A Heavy Hitting Event －重みのあるイベント－

Sumo has come to the U.K..  London’s Royal Albert Hall is hosting a professional sumo tournament featuring forty of the biggest names in the sport. 

Apparently, the tournament has been a success so far, with tickets quickly selling out. 

I read an interesting interview with someone responsible for making the Royal Albert Hall, which is more famous for hosting classical music concerts, ready for the tournament.  Some of the biggest problems involved dealing with the weight of the athletes.  The regular chairs could only support 100kg of weight, and so were not strong enough for the wrestlers.  Sturdier chairs which could hold 200kg of weight had to be installed instead.  And the toilets had to be reinforced to deal with the risk of them collapsing under the weight of a wrestler with indigestion. 

The venue also had to take out expensive insurance to cover the possibility that someone sitting on a ringside seat would be squashed by a sumo falling out of the ring. 

Perhaps the tournament will inspire a young British boy, and in twenty years we will have a British Yokozuna?

 

Sunflowers in Grey －向日葵を灰色で－

I read an interesting book about the brain recently. 

It told the stories of a number of patients who had suffered brain injuries, to illustrate how different parts of the brain had different functions, and what happened when these functions were disrupted. 

In one case study, there was an artist in New York who lived by painting.  His paintings were very bright and colourful.  One day he was involved in a traffic accident and suffered a head injury.  He quickly recovered from his injury, except for one detail.  He lost the ability to see colours.  His eyes were uninjured, but the part of the brain which interpreted light signals as colour had been damaged.  He could only see the world in shades of black and white. 

The artist suffered from a severe bout of depression, since he no longer felt able to paint his bright, colourful pictures.  He began to sleep longer during the day, and to sit up awake at night.  The nighttime world of moonlight and dimly lit streets seemed more suited to shades of grey than bright colour.  Eventually the artist started painting nighttime scenes in shades of grey, and no longer missed his ability to see in colour. 

Small and Slopes to the Left －小さくて、左を向いているー

“You can tell a lot about a person’s character from their handwriting, you know?” 

“Oh, really?  Well, I have a couple of letters here.  I wonder if you could tell me about the two writers?” 

“Sure, let me see…  Well, this first person is an extravert.  You can tell from the big loops that they use in their a’s, b’s and d’s, etc..  And the rightward slant of their letters indicates an expressive personality.” 

“I guess that sounds kind of accurate.  And what about this second letter?” 

“Oh, that’s easy.  This was written by a doctor.” 

“That’s incredible!  How did you know that?” 

“Because I can’t read a word of it.  Only doctors have handwriting this bad.” 

* 

There was an interesting story from India this week.  A judge ordered that all doctors in the Punjab region write their prescriptions using capital letters.  This came after a government doctor was asked to make a medical examination of an alleged crime victim.  The handwriting of his report was so messy that not even one word of it could be understood by the judge.  He became concerned that this could lead to chemists misreading prescriptions or directions, and patients being given the wrong medicine. 

* 

“Well, Madam, it says here that you are suffering from heartache and are looking for a pink kitten.  I’m not sure our pharmacy can help you.” 

“Um, no.  I am suffering from headaches and am looking for a painkiller.”

 

Vocabulary:

an extravert – a person with an outgoing personality, who is not inward looking

[eg., For an actor or other performer, it helps to be an extravert.]

a slant – of a line, the property of not being straight and leaning in a particular direction

[eg., The Leaning Tower of Pisa has a very noticeable slant.]

a prescription – a note written by a doctor which allows a patient to order medicine from a chemist

[eg., Don’t forget to take your prescription to the pharmacy.]