they are very sad, tragic, for the families and victims, perhaps now as a father these things seems to leap in the consciousness more, resonate more, I don’t know. But just goes to show that whoever says Japan is a safe country hasn’t been here for a while.
On a happier note there have been some particularly spectacular sunrises and sunsets recently. This time of year, about 2-3 weeks before the winter solstice, is wonderful as the sun sets behind Mt Fuji if you are looking at it from Kawaguchi, and especially if you happen to be on our balcony. So, here are some snaps, more over at those wonderful people at Flickr
Sunset behind Mt Fuji #1
Sunset behind Mt Fuji #3
Twilight on the Arakawa #1
Sunrise over Tokyo #1
Monday, 5 December 2005
The service game
Service in Japan is, generally pretty good. Indeed the usual standard of service here is far better than the top notch, best you can get service in the UK, it’s one of the reasons we moved back to Japan after living in London for 18 months (erm...OK, not really a reason to move back, that was more to do with weird bosses, dissatisfaction with London, shitty weather and the prospect of an NHS birth, but it was a reason to come back to Japan rather than, say, Azerbaijan).
And so this week is a tale of two companies and their approach to service here. The first is an airline battle between one airline, which we will call, for the sake of argument, Virgin and another, which we will call BA (mainly, it must be said, as this is their respective names (not that I have a lot of respect for BA)). Now I have heard nothing but good things about flying Tokyo-London with Virgin. Everyone says the service is great, the seats are comfortable, the games and video in-flight stuff is fantastic, strangers come up to you in the terminal to shake your hand in admiration and it is generally an all round top experience. Fair enough. But usually, in fact on pretty much every occasion I have flown to or from Japan I have used BA, mainly as the company has provided the flight and we’ve had a corporate deal with them so all managers fly BA and generally they have been pretty good.
But we as a company no longer automatically go with BA after they stiffed us big time last year and almost left 30 new teachers stranded at Heathrow. However BA does usually do some interesting campaigns for Christmas and had sent through details of their ‘home leave’ campaign. This looked quite good as it listed 70 grand for a return flight i.e. dead cheap, if you booked before the end of October and left mid December. “Ah ha” thought I, “just the sort of thing I am looking for”. But when I phoned up they quoted me 130! The conversation went along the lines of:
“But what about the 70 grand seats?” I queried.
“Oh, sorry, they are not available this year.”
“Then why did you send me them on your price list?”
“Because we are fuckwits, sir, have a nice day.”
Virgin, on the other hand, were nice as pie. Booking was no problem, baby on board didn’t seem to faze them, though check in early to avoid the baby carrying rush, everything seems nice and smooth and strangers have indeed been coming up to me to shake my hand as I walk down the street. Let’s just hope it all goes according to plan...
The second story is the story of my local offy. I have mentioned MyMart before as they are my number one alcoholic emporia of choice, this is because they have a very wide choice, which is good, and also that they stock about half a dozen varieties of Bordeaux reds about a grand a bottle that are mightily fine drinking on a Friday or Saturday evening (indeed they would probably be fine drinking Sunday to Thursday as well, but I try not to on school nights). So on Saturday the Guru had gone off to do Guru type things, like get her hair cut before our Christmas trip, so yours truly was left in charge of the little ‘un and what better place to take a baby than an off licence? My thinking is that if I take him enough times as a baby and toddler it will a) become second nature to him so I can send him to buy me wine and b) the staff there will recognise him and serve him as they’ll know he’s buying the wine for me (and if the little scamp wants a bit for himself, well, he has to start somewhere).
OK, we went to the super market as well to buy stuff for dinner (a rather fine Thai yellowy-green curry, if I may say so myself) and then trooped off home. After pottering about and later going for a run I went to open my bottle of Bordeaux at around 6pm. On doing so I found the cork to me wet through and the wine, after taking out the cork, was like vinegar. ‘Bugger’ was the main thought going through my head, but then the Guru, who knows stuff like this, remembered that around 6pm was the time MyMart does home deliveries (another reason to love them, although all local offies do this in Japan). So she calls them up and asks if there is anything they can do, giving the bottle code and whatnot. They say we’ll see. Now this isn’t the first time I’ve bought a bottle of wine from there that has gone off, but hey, you can never be sure (unless you by Celliers des Dauphins, which uses artificial corks and was, interestingly what I had drunk on Friday night and still had a drop left so wasn’t in a total panic about the Saturday night bottle, yet).
So about 30 minutes later the off licence chap rings the doorbell. I proffer the offending bottle, he takes a sniff and a quick mouthful and agrees that the wine is not at its best. He then produces an already opened bottle of the same wine and asks me to have a quick swig of that one (he even has little plastic cups with him). I do and it tastes a bit on the sharp side as well, so I say no thanks. He then produces another already opened bottle of a different Bordeaux and offers a taste of this one. It is much better and I tell him this. So he then says the already opened bottle, of which only a small amount has been drunk, is my replacement. Er, ok, fine, thanks. But not only that, he then produces another bottle of this new wine and says this is for the inconvenience, sorry about the hassle!
Now I know I haven’t lived in the UK for a while, but I don’t really think your local Threshers or Oddbin’s is likely, if you buy a dodgy bottle, to drive out to your house that evening and not only replace the bottle you bought but also give you a freebie as well. Nice work, and that is why we love MyMart.
Service in Japan is, generally pretty good. Indeed the usual standard of service here is far better than the top notch, best you can get service in the UK, it’s one of the reasons we moved back to Japan after living in London for 18 months (erm...OK, not really a reason to move back, that was more to do with weird bosses, dissatisfaction with London, shitty weather and the prospect of an NHS birth, but it was a reason to come back to Japan rather than, say, Azerbaijan).
And so this week is a tale of two companies and their approach to service here. The first is an airline battle between one airline, which we will call, for the sake of argument, Virgin and another, which we will call BA (mainly, it must be said, as this is their respective names (not that I have a lot of respect for BA)). Now I have heard nothing but good things about flying Tokyo-London with Virgin. Everyone says the service is great, the seats are comfortable, the games and video in-flight stuff is fantastic, strangers come up to you in the terminal to shake your hand in admiration and it is generally an all round top experience. Fair enough. But usually, in fact on pretty much every occasion I have flown to or from Japan I have used BA, mainly as the company has provided the flight and we’ve had a corporate deal with them so all managers fly BA and generally they have been pretty good.
But we as a company no longer automatically go with BA after they stiffed us big time last year and almost left 30 new teachers stranded at Heathrow. However BA does usually do some interesting campaigns for Christmas and had sent through details of their ‘home leave’ campaign. This looked quite good as it listed 70 grand for a return flight i.e. dead cheap, if you booked before the end of October and left mid December. “Ah ha” thought I, “just the sort of thing I am looking for”. But when I phoned up they quoted me 130! The conversation went along the lines of:
“But what about the 70 grand seats?” I queried.
“Oh, sorry, they are not available this year.”
“Then why did you send me them on your price list?”
“Because we are fuckwits, sir, have a nice day.”
Virgin, on the other hand, were nice as pie. Booking was no problem, baby on board didn’t seem to faze them, though check in early to avoid the baby carrying rush, everything seems nice and smooth and strangers have indeed been coming up to me to shake my hand as I walk down the street. Let’s just hope it all goes according to plan...
The second story is the story of my local offy. I have mentioned MyMart before as they are my number one alcoholic emporia of choice, this is because they have a very wide choice, which is good, and also that they stock about half a dozen varieties of Bordeaux reds about a grand a bottle that are mightily fine drinking on a Friday or Saturday evening (indeed they would probably be fine drinking Sunday to Thursday as well, but I try not to on school nights). So on Saturday the Guru had gone off to do Guru type things, like get her hair cut before our Christmas trip, so yours truly was left in charge of the little ‘un and what better place to take a baby than an off licence? My thinking is that if I take him enough times as a baby and toddler it will a) become second nature to him so I can send him to buy me wine and b) the staff there will recognise him and serve him as they’ll know he’s buying the wine for me (and if the little scamp wants a bit for himself, well, he has to start somewhere).
OK, we went to the super market as well to buy stuff for dinner (a rather fine Thai yellowy-green curry, if I may say so myself) and then trooped off home. After pottering about and later going for a run I went to open my bottle of Bordeaux at around 6pm. On doing so I found the cork to me wet through and the wine, after taking out the cork, was like vinegar. ‘Bugger’ was the main thought going through my head, but then the Guru, who knows stuff like this, remembered that around 6pm was the time MyMart does home deliveries (another reason to love them, although all local offies do this in Japan). So she calls them up and asks if there is anything they can do, giving the bottle code and whatnot. They say we’ll see. Now this isn’t the first time I’ve bought a bottle of wine from there that has gone off, but hey, you can never be sure (unless you by Celliers des Dauphins, which uses artificial corks and was, interestingly what I had drunk on Friday night and still had a drop left so wasn’t in a total panic about the Saturday night bottle, yet).
So about 30 minutes later the off licence chap rings the doorbell. I proffer the offending bottle, he takes a sniff and a quick mouthful and agrees that the wine is not at its best. He then produces an already opened bottle of the same wine and asks me to have a quick swig of that one (he even has little plastic cups with him). I do and it tastes a bit on the sharp side as well, so I say no thanks. He then produces another already opened bottle of a different Bordeaux and offers a taste of this one. It is much better and I tell him this. So he then says the already opened bottle, of which only a small amount has been drunk, is my replacement. Er, ok, fine, thanks. But not only that, he then produces another bottle of this new wine and says this is for the inconvenience, sorry about the hassle!
Now I know I haven’t lived in the UK for a while, but I don’t really think your local Threshers or Oddbin’s is likely, if you buy a dodgy bottle, to drive out to your house that evening and not only replace the bottle you bought but also give you a freebie as well. Nice work, and that is why we love MyMart.
Tuesday, 29 November 2005
Apologies...
For the lack of a post yesterday, I was waylaid by a roving gang of colleagues who abducted me and forced me to drink beer and eat yakitori with a ex-colleague who was back in town. So anyway, here are some more photos of on the youngster and family on a recent trip to the riverbank on a sunny November afternoon.
ready to go out
relaxing on the riverbank
mum and marcus #1
dad and marcus
happy #1
happy #2
the happy couple
For the lack of a post yesterday, I was waylaid by a roving gang of colleagues who abducted me and forced me to drink beer and eat yakitori with a ex-colleague who was back in town. So anyway, here are some more photos of on the youngster and family on a recent trip to the riverbank on a sunny November afternoon.
ready to go out
relaxing on the riverbank
mum and marcus #1
dad and marcus
happy #1
happy #2
the happy couple
Monday, 21 November 2005
The end starts here
Just got the bumpf through from the university for the resumption of my mba – uh oh... Up to now the 4 modules I have done were, apparently, ‘content’ modules, which seems to me to ones where they tell you what to study, like hr or something, and give you materials in order to do so. The new one is called research methods and is, as far as I can tell, an extended introduction and literature review for the dissertation – this wouldn’t be too bad if I had an idea as to what I want to study for the dissertation. But I don’t. Not even an inkling at the moment. I’ve spent the last six months letting my brain atrophy slowly and consequently all the knowledge gleaned from the first two years has seeped out of my ears, having a bay can do that to you. This could make life tricky for the next year or so. Bugger.
But on the plus side I now have a desk. This may not seem much but, and...well, ok, it isn’t much, but it is better than not having a desk. Up to now, when I have been studying, I have used the kitchen and shut the Guru in the living room with the tv and the video. This worked quite well as she got to relax and do not very much whilst pregnant (not that she was pregnant for two years, you understand) and I got to study in reasonable quiet. But this would not work with the youngster as well as he does not know how to be quiet, so I will need to need to be at the other end of the apartment with at least two closed doors between us. This has now been achieved as his room, which is still basically the storage room, is now ‘his room that is a storage room but now has a desk in it that I will use for the next year as he won’t need it yet’ room. Or something. Anyway it is a desk I can finally call my own for a year – I even have my books on it, as well as the (now) dreaded dissertation study guide.
Still, could be worse, I could have bought am apartment design by a slack arsed architect by the name of Aneha. For those of you not in Japan, this has been the big news of the weekend and has got not a few worried. As you might be aware, Tokyo is built on some slightly unstable land, prone to all manner of natural disasters, especially earthquakes. With this in mind there are some fairly stringent rules and laws regarding the building of apartment blocks and public buildings, with what are supposed to be reasonably good back ups to check blueprints and what not. This works fine until the architect of a building, for reasons I’m not quite sure if yet, decides to falsify the data on the buildings he has designed. These buildings are not some pokey little dives that no one really cares about, but big blocks with supposed state of the art construction to withstand all but the mightiest of tremblors, also Mr Aneha was a apparently a top notch architect who had all the right bits of paper issued by the construction boffins to say he was legit. Having now checked why he did it, it is safe to say that he is a lazy bugger, by the look of it, but don’t take my word for it, as he says, "I had many complicated jobs. I wanted to make those jobs less complicated," he said. "I falsified data for the first time in 2002." Oh, that’s ok then.
What makes it just a little bit worse is that all plans for these things have to be scrutinised by a government approved scrutinist to make sure no is mucking up the calculations and therefore indulging in sloppy practices. And the Aneha design consultancy sent off their plans to be checked. And they were. And they were returned with the stamp of approval. Oops. So these buildings got built and all the happy purchasers moved in and began their lives as owner-occupiers.
For some reason, then, some bod at the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure & Transport decided to go over the structural strength calculations for one of these buildings and discovered, alarmingly, that it would fall down in a magnitude 5 earthquake. Now a magnitude 5 is a pretty strong one, but not quite up there with, for example, the Niigata earthquake of last year or the Hanshin quake of ’95, so not small but not a real biggy, certainly one that an apartment building built in the last 5 years should be able to withstand. So this bod, obviously committed to his work, checked a few more of Aneha’s buildings and found that 13 of them (12 apartment blocks and a hotel) are structurally unsafe.
No one seems to be sure at the moment quite what the comeback for the people who bought these apartments is. If they all try to sure Mr Aneha then he will go bankrupt and no one will get a penny. The government would seem to be somewhat liable as they should have checked all the data thoroughly before giving the go ahead – but they seem to be blaming the architects. What about the construction firms that built the places, surely they must have realised that these buildings didn’t meet the usual standards? Possibly, and here the owners might have a way in as there is a law stating that any building found to have structural defects within 10 years of being built must be repaired by the builder. But here I fear that the builders will argue that they followed the plans and therefore there is a problem with the plans, not the building.
Anyway this one looks like it will run and run and has certainly got the apartment buying public just a little worried.
On a lighter note, George Dubya was in town recently for a pow wow with the Kool Kid before they both jetted off to Korea for an APEC (Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation gang(I think)) summit. Two things made me smile about this. First, as Bush arrived at the airport he was met not by the Kool Kid but by the Foreign Minister (ok there), but also by the owner of the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks baseball team (uh huh...) and Bobby Valentine, the manager of the Japan series baseball champions Chiba Lotte Marines (wha?). Most powerful man in the world, defender of democracy, leader of the free world, met by a baseball manager. Riiiight. (OK, fair do’s, they knew each other from when Bush, after proving useless as an oilman and before proving useless as a President was proving himself to be not that effective as a baseball club owner – but come on).
Secondly, after this summit a statement was issued that, amongst other things included a thinly veiled attack on the EU for its protectionist agricultural policies. They have a point, obviously, as the CAP (or whatever it is called now) does its job pretty well in protecting French farmers (and no doubt those of the UK, Germany and elsewhere, I suspect). But what made me raise my eyebrows and smirk was that Japan should be one of the authors of this statement – Japanese rice kept at artificially high prices so the Japanese farmers don’t go out of business? Not protectionist, as such, more facilitating a livelihood that is part of the culture of the country.
Just got the bumpf through from the university for the resumption of my mba – uh oh... Up to now the 4 modules I have done were, apparently, ‘content’ modules, which seems to me to ones where they tell you what to study, like hr or something, and give you materials in order to do so. The new one is called research methods and is, as far as I can tell, an extended introduction and literature review for the dissertation – this wouldn’t be too bad if I had an idea as to what I want to study for the dissertation. But I don’t. Not even an inkling at the moment. I’ve spent the last six months letting my brain atrophy slowly and consequently all the knowledge gleaned from the first two years has seeped out of my ears, having a bay can do that to you. This could make life tricky for the next year or so. Bugger.
But on the plus side I now have a desk. This may not seem much but, and...well, ok, it isn’t much, but it is better than not having a desk. Up to now, when I have been studying, I have used the kitchen and shut the Guru in the living room with the tv and the video. This worked quite well as she got to relax and do not very much whilst pregnant (not that she was pregnant for two years, you understand) and I got to study in reasonable quiet. But this would not work with the youngster as well as he does not know how to be quiet, so I will need to need to be at the other end of the apartment with at least two closed doors between us. This has now been achieved as his room, which is still basically the storage room, is now ‘his room that is a storage room but now has a desk in it that I will use for the next year as he won’t need it yet’ room. Or something. Anyway it is a desk I can finally call my own for a year – I even have my books on it, as well as the (now) dreaded dissertation study guide.
Still, could be worse, I could have bought am apartment design by a slack arsed architect by the name of Aneha. For those of you not in Japan, this has been the big news of the weekend and has got not a few worried. As you might be aware, Tokyo is built on some slightly unstable land, prone to all manner of natural disasters, especially earthquakes. With this in mind there are some fairly stringent rules and laws regarding the building of apartment blocks and public buildings, with what are supposed to be reasonably good back ups to check blueprints and what not. This works fine until the architect of a building, for reasons I’m not quite sure if yet, decides to falsify the data on the buildings he has designed. These buildings are not some pokey little dives that no one really cares about, but big blocks with supposed state of the art construction to withstand all but the mightiest of tremblors, also Mr Aneha was a apparently a top notch architect who had all the right bits of paper issued by the construction boffins to say he was legit. Having now checked why he did it, it is safe to say that he is a lazy bugger, by the look of it, but don’t take my word for it, as he says, "I had many complicated jobs. I wanted to make those jobs less complicated," he said. "I falsified data for the first time in 2002." Oh, that’s ok then.
What makes it just a little bit worse is that all plans for these things have to be scrutinised by a government approved scrutinist to make sure no is mucking up the calculations and therefore indulging in sloppy practices. And the Aneha design consultancy sent off their plans to be checked. And they were. And they were returned with the stamp of approval. Oops. So these buildings got built and all the happy purchasers moved in and began their lives as owner-occupiers.
For some reason, then, some bod at the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure & Transport decided to go over the structural strength calculations for one of these buildings and discovered, alarmingly, that it would fall down in a magnitude 5 earthquake. Now a magnitude 5 is a pretty strong one, but not quite up there with, for example, the Niigata earthquake of last year or the Hanshin quake of ’95, so not small but not a real biggy, certainly one that an apartment building built in the last 5 years should be able to withstand. So this bod, obviously committed to his work, checked a few more of Aneha’s buildings and found that 13 of them (12 apartment blocks and a hotel) are structurally unsafe.
No one seems to be sure at the moment quite what the comeback for the people who bought these apartments is. If they all try to sure Mr Aneha then he will go bankrupt and no one will get a penny. The government would seem to be somewhat liable as they should have checked all the data thoroughly before giving the go ahead – but they seem to be blaming the architects. What about the construction firms that built the places, surely they must have realised that these buildings didn’t meet the usual standards? Possibly, and here the owners might have a way in as there is a law stating that any building found to have structural defects within 10 years of being built must be repaired by the builder. But here I fear that the builders will argue that they followed the plans and therefore there is a problem with the plans, not the building.
Anyway this one looks like it will run and run and has certainly got the apartment buying public just a little worried.
On a lighter note, George Dubya was in town recently for a pow wow with the Kool Kid before they both jetted off to Korea for an APEC (Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation gang(I think)) summit. Two things made me smile about this. First, as Bush arrived at the airport he was met not by the Kool Kid but by the Foreign Minister (ok there), but also by the owner of the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks baseball team (uh huh...) and Bobby Valentine, the manager of the Japan series baseball champions Chiba Lotte Marines (wha?). Most powerful man in the world, defender of democracy, leader of the free world, met by a baseball manager. Riiiight. (OK, fair do’s, they knew each other from when Bush, after proving useless as an oilman and before proving useless as a President was proving himself to be not that effective as a baseball club owner – but come on).
Secondly, after this summit a statement was issued that, amongst other things included a thinly veiled attack on the EU for its protectionist agricultural policies. They have a point, obviously, as the CAP (or whatever it is called now) does its job pretty well in protecting French farmers (and no doubt those of the UK, Germany and elsewhere, I suspect). But what made me raise my eyebrows and smirk was that Japan should be one of the authors of this statement – Japanese rice kept at artificially high prices so the Japanese farmers don’t go out of business? Not protectionist, as such, more facilitating a livelihood that is part of the culture of the country.
Monday, 14 November 2005
The howling wind
So the north wind started blowing on Sunday, the Kogarashi, signalling the start of winter proper and so, as if my magic, everyone was wearing overcoats, gloves and scarves on the train this morning, as if it had been announced on the NHK news that Monday was winter clothes day. Odd, as today wasn’t all that cold, and nor was yesterday, for that matter, but there you go. In Japan it gets a bit like that at times, the ‘official’ time to start doing things, I mean. Schools, apparently, are the worst for it. In the middle of a very warm autumn the principal will consult his (or her) calendar and decide that the winter has started and so every student must wear warm clothes, even if it means losing 3 pints of sweat on the way to school in the morning. Conversely, in spring, it can be sweltering and yet it is not officially ‘warm’ yet so the students have to stay wearing their winter woollies whilst the rest of the country has moved onto cool cottons. Of course in neither of the above cases will the warmth of the weather affect the length of high school girl’s skirts, which of course will redefine ‘mini’ (and I’m not talking about the car).
But all of this rambling hides another important insight into Japan and the Japanese, namely that firstly, Japan is quite a cold country in winter and that secondly, Japanese people are not very good at the cold. Japanese gentlemen, for example, invariably wear long underwear in winter, well, not even in winter, they are now when the temperature is about 18 degrees (and here’s another weird thing. When I first left the UK in 1996 I worked in Celsius, i.e. a hot summer’s day was 28 or 30. now, when I go back, everyone seems to be fecking about Fahrenheit, or something, and talking about temperatures in the 80s. I didn’t pursue this when I was back, but I’m sure I remember my family saying this was always so, but I do not remember it this way and I am sure someone is messing with my mind. Whoever it is, stop it and give me back my Celsius (and now I know, when I am back for Christmas, we’ll all be back to Celsius again and I’ll be even more confused)).
I digress – er, long underwear, all men over the age of about 30 seem to wear, judging by my experience of gym and onsen changing rooms, not that I hang around them, I hasten to add, just I have found myself in them, on occasion. Anyway, it is not even cold yet but already the long johns are out, or rather in. Surely, I would expect, that Japanese men would have got used to the fact that for about three or four months a year the temperature is a bit cooler than in, say the summer. This is also manifest in our office, which I find stiflingly hot all year round, as do the other foreigners, but the Japanese staff find cool and uninviting in winter. Now I expect someone is going to say ‘yes, but they’re all used to the heat in summer, but you’re not’ and this is true to an extent, but then again the Japanese office staff have a good old moan on the really hot days just like the rest of us, so not even sure about that one.
So of course in winter the heating gets cranked up everywhere to compensate for the cool blood of the majority. This isn’t too bad if you are out shopping as you can remove your jacket if you are wearing one, but in the depths of winter, when jacket and overcoat is required, it can be very hard work in a packed subway train when the heating is on full tilt. The train man doesn’t seem to realise that a train running at 110% capacity withal the punters wearing many layers probably doesn’t need the heating on as well, because all the bodies present are generating a bit of warmth, but no. But I do realise that it is probably only me that feels this way, otherwise there would be a few more complaints to Tokyo Metro and so I guess they ain’t gonna change anything for me (see, I can be self perceptive sometimes).
But anyway, today was scarves and gloves and I’ve only recently gone back to wearing a suit jacket to work every day, won’t be long before my glasses are steaming up on entering the train of a morning.
Festival
Last weekend, being the last weekend in autumn, probably, meant it was time for the Kawaguchi festival. I might have written about this last year or the year before, not sure but this is quite a pleasant little thing. What happens is the local council, realising that they ought to do something useful with the golf course, close it to sad little people who want to hit balls for the first Sunday in November and open to everyone. On the fairways and greens they erect tents and mark plots and then everyone in the city comes to enjoy themselves. There is a flea market, for those itching to buy cast offs, there are stalls selling food and drink, there is, and I love this, a crazy golf putting game for those who can’t do without their fix for even a couple of hours, plus cultural things like Mikoshi (portable shrines) to lug about and shout washoi whilst you’re doing it (something I have done, a long time ago, in the festival around around Tomioka-Hachimangu Shrine in Monzen-Nakacho, an old downtown part of Tokyo, and I can safely say those mikoshi are bloody heavy). It was all very jolly except for the fact that it was grey and overcast and generally pretty miserable weather. Oh well. But the good thing about the whole shebang was that Marcus got to sit on the grass and get excited with a bunch of his little mates who were born around the same time. The Guru, of course, had a little gang of pregnant pals when she was thus and, as support groups naturally grow, kept in touch and meets up with them on numerous occasions. Usually this is at one of the community centres nearby, but on Sunday they could meet on the golf course. It may not sound much, but for him, sitting on grass was quite an experience, especially with his pal Shunta. But even better than that was that Dad took him to sit in one of the bunkers and so he got to play with sand for the first time ever. Of course this was completely fascinating as he had never been able to pick the floor up before and watch it slip through his fingers (and we even manged to avoid the dog sh*t).
So he had fun, the Guru enjoyed herself as could chat with pals, Dad met some other Dads for the first time and we sat around feeling a little awkward, as I’m sure fathers do all around the world in such circumstances (but they were all very nice and most complimentary of my Japanese (the kidders)).
And there was even a miniature railway for the kids to sit on, but I think that may be next year’s treat.
So the north wind started blowing on Sunday, the Kogarashi, signalling the start of winter proper and so, as if my magic, everyone was wearing overcoats, gloves and scarves on the train this morning, as if it had been announced on the NHK news that Monday was winter clothes day. Odd, as today wasn’t all that cold, and nor was yesterday, for that matter, but there you go. In Japan it gets a bit like that at times, the ‘official’ time to start doing things, I mean. Schools, apparently, are the worst for it. In the middle of a very warm autumn the principal will consult his (or her) calendar and decide that the winter has started and so every student must wear warm clothes, even if it means losing 3 pints of sweat on the way to school in the morning. Conversely, in spring, it can be sweltering and yet it is not officially ‘warm’ yet so the students have to stay wearing their winter woollies whilst the rest of the country has moved onto cool cottons. Of course in neither of the above cases will the warmth of the weather affect the length of high school girl’s skirts, which of course will redefine ‘mini’ (and I’m not talking about the car).
But all of this rambling hides another important insight into Japan and the Japanese, namely that firstly, Japan is quite a cold country in winter and that secondly, Japanese people are not very good at the cold. Japanese gentlemen, for example, invariably wear long underwear in winter, well, not even in winter, they are now when the temperature is about 18 degrees (and here’s another weird thing. When I first left the UK in 1996 I worked in Celsius, i.e. a hot summer’s day was 28 or 30. now, when I go back, everyone seems to be fecking about Fahrenheit, or something, and talking about temperatures in the 80s. I didn’t pursue this when I was back, but I’m sure I remember my family saying this was always so, but I do not remember it this way and I am sure someone is messing with my mind. Whoever it is, stop it and give me back my Celsius (and now I know, when I am back for Christmas, we’ll all be back to Celsius again and I’ll be even more confused)).
I digress – er, long underwear, all men over the age of about 30 seem to wear, judging by my experience of gym and onsen changing rooms, not that I hang around them, I hasten to add, just I have found myself in them, on occasion. Anyway, it is not even cold yet but already the long johns are out, or rather in. Surely, I would expect, that Japanese men would have got used to the fact that for about three or four months a year the temperature is a bit cooler than in, say the summer. This is also manifest in our office, which I find stiflingly hot all year round, as do the other foreigners, but the Japanese staff find cool and uninviting in winter. Now I expect someone is going to say ‘yes, but they’re all used to the heat in summer, but you’re not’ and this is true to an extent, but then again the Japanese office staff have a good old moan on the really hot days just like the rest of us, so not even sure about that one.
So of course in winter the heating gets cranked up everywhere to compensate for the cool blood of the majority. This isn’t too bad if you are out shopping as you can remove your jacket if you are wearing one, but in the depths of winter, when jacket and overcoat is required, it can be very hard work in a packed subway train when the heating is on full tilt. The train man doesn’t seem to realise that a train running at 110% capacity withal the punters wearing many layers probably doesn’t need the heating on as well, because all the bodies present are generating a bit of warmth, but no. But I do realise that it is probably only me that feels this way, otherwise there would be a few more complaints to Tokyo Metro and so I guess they ain’t gonna change anything for me (see, I can be self perceptive sometimes).
But anyway, today was scarves and gloves and I’ve only recently gone back to wearing a suit jacket to work every day, won’t be long before my glasses are steaming up on entering the train of a morning.
Festival
Last weekend, being the last weekend in autumn, probably, meant it was time for the Kawaguchi festival. I might have written about this last year or the year before, not sure but this is quite a pleasant little thing. What happens is the local council, realising that they ought to do something useful with the golf course, close it to sad little people who want to hit balls for the first Sunday in November and open to everyone. On the fairways and greens they erect tents and mark plots and then everyone in the city comes to enjoy themselves. There is a flea market, for those itching to buy cast offs, there are stalls selling food and drink, there is, and I love this, a crazy golf putting game for those who can’t do without their fix for even a couple of hours, plus cultural things like Mikoshi (portable shrines) to lug about and shout washoi whilst you’re doing it (something I have done, a long time ago, in the festival around around Tomioka-Hachimangu Shrine in Monzen-Nakacho, an old downtown part of Tokyo, and I can safely say those mikoshi are bloody heavy). It was all very jolly except for the fact that it was grey and overcast and generally pretty miserable weather. Oh well. But the good thing about the whole shebang was that Marcus got to sit on the grass and get excited with a bunch of his little mates who were born around the same time. The Guru, of course, had a little gang of pregnant pals when she was thus and, as support groups naturally grow, kept in touch and meets up with them on numerous occasions. Usually this is at one of the community centres nearby, but on Sunday they could meet on the golf course. It may not sound much, but for him, sitting on grass was quite an experience, especially with his pal Shunta. But even better than that was that Dad took him to sit in one of the bunkers and so he got to play with sand for the first time ever. Of course this was completely fascinating as he had never been able to pick the floor up before and watch it slip through his fingers (and we even manged to avoid the dog sh*t).
So he had fun, the Guru enjoyed herself as could chat with pals, Dad met some other Dads for the first time and we sat around feeling a little awkward, as I’m sure fathers do all around the world in such circumstances (but they were all very nice and most complimentary of my Japanese (the kidders)).
And there was even a miniature railway for the kids to sit on, but I think that may be next year’s treat.
Thursday, 10 November 2005
Right
According to this survey, it's 45 times for Japanese but 118 time for Brits, what about Brits living in Japan? And does w*nking count because I've got 73 times owing to me from somewhere...?
According to this survey, it's 45 times for Japanese but 118 time for Brits, what about Brits living in Japan? And does w*nking count because I've got 73 times owing to me from somewhere...?
Monday, 7 November 2005
A new cabinet
So what is there to write about this week in the goings on of Japan? Well again not a lot, it would seem to me. The Kool Kid chose his new cabinet after the landslide election victory of a few months ago and this time he went for something nice in teak. Ho ho, joking aside, the new cabinet has, some commentators have noted, something of a hawkish feel to it, but personally, having only been here for about 8 years, I have yet to spot this. What I did note was that there was, as ever, a somewhat grey, male tinge to the gang, though there were at least one or two female members (one of which wore an alarmingly blue dress to the formal inauguration dinner thing the other night – or rather it was BLUE!). Most of the MP’s that I wrote about the other week got in now, one assumes, in a position to push their claims for the Premiership (as in the PM-ship, not as professional Association Soccer players in the English league, doh!) once the Kid does his bunk next year – a plan he is still apparently committed to.
Maybe I don’t watch enough domestic news of an evening, but the cabinet in Japan just doesn’t seem to have the same function as it does in the UK, or at least the same levels of commitment or importance. I mean, when a domestic policy issue comes up on, say education in the UK, the news media will talk to the Minister of Education (or whatever their title is now), the shadow minister, a junior minister or two, perhaps a mandarin from the Civil Service, maybe another cabinet member like the deputy PM and, quite possibly the PM as well, depending if he’s around and no one has stuck a camera on him in the last few minutes. But in Japan it seems to me that the only politico we ever get to hear about is the Kool Kid himself. In fact as I try and remember now, the people of that ilk I can think of are the Kid, Tokyo governor Ishihara and the head of Nippon Keidanran who’s name I can’t remember but I know the face as his top lip doesn’t move when he speaks (Nippon Keidanran is a bit like the CBI, I think, in that they always seem to be going on about business and business sentiment in the city. Or something). But I suspect that if you showed me some pictures of the new cabinet members now, I wouldn’t be able to tell you who many of them are or what they do. I’m sure this is a failing on my part, but I’m an educated sort of person and, when living in the UK, could have a decent stab at naming and shaming those who ruled in my name. But not here, and I wonder how many Japanese could?
Anyway they had they big inauguration thing and were all jolly happy and indulged, no doubt, in a spot of back slappage and general bonhomie for the evening before going back to their constituents for a bit of scheming and plotting.
In the news there has also been a lot about the US and some plans to move some of their bases around in Japan and give some land abck to the Japanese, or, again, something like that. As you can probably guess I haven’t been following this one too carefully either, mainly as I don’t live anywhere near any US air or naval bases, have no intention to do so, so don’t really care where America puts its aeroplanes or ships. Does the US presence in Japan, I wonder, really act as a deterrent to China’s expansionist desires in east Asia, as not a few seem to think? I mean, are the Chinese, or indeed anyone, really interested in world domination anymore? OK, Krazy Kim of Krazy Kim’s People Mart does probably want to take over the world (bwahahahahaaaaa etc), but he is, as we know, something of a loon and not really in a position to do so, but he does quite possibly have nukes which he could lob at Japan any time he pleases, so does the US deterrent work their (and also with the US troops in South Korea)? Or does the presence of so many US troops in Japan and Korea antagonise the situation and ratchet up the tension causing more harm than good? Goodness me if I knew the answers to these questions I suspect I would not be working in the job I do now but would certainly be knocking on the door of the UN.
It is difficult to know what Japanese people really think about the presence of the US troops here as it seems to me to be an issue that is somewhat skirted around by the media. Again this might be to do with me not seeing anything about it, rather than the media not asking, but I do read a newspaper everyday and try to watch the odd bit of news. If I was to hazard a guess it would be that the average person on the Kawaguchi omnibus would not exactly be happy that US forces are here, but would be pragmatic enough to think that they might be a good thing for a bit of stability in the region – and as far as I can tell, there hasn’t been any of the anti-American style riots that seemed to happen in South Korea a few years back. But then again as I wondered earlier, if all the US forced buggered off tomorrow, is it likely that a country such as China or North Korea would attack? I think not as China is now such a huge trading partner with Japan (and the US), and money speaks a lot louder than anything else these days, that why would China bother. Krazy Kim might do something silly like drop a bomb on Roppongi Hills, but I think even that is unlikely as China does seem to hold their leash to a large extent.
But the US isn’t going anywhere anyway, just moving their runways around a bit I think, so all a bit moot, really.
So what is there to write about this week in the goings on of Japan? Well again not a lot, it would seem to me. The Kool Kid chose his new cabinet after the landslide election victory of a few months ago and this time he went for something nice in teak. Ho ho, joking aside, the new cabinet has, some commentators have noted, something of a hawkish feel to it, but personally, having only been here for about 8 years, I have yet to spot this. What I did note was that there was, as ever, a somewhat grey, male tinge to the gang, though there were at least one or two female members (one of which wore an alarmingly blue dress to the formal inauguration dinner thing the other night – or rather it was BLUE!). Most of the MP’s that I wrote about the other week got in now, one assumes, in a position to push their claims for the Premiership (as in the PM-ship, not as professional Association Soccer players in the English league, doh!) once the Kid does his bunk next year – a plan he is still apparently committed to.
Maybe I don’t watch enough domestic news of an evening, but the cabinet in Japan just doesn’t seem to have the same function as it does in the UK, or at least the same levels of commitment or importance. I mean, when a domestic policy issue comes up on, say education in the UK, the news media will talk to the Minister of Education (or whatever their title is now), the shadow minister, a junior minister or two, perhaps a mandarin from the Civil Service, maybe another cabinet member like the deputy PM and, quite possibly the PM as well, depending if he’s around and no one has stuck a camera on him in the last few minutes. But in Japan it seems to me that the only politico we ever get to hear about is the Kool Kid himself. In fact as I try and remember now, the people of that ilk I can think of are the Kid, Tokyo governor Ishihara and the head of Nippon Keidanran who’s name I can’t remember but I know the face as his top lip doesn’t move when he speaks (Nippon Keidanran is a bit like the CBI, I think, in that they always seem to be going on about business and business sentiment in the city. Or something). But I suspect that if you showed me some pictures of the new cabinet members now, I wouldn’t be able to tell you who many of them are or what they do. I’m sure this is a failing on my part, but I’m an educated sort of person and, when living in the UK, could have a decent stab at naming and shaming those who ruled in my name. But not here, and I wonder how many Japanese could?
Anyway they had they big inauguration thing and were all jolly happy and indulged, no doubt, in a spot of back slappage and general bonhomie for the evening before going back to their constituents for a bit of scheming and plotting.
In the news there has also been a lot about the US and some plans to move some of their bases around in Japan and give some land abck to the Japanese, or, again, something like that. As you can probably guess I haven’t been following this one too carefully either, mainly as I don’t live anywhere near any US air or naval bases, have no intention to do so, so don’t really care where America puts its aeroplanes or ships. Does the US presence in Japan, I wonder, really act as a deterrent to China’s expansionist desires in east Asia, as not a few seem to think? I mean, are the Chinese, or indeed anyone, really interested in world domination anymore? OK, Krazy Kim of Krazy Kim’s People Mart does probably want to take over the world (bwahahahahaaaaa etc), but he is, as we know, something of a loon and not really in a position to do so, but he does quite possibly have nukes which he could lob at Japan any time he pleases, so does the US deterrent work their (and also with the US troops in South Korea)? Or does the presence of so many US troops in Japan and Korea antagonise the situation and ratchet up the tension causing more harm than good? Goodness me if I knew the answers to these questions I suspect I would not be working in the job I do now but would certainly be knocking on the door of the UN.
It is difficult to know what Japanese people really think about the presence of the US troops here as it seems to me to be an issue that is somewhat skirted around by the media. Again this might be to do with me not seeing anything about it, rather than the media not asking, but I do read a newspaper everyday and try to watch the odd bit of news. If I was to hazard a guess it would be that the average person on the Kawaguchi omnibus would not exactly be happy that US forces are here, but would be pragmatic enough to think that they might be a good thing for a bit of stability in the region – and as far as I can tell, there hasn’t been any of the anti-American style riots that seemed to happen in South Korea a few years back. But then again as I wondered earlier, if all the US forced buggered off tomorrow, is it likely that a country such as China or North Korea would attack? I think not as China is now such a huge trading partner with Japan (and the US), and money speaks a lot louder than anything else these days, that why would China bother. Krazy Kim might do something silly like drop a bomb on Roppongi Hills, but I think even that is unlikely as China does seem to hold their leash to a large extent.
But the US isn’t going anywhere anyway, just moving their runways around a bit I think, so all a bit moot, really.
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