I’m right, and I’ll shoot myself to prove it! －おいらは正しいぞ！それを証明するために、自らを撃つ－

Some people just love to be right. 

If you present them with an opinion, they will probably disagree.  They will stop whatever they are doing and try to pull your opinion apart, turning it round and yanking it from every angle.

If you present them with a fact, backed up with hard scientific evidence, then they may still disagree.  “Who conducted this so called scientific study?” they will say.  “Can they really be trusted?”

Scepticism is important.  We always need to challenge the information and opinions we hear: Where did this come from?  Could it be wrong?  But life is too short to be forever ultra-sceptical.  There comes a point when refusing to believe just damages yourself.  People will stop inviting you to parties, for one thing.

Some people are so determined to prove you wrong that they will even shoot themselves to do it.

This was literally true in the case of Clement Vallandigham.  He was an American lawyer who shot himself in 1871 while demonstrating that his client was innocent of the charge of murder.  He wanted to show that the dead man had not been murdered, but had in fact shot himself accidentally.  To show how easily a gun could go off when pulled out quickly, he pulled out his own gun in the same way.  It went off and he shot himself and died.  Apparently, he had forgotten to take the bullets out.  So his scepticism was shown to be well founded.  But was it worth it?

Donald Trump famously claimed that climate change was a hoax, despite all the hard scientific evidence to the contrary.  His scepticism is not just shooting America, but the rest of us as well. 

And what of Britain?  We have recently heard plenty of sceptical voices.  During the Brexit referendum campaign, every time an economist said that Britain’s economy would be damaged, politicians said that they must be biased or wrong.  Every time a diplomat said that the EU would punish Britain and offer them a bad deal, politicians said the diplomats were just protecting their own jobs. 

And how are Britain’s attempts to negotiate with the EU going?  The EU is united and strong.  Britain looks weaker than ever, with the Prime Minister’s authority reduced after the recent election.  An EU diplomat told a British journalist, “Britain has shot itself in one foot.  We intend to shoot you in the other.” 

But don’t worry.  Those same sceptical politicians will tell us that everything is all right.  The bullet isn’t a real bullet.  The blood we seem to be losing is just fake blood.  Maybe we should stop inviting these sceptics to our parties.

 

Vocabulary:

to pull something apart – to destroy something or break it into pieces by pulling

to yank – to pull with sudden force

to conduct – of business, negotiations etc., to carry out, to do

scepticism – the habit of not easily believing, of questioning

ultra – a prefix (placed before another word to make a new word) - extremely

well founded – having a solid basis

a hoax – a fake claim, a lie, scam etc.

biased – supporting one side unfairly against another

 

Tormented by pink Nova bunnies in the night ‐ ピンクのNOVAウサギに悩まされた夜－

I am grateful for getting an uninterrupted night’s sleep.  My son had a fever for three days and kept waking up in the middle of the night and demanding attention.  At last his fever broke and he slept through the night.  After several exhausted days, so did I. 

But I had a long dream about working at Nova.  In the dream I hadn’t prepared any lesson plan and had to make it all up as I went along, confusing both myself and the students.  In other words, it was very much like a real Nova lesson. 

Teaching at Nova was my first job in Japan, which I did for about a year and a half.  I worked in a very busy branch and we usually had to teach seven or eight lessons a day.  I had only 10 minutes to prepare between lessons.  I was just out of university, with no previous experience, and with only three days of training to fall back on. 

So inevitably I would sometimes go into lessons without any idea of what to do.  The best trick I learned was to give the students a task for the first five minutes and to try to come up with a lesson plan while they were talking to each other. 

“Talk to each other about a book you have read.  You have five minutes.  Start.” 

But sometimes, like in my dream, I couldn’t come up with a plan at all and just started babbling, confusing myself and the students. 

“Well today’s lesson seems to be about the word ‘have’... So, uh, do you guys have anything?  No, that’s too simple.  What do you have and what don’t you have?  I mean like, I don’t have a refrigerator but I do have a headache.  Uh, Miki?  [45 minutes later]  Well, I think we all learned something about the word ‘have’ today.  Have a nice day.” 

The resulting embarrassment seems to have left some deep mental scars, since I am dreaming about it more than ten years later.  When a pink Nova bunny gets into your head, it’s hard to get it out again. 

And yet I did have my fans amongst the students.  I really did start babbling and tell the class that I didn’t have a fridge.  And the next week one of the students offered to give me a fridge.  I accepted and my beers were cold thereafter. 

Naturally, after that I started mentioning lots of other things that I didn’t have during the lessons.  I got that fridge, a tv, and two girlfriends out of that “What don’t you have?” lesson. 

So Nova did give me some useful things too.  Not just pink bunnies in the night.

 

Vocabulary:

to torment – to cause pain and suffering

for a fever to break – for a fever to end, and the high temperature to drop

to fall back on – of a plan, basic knowledge or training etc., to rely upon as a reserve option after the main plan etc. hasn’t worked or helped

to babble – to make meaningless noises or speak without expressing clear meaning

a refrigerator/ a fridge – a kitchen appliance used to keep food, drinks etc. cold

 

She spent her life by the washing machine. It’s the perfect tribute －彼女は洗濯機のそばで人生を過ごした。それは彼女にぴったりの賛辞だ。－

Do you have any romantic notions about what should happen to your body after death?  Perhaps you would like to be cremated, and your ashes scattered into the sea.  Perhaps you would like to be buried next to your lover, so you can spend eternity in each others’ arms. 

I have decided what should happen to my body after death.  I want to be given a final spa treatment, my body washed so clean that only white bones remain.  Actually, according to a BBC article I read about “water cremation”, only my white bones and my surgical implants would be left.

This new treatment has started in Canada and America, and will come to Britain soon.  The body is treated with chemicals at a high pressure and temperature.  This causes the soft parts of the body to dissolve.  As with cremation by fire, the bones are left and are crushed into powder.  But while cremation by fire leaves black, burned ashes, the water cremation leaves the bones as white powder.

It sounds lovely and clean, doesn’t it?  In some ways it makes me think of a final spa treatment, cleaning the body thoroughly.

On the other hand, in some ways it makes me think of a trip to the launderette.  According to the BBC article, the body is placed in a huge tank.  Then to activate the machine, someone presses a button marked “cycle”, like on a washing machine.  The machine then beeps twice and the tank starts to fill with water, again like a washing machine.  The treatment takes about three hours, including a final rinse cycle.  The waste water, including the chemicals and the dissolved parts of the body has a kind of soapy smell, like you get in a launderette. 

Perhaps your loved one deserves a final spa treatment after death.  Or perhaps they have diligently washed your clothes so often that you feel a final trip to the washing machine would be the perfect tribute. 

Either way, it will be interesting to see if water cremation catches on.

Vocabulary:

a notion – an idea or thought

to be cremated – for a body to be burned after death

to scatter – to throw over a wide areaa surgical implant – a medical device or artificial body part put into one’s body

to dissolve – of a solid object, to break down and become thoroughly mixed with a liquid

 launderette – a place with coin operated washing machines for people to wash their clothes

diligently – with care and hard work

to catch on – to become popular

 

Have a break, eat a Chocolate McWilliam － 一休みして、マクウィリアム・チョコを食べよう －

If I used the slogan, “Have a break, eat a Chocolate McWilliam” in an advertising campaign, I could be taken to court in the UK.  That’s because the giant chocolate makers Nestle have trademarked the phrase, “Have a break.”  For years they have been using it as their advertising slogan for KitKats: “Have a break, have a KitKat.” 

So no one else can use the phrase, “Have a break” in their adverts.  Is that fair?  It seems like a very short and generic phrase to me.  Is it really so connected with the KitKat bar?  Couldn’t you just as easily say, “Let’s have a break.  Let’s have a cup of tea”? 

But Nestle are not content just to trademark slogans.  This week they lost a court case in the UK in which they tried to trademark the shape of the KitKat bar.  It has four fingers of chocolate connected together.  If they had won the case, then any other four fingered chocolate bar would have breached Nestle’s intellectual property rights. 

Actually, my advertising slogan, “Have a break, eat a Chocolate McWilliam” would not be allowed for another reason.  The giant hamburger chain McDonald’s has trademarked the use of “Mac” and “Mc” in any connection with food or drink.  Sorry, but there will never be a Chocolate McWilliam. 

People do realise that Mc is a very common start to family names in Scotland, don’t they?  Indeed, McDonald is a common Scottish family name.  So if your name is Mr. McLeod and you want to open a tea shop called “McLeod’s Tea, you may find yourself taken to court.

These giant companies are just being very cheeky, aren’t they?  They are trying to trademark basic words, sounds, shapes , colours etc.  People know when they are buying a KitKat because it says “KitKat” on the front in large letters.  It’s not because sticking four bits of food together is amazingly unique. 

By the way, when I started the English school NerimaEnglish, I trademarked the letter “N”, the colour blue, and the response “Hmmm” to a student’s question.  Anyone wishing to use any of these things in connection with English teaching now owes me money.  Please email me for details of where to send the money and how much.

Vocabulary:

to trademark something – to register an item, idea etc. as representing a company or product

generic – not unique; commonplace

to breach someone’s rights – when someone is entitled to a certain minimum standard of treatment, to act in a way that does not meet that standard

cheeky – showing a lack of respect or politeness, especially like a child or in an amusing way

 

Frankenstein was a Doctor too, you know －フランケンシュタイン博士も医者だったさ－

The men in my family don’t like seeing the doctor or taking medicine.  Well, who does?  But I mean the men in my family really don’t like seeing the doctor or taking medicine.

I learned that until a recent viral infection which could not be ignored, one of my relatives hadn’t had any hospital tests since he was a little child.  That would be fifty or sixty years ago.  That is not because he has been super healthy.  He has gotten sick many times but just waited for the sickness either to get better on its own or to kill him.

He has always thought, “Sick people go to the hospital.  Therefor, to avoid getting sick, all I have to do is avoid going to the hospital.”  I am sure that there is a flaw in this logic somewhere. 

Another, older relative also avoided the hospital like he would have avoided a trip to Count Dracula’s castle or Doctor Frankenstein’s laboratory.  Even when he was in his eighties and was coughing badly, he refused to go.  His sons had to trick him into going.  They contacted his doctor and asked him to call as if by chance, and to arrange a visit as if it were a social call.

“Oh, Mister [X],” he said.  “We like to invite our patients in to chat once in a while.  It’s important that the staff don’t forget your face.  This is all perfectly normal.  We will be finished after a quick chat and a cup of coffee.” 

Of course, he left after an x-ray, and holding some bottles of medicine for his lung infection. 

Sadly, my baby son seems to have inherited the family curse.  He has an ear infection and we are supposed to give him anti-biotics.  We’ve mixed the medicine with mashed banana, chocolate flavoured gel, peach flavoured syrup...  We’ve tried holding his head back to force him to swallow.  We’ve tried waiting until he is very hungry.  No matter what, the medicine ends up everywhere except down his throat. 

I’m sure that it’s hard to feed medicine to any baby.  But it is much harder when the family curse is telling the baby, “Don’t drink that evil potion of Doctor Frankenstein, or you’ll wake up as a monster!” 

Oh, well.  We will keep trying. 

Maybe this distrust of doctors is not a curse anyway.  My older relative lived into his nineties.  Perhaps the family theory has been correct all along?

 

Vocabulary:

a viral infection – the presence of a virus attacking the body

a flaw – a problem; a mistake

logic – reasoning; clear and rational thought

a social call – a visit to chat, renew a friendship etc.

to inherit – to receive from one’s parents, grandparents etc.

anti-biotics – a type of medicine taken to help kill viruses or other infections

to swallow – to take food, liquid etc. from the mouth into the throat

a potion – a liquid with healing, magical or poisonous effects

 

Living under a pair look prime minister －ペアルック首相の治下で暮らすこと－

This week the British Prime Minister Teresa May appeared on a lightweight daytime tv show with her husband, Philip.  They didn’t talk about politics but talked about the mundane chores of daily life and how a powerful leader shares these with her partner.

Teresa and Philip claimed that he does “the boys’ jobs”, such as taking out the bins.  By the way, don’t tell my wife that taking out the bins is a boys’ job.  You have to wake up very early in order to catch the bin lorry.  As everybody knows, boys need more sleep.

It seems that Teresa May is worried that people see her as a cold politician and not as a human being.  So appearing on tv to discuss domestic chores with her husband might make the electorate see her as a normal person just like them.

But it is a risky strategy for a politician seeking election to allow the tv cameras a glimpse into their family life.  What if their family have some habits which seem normal within the family because they have been doing them for years, but which will seem ridiculous to outsiders?  Does your husband pick his nose and then flick away what he has found when he thinks that nobody is watching?  Does he wear socks with holes in the toes?  What would it do for the politician’s career if their husband was caught with some such embarrassing habit?

Philip May seemed to do quite well on tv.  He didn’t do anything stupid, or exciting.  He just sat there and looked like rather an ordinary man, which was probably the whole aim of appearing on tv.

Some people, though, did notice that Teresa and Philip had developed something of a “pair look”.  They had similar fashion sense, and even used gestures in a very similar way to each other.  The pair look happens to many couples that have been together for a long time.  Perhaps the wife starts to buy more and more of the husband’s clothes, or vice versa.  Perhaps they just spend so much time together that the other person’s dress sense and gestures seem so normal that the two different styles start to merge.

In any case, we had better get used to our pair look Prime Minister.  With the main opposition Labour Party stuck with an unpopular leader, it seems like she and Philip will be around for another five years. 

I’m off to get ready for bed.  My wife has bought me a lovely new pair of fluffy pink pyjamas which will keep me nice and warm – and very stylish too, she says. 

Vocabulary:

lightweight – of a conversation, topic etc., not serious; trivial

mundane – boring and everyday

a chore – a small everyday task

a bin – a place where you put rubbish, trash etc.

the electorate – all of the people who can vote

or vice versa – or the other way around

to merge – for two things to start to join together and become one

 

Still waiting for my monkey god to emerge －まだ私の猿神様の出現を待っている－

“Born from an egg on a mountain top,
The punkiest monkey that ever popped.
He knew every magic trick under the sun,
To tease the gods and everyone and have some fun.”

From the Godiego song, “Monkey magic”, theme from the tv series, “Monkey”

One of the early blogs I wrote on this site was about the value of perseverance.  I considered the different attitudes to it in the UK and Japan.  One of the points I highlighted was the Japanese idiom, “Ishi no ue ni mo san-nen”, or “Sit upon the rock for three years.”

According to one interpretation of this idiom, you can achieve great things by continuing even a simple thing for a long time.  Perhaps someone learning the piano can greatly improve their technique through constant practice.  If they give up as soon as it becomes boring or difficult then they will never become a great musician.  Over time, perseverance has so much power that it can even warm a stone so much that it splits open if you sit on it for long enough.

Well, I have followed the advice of the idiom and persevered at writing this blog.  This is my 156^th article, written at a rate of one a week.  That means I’ve been sitting on this rock for three years.  I’m getting some huge blisters on my bottom.  Has it been worth it?

According to the idiom, what is supposed to happen now?  Does the stone, finally warmed sufficiently by my blistered bottom, turn into an egg and crack open?  What comes out then - a mischievous monkey god?

And what if that doesn’t happen?  What if, after sitting on a rock for three years, I find that it’s still just a rock?

Maybe the idiom can be turned around.  Sit upon the rock for three years.  That’s not a minimum length of time, but a maximum.  If you sit upon a rock for three years and a magic monkey god hasn’t popped out by then, then it is never going to happen.  If you’re still sitting at a piano after three years of effort and can barely play a tune, then it’s time to quit.  Don’t be a fool!  Get off the rock.  Get up and put some ointment on your blistered bottom.  Find another hobby.  Get a girlfriend.  Just get away from that stupid rock!

Oh, well.  In the old article I wrote, I suggested that I would give up alcohol for three nights a week and stick at it.  At least I didn’t sit on that rock for three years.  Perseverance is nice.  But there must be limits.
 

Vocabulary:

to emerge – to come out

perseverance – the habit of continuing something and not quitting

an interpretation – a way of understanding the meaning of something

a blister – a painful swelling on the surface of one’s skin

sufficiently – to an adequate degree; enough

mischievous – causing mischief; tending to play tricks or cause trouble

ointment – a kind of cream used as a medicine to treat blisters, rashes, sore skin etc.