How to become the Secretary-General of the United Nations

A lovely stuffed tanuki on a safe

A lovely stuffed tanuki on top of a safe, in the office of one of my JHS Principals. I flipping love that stuffed tanuki.

In other news, at the start of this year Ban Ki-moon replaced Kofi Annan as the Secretary-General of the United Nations. I did a bit of research and it turns out that Kofi Annan replaced Boutros Boutros-Ghali.

Some even further research revealed that the only credentials necessary to become the Secretary -General of the United Nations is a Jedi name, which can only be approved by Mark Hamill or George Lucas. It makes sense when you think about it. Gives them a certain gravitas supposedly.

Oh aye, we felt a bit of an earthquake on Sunday. Everything's tickety boo, but the Vice Principal (or Principal of Vice as I prefer it) in my main JHS, had to go and sort his house out in Kashiwazaki. This was the town that was worst hit. Check out the pictures, it was a big deal.

Angels with dirty faces?

I never speak to anyone in certain parts of Scotland about 'Britain'. Yes, I'm Scottish and from the land of hope and glory. After all of the Catholic church scandals that have emanated from, amongst every good nation on the planet including Ireland, I've always thought that the Emerald Isle should sing about being the land of grope and holy. In a tongue in cheek manner of course, as long as the tongue belongs to the same owner as the cheek, and both remain attached to the person. You can't be too contractually careful with religious perverts.

Another Catholic child abuse scandal has emerged, this time in LA, the city of Angels. As if times weren't bad enough with the Bloods,the Crips and the Osbournes, some of the Christians have turned against them too.

It's the usual story of the church being rumbled for years of child abuse which is ultimately sad and terrible for all of the poor victims involved.

This story triggered an alarm bell with me however, when I heard, on the BBC news, the local Cardinal making a statement on behalf of the Catholic church. The local Cardinal's name is 'Roger Mahony'. Jesus H. Corbett, couldn't they have found someone else with a better name? I can just imagine the Pope sitting down to his tea of egg 'n' chips, being hit by this story on the TV, and then seeing the banner with 'Cardinal Roger Mahony'. "Roger? Mahony? Aw for fecks sake!", he'd quibble in Latin. Who else was available to make a statement? Bishop Phil McCracken? It really made me cringe when I heard 'Roger' talking about their 'innocence' being taken away. Man, to believe in a religion that has a reset button on their conscience must be sweet. The other thing that made my mind spin faster than a priest's cassock, is that the victims are to be given a joint lump sum of $660 million compensation. I have no problem with that but what happens now? Do they have to fight it out and prove how much they were abused? That is going to be one dark day in court that will essentially put the price on buggery with a choir boy. What a menu that would make. I can just see it now displayed on the wall of a church on a hymn board.

I'm not religious one way or the other and would just as happily write about any other religious mob that partook in such hypocritically despicable behaviour. I know there are a lot of good Catholic Christians out there, some of which are my friends.

Probably the best name for an off license... ever!

Self explanatory

The Japanese habit of mistranslating English into Japanese is well documented as Engrish.

Now and again they hit the nail right on the head however and I think this is a prime example. The above picture is of our local off license, brilliantly titled 'Self'. Even the logo is a beauty, that S isn't someone giving the thumbs up but rather a punter happily getting a punch in the chops. I'm tempted to photoshop the logo out of the picture and use it when I start a typically self indulgent blog called 'Self', when I get home. It's either going to be 'Self' or 'I really love me!'.

Another random bit of knowledge that I have picked up about off licenses around the world, is that in Australia, they call them 'bottle shops'. Makes sense I suppose, as if you've ever know an Australian with a bottle of 'grog' it's not long before it's just a bottle. A bit rich coming from a Scotchlander some may think. Taking it one step further for us, maybe we should name our 'bottle shops', 'broken glass shops' as we tend to demolish the contents of the bottle, go mental and then proceed to demolish someone with the bottle, usually starting with the heed, resulting in a demolished bottle too.

Wouldn't it be cool if the Australians applied this bottle shop logic to every type of Australian shop. Supermarkets would be 'shite stores', as that's just the next step after the shelf and frying pan.

I wander where Australians buy bottles?

We are the champeens my friend!

The 2007 Sado Soccer League champeens

We played the final game of the season on July 8th against the team that we were joint top with, the evil black stripped 'Shoot Club', which is obviously an anagram of Succubus. It was winner takes all and the biggest game of the season.

Two things were significant in this game. First, Matt and I had been out the entire night before with the Niigata ALT football lads for a farewell do, getting no sleep other than two and half hours on the ferry home, which seemed like a time machine. We were still a bit reeking from a very late but great karaoke performance. Both Matt and I had differing orifices sending very threatening neural messages to our soused brains, that if we put on a pair of shorts and kicked a ball, they'd unleash their payload with as much fury as they could. The other point to note was that I have recently introduced one of the new young PE teachers from one of my schools to the team, and it was his first game. This new player turned out to be the best player I have ever played with. He was awesome! It turns out that he's played to a very high level in Niigata.

Having said that, we were down 0 - 1 at half time though we'd had the majority of possession in a pretty physical game. I was a bit shaky to say the least and I was actually booked, for the first time in my puff, for wellying some poor Shoot Clubber. I chopped him with an uncharacteristic flailing right foot though I wasn't the only guilty one, as every Destroyer seemed to hack this poor wee mite at some point in the match. The referee was bloody awful, but doing his best and I deserved the yellow card. At half time, I knew we were going to win. I couldn't put my finger on it, due to said orifice threats, but I knew we were going to do it. I was moved from midfield to attack in the second half and the change helped I think. Not because of my performance but because the guy they moved into my position played well. I managed to do a job and header the odd ball. Not long into the second half, good old Matt scored the first goal after a header was saved from a corner but not cleared. Matt punted the ball into the back of the net, making no mistake, and set us up for glory. We were all over them and Shoot Club should have been renamed Shat Club, as they were on the defensive big time. It wasn't long before we had another chance and Matt laid off a ball to another good player, Machan, who finished the move expertly. The crowd went bananas. From then on we were cruising and there was only the odd moment when we were under any pressure. The final whistle blew to conclude a great closing game to the 2007 Sado League. To be fair to Shoot Club they put in a typically brave Japanese performance though the score flattered them, in my opinion.

Our captain, Tsuyoshi, a very nice chap, was awarded the cup and the job was a good 'un. He even got the ice water box over the head a la NFL culture. After the disappointingly early exit from Nagano with the ALT team, this made it up for Matt and I, who have been enjoying playing with this nice bunch of Japanese lads. I'll be sorry to leave them.

The final countdown dee-dee-deee deeee...

Bad Rabby, not a mean Scots poet but a mean Japanese rabbit
with a chain and patent leather attitude

Significant events and meaningful happenings are blurring past at an accelerating rate.

It's our last week of our two year stay in Japan, and I still can't believe that we're living in this very foreign land. Many things, including the breath taking scenery, still stop me in my tracks. I won't have to worry about that before long, and this foreign land will fade into a beautifully soft focused memory backdrop that's been power washed with a cocktail of Japanese draft beer, back sweat and shredded dried squid. I'll miss nama birru. Always cold and frothy. I'll not miss back sweat or shredded dried squid.

I'll probably not manage that many more posts from Japan as we've got parties-a-go-go pretty much until we leave. I will endeavour to do my best however anything left over, pictures and tales, will be uploaded when I get back home in and around August. Until then I'll give a quick round up of a few of this month's has beens in the next few posts.

The sleeper has awoken

The future? It's Sting with a jackdaw embedded in his crotch

I love the book and film Dune.

The Freman suits were totally awesome and I always really wanted a pair of Freman underpants. Fair enough, they would look like they were made by a balloon twisting artist, but you could happily go about your daily business without having to so much as think twice about breaking wind (I wander if assembling wind sounds like a fart in reverse), never mind anything else. In fact, you'd be praying for the odd fart as the pants would be able to take the kinetic and potential energy and transform it into something more useful. If I had a pair of these briefs, I'd get them fitted with one of the wierding modules too, at the back or front I suppose, and after some practice you could kill people using only your pants. God knows what noise would be produced and I suppose they'd have to be operated by cocking a leg. A can of beans would be the equivalent of Popeye's spinach and a lot more welcome accompanying a fry up. What a life in Freman pants would be, you'd be able to go around dishing out insults like there was no th'morrow and if anyone tried to kick you in the nuts, they'd be protected by a life supporting pipeline of urine. Hurrah. As long as no one tried to chib your balls, that's below the belt to say the least, you'd be King of the Castle and look super cool to boot. The skiffs above aren't Freman briefs, though they are also crackers.

Ah Dune, wouldn't it have been great if the sleeper had awoken only to hit the snooze button and subsequently damn everyone else for an extra five minutes kip. Just like it would have been great if Neo didn't save man kind as he was "feeling a bit mince today". I mean feeling bad, not literally fondling some minced beef. That would be an even better reason for giving up on man kind however - "Screw you lot! I've a braw bit of mince to fondle, and it's got my name on it!"

Back to reality and no need for a super being, who wasn't quite sure they were a super being, to be able to fanny with our future. I can do that myself you know.

Bongo friendee muzak extravaganza

A fine selection of Japanese muzak, part deux...

Check out the first classy installment here.
Japanese music isn't my cup of tea, it's muzak however rocks my supermarket world.


In other news, when we were driving to dinner this evening I realised we were following a Friendee.


On first appearance, a common or garden Friendee...

As we got closer my excitement red lined from mildly amused, stupified drooling, to raging bull crap mental as I realised we were trailing the elusive Bongo Friendee. The most defiant, shy giant of the people carrying vehicle class. This is the Gaint Panda with Big Feet (the beast not the pick up) of family motoring.

The bugger tried to get away too.


Friendee, not so friendee, trying to scarper along Sado High Street...

I got the pecker though. They had a case of Tab Clear in the back, who'd have thought it!


Bongo Friendee

Taiko - Japanese drumming

JHS kids playing taiko

Here are some of my JHS kids doing a taiko number outside. Please turn the sound up for this one.