The Celebrity Sandwich Shop —セレブサンドの店—

My son has a simple English book called, “Sandwich, Sandwich.” 

The book describes how to make a simple sandwich, including steps such as selecting fluffy bread, slicing a tomato, adding some lettuce, etc. 

It struck me as a good, short topic to use in an English lesson: Tell me how to make the perfect sandwich.  So recently I have been asking many of my students this question. 

One student came up with an interesting answer.  Her husband likes an “Elvis sandwich.”  Apparently, Elvis Presley liked to fill a sandwich with banana, bacon and peanut butter.  So that is an Elvis sandwich. 

How about this for a business idea?:  The Celebrity Sandwich Shop! 

The shop only sells sandwiches, and all are named after celebrities.  Preferably the celebrities are dead, in order to avoid legal troubles.  I’m not much of a chef, but even I can make a sandwich.  Now I just need some ideas for some other celebrity sandwich fillings. 

The Karl Marx sandwich?  The bread is the cheapest available, suitable for the oppressed proletariat.  The fillings are tomato, red pepper and red meat, all drenched in the blood of the capitalist oppressors – sorry, I mean chili sauce. 

The Margaret Thatcher sandwich? (for political balance)

The filling is liver, chickpeas, and dried apricot.  All ingredients are good sources of iron. 

If you have any other suggestions for celebrity sandwich fillings, please send them my way!

 

Vocabulary:

fluffy – light and soft like loosely connected strands of wool (eg. “It is so nice to stroke the fluffy fur of my cat.”)

an oppressor – a group or person who treats people harshly and holds them down in an inferior position

Lots of Love, Mr. President －大統領へ、愛をこめて－

It must be hard to be a world leader.  There are so many things you have to understand, from foreign affairs to economics, from policing to media relations.  And if you make even the slightest mistake, you will be blamed by your country’s angry citizens.  Surely only a fool would apply for such a difficult job. 

That must be why so many world leaders appear foolish. 

I had to laugh when I heard Joe Biden begin a speech by saying, “Let me begin with two words: Made in America!” 

It is hard to appear more foolish than George W. Bush.  One of his many gaffes was this: “If you are a single mother with children, which is the toughest job in America as far as I am concerned, then you are trying hard to put food on your family.” 

But I think my favourite gaffe was from former British Prime Minister David Cameron.  It was recently revealed that for years he signed off his emails and texts with “lol! David.”  He thought that “lol” stood for “lots of love.”  In fact, it stands for “laughing out loud.” 

So, the Prime Minister must have sent lots of emails like this: 

It is my great honour to reward you for your charity work in poor countries.  Without your efforts, many poor people in Africa and Asia would have died.

Laughing out loud!

David

 

Oops!

Vocabulary:

a gaffe – an unintentional act or remark causing embarrassment to its originator; a blunder

Inclusive Travel Report —インクルーシブ・トラベル・レポート－ ジャパンタイムズに記事が掲載されました

I was contacted recently by an organisation which encourages large companies to make their businesses inclusive for disabled people.  They recently released a report about the travel industry, which named the top ten cities in the world for disabled people to travel to.  One of those cities was Tokyo.  I wrote an article for the Japan Times about the report, which you can find here: 

ジャパンタイムズ記事リンク（2022/12/3）

Hasta la vista, baby －アスタ・ラ・ビスタ、ベイビー－

I was searching a news website today for interesting headlines to write about.  How about this one, from the BBC?: 

“San Francisco to Allow Police Killer Robots” 

Just from the headline, it is not quite clear whether the robots are “police killer robots,” meaning that they are robots being used by the police to kill criminals, or “police killer robots,” meaning that the robots are being used by someone to kill police officers. 

Apparently, it is the former. 

In situations of extreme danger, such as a sniper targeting police officers, or a terrorist group determined to kill, it might be too dangerous to send real humans in to incapacitate the suspects.  The “killer robot” could be sent in to incapacitate them instead.  This could include the use of lethal force. 

Some citizens, quite understandably, are a little nervous about the idea of killer robots.  Hasn’t anyone ever seen the Terminator movies?  Killer robots always end up turning against humanity.

In America, there is a campaign group called “Stop Killer Robots.”  A spokesperson for the group said, the robots could, “make humans more and more distant from the use of force and the consequences of the use of force.” 

This story made me remember the ending to the movie, “Terminator 2: Judgement Day.” 

“Watching John with the machine, it was suddenly so clear.  The Terminator would never stop.  It would never leave him, and it would never hurt him – never shout at him, or get drunk and hit him, or say it was too busy to spend time with him.  It would always be there.  And it would die to protect him.” 

I hope the killer robots are always on our side.

 

Vocabulary:

the former – the first of two options given

to incapacitate someone – to prevent from functioning in a normal way; to disable

lethal force – the use of force which results in death