He Don’t Play the Trombone －彼はトロンボーンを弾かない－

Imagine you receive a letter, open it and start reading.  What is the worst thing that could be written in the first line?

How about these for bad things to read in the first line of a letter?

“This is a final demand for payment.”  

“Greetings from your dentist.”

“Hey Charlie, I’m pregnant.”

I think the last one could be the worst.  It is the first line of a Tom Waits song.  I can’t help but laugh at how the situation of this song starts bad, but little by little just gets worse.

Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis

Hey Charlie I'm pregnant, and living on 9th Street,

Right above a dirty bookstore off Euclid Avenue.

I stopped taking dope and I quit drinkin whiskey.

My old man plays the trombone and works out at the track.

He says that he loves me, even though it's not his baby.

He says that he'll raise him up like he would his own son.

He gave me a ring that was worn by his mother,

And he takes me out dancin every Saturday night.

Hey Charlie, I think about you everytime I pass a filling station,

On account of all the grease you used to wear in your hair.

I still have that record - Little Anthony and the Imperials,

But someone stole my record player - now how do you like that?

Hey Charlie, I almost went crazy after Mario got busted.

I went back to Omaha to live with my folks,

But everyone I used to know was either dead or in prison.

So I came back to Minneapolis - this time I think I'm gonna stay.

Hey Charlie, I think I'm happy for the first time since my accident.

I wish I had all the money we used to spend on dope.

I'd buy me a used car lot and I wouldn't sell any of them,

I'd just drive a different car every day depending on how I feel.

Hey Charlie, for Christ’s sake, if you want to know the truth of it,

I don't have a husband, he don't play the trombone.

I need to borrow money to pay this lawyer and Charlie hey,

I'll be eligible for parole come Valentine's day.

Vocabulary:

a hooker – this is slang for a prostitute; someone who sells sex

dope – illegal drugs

“My old man” – this can mean “father’, but in this line means “husband”

a filling station – a petrol station; a gas stand

“How do you like that?” – expressing surprise and disgust, “What do you think of that?”

to get busted – to be arrested

parole – early release from prison

This Is the Secret that Will Change Your Life －これは貴方様の人生を変える秘密です－

Why does YouTube seem to think that I am a fat, lazy, paranoid man who cannot spell, and who has a severe earwax problem?

I say this because of the adverts that are shown to me when I watch YouTube.  Google has a lot of data on me, and is able to personally tailor its adverts to fit that data.  So I am a little concerned as to why these adverts keep popping up on my screen.

First, there is an advert for some kind of magical slimming drink.  “You could become one of the few people in the world who get sexier as they get older.  This is the secret that the 20 billion Dollar a year slimming product industry doesn’t want you to hear.  You don’t have to exercise or go on a diet.  Just drink our…”

Second, there is an advert for a tool to help you avoid spelling mistakes and grammatical errors.  “My sentences used to be clunky, and people struggled to understand what I was trying to say.  But with this amazing new app, my sentences sound clear and concise.”

Third, there is an earwax removal product.  “This is the secret that the 1 billion Dollar a year cotton bud industry doesn’t want you to know.  Cleaning your ears with cotton buds can be dangerous.  But our new, safe, and washable earwax remover…” 

Most of the adverts claim that there is a secret that some huge industry doesn’t want you to know about because, if you knew about this wonderful new product, the old industry giants would collapse.  Are so many potential customers really attracted by crazy conspiracy theories?  It seems like a pretty sad comment on our times. 

And why don’t I get adverts for exciting holidays and adventures, and instead get adverts for fat, lazy people with too much earwax?  Google seems to know that I am now over forty, and am vulnerable to a declining body and a mid-life crisis. 

By the way, why don’t you take English lessons with me?  You can be one of the few people over forty who gets cleverer as they age.  With my new programme of conversation and article based lessons, you can amaze yourself with the speed of your improvement.  It’s so easy that you can study while doing other things, like removing earwax!  The 100 billion Dollar a year language teaching industry doesn’t want you to know this secret, so book now!

Vocabulary:

paranoid – having a false belief that people are trying to harm you

to tailor something – to change something to neatly fit a specific person or group

to pop up – to briefly or suddenly appear

clunky – of a sentence or writing style, not being smooth, or being awkward to read

concise – giving a lot of information clearly and in a few words

a conspiracy theory – a belief that a secret and powerful group is the real reason for an unexplained event (For example, “Some people believe that Neil Armstrong never landed on the moon, and that the moon landings were faked by NASA.  This is a conspiracy theory.”)

 

Wabisabi in Space, and other Stories －宇宙のわびさび、それから他の話－ジャパンタイムズに記事が掲載されました

I recently wrote an article for the Japan Times, in which I “tidied up” some funny stories from last year. 

What would space exploration be like if Japan took the lead instead of America, Russia and China?  How about wooden satellites? 

Are Japanese trains, in fact too punctual? 

Why do some elderly politicians in Japan get away with saying such odd things in media interviews? 

And are pandas really as cute as Ueno Zoo would have us believe? 

These questions are explored in the article.  Here is the link:

ウィルのジャパンタイムズ記事リンク（2022/1/24）

Black Sheep －黒い羊－

Do you have any brothers or sisters?  If you do, were you the favourite child of your parents?  Or was one of your siblings more favoured? 

According to an article I read this week, most people reading this who do have siblings believe that a different child was their parents’ favourite.  In a survey on this topic, about four in five people said that their parents favoured one of their brothers or sisters.  Because most of the respondents came from families of fewer than five children, this cannot be true. 

So children seem to over-estimate the level of favouritism that their parents show to their other siblings.  Perhaps we all like to see ourselves as having been treated unfairly. 

But do parents really have favourite children?  One study of UK parents indicated that 74 per cent of mothers and 70 per cent of fathers do show favouritism towards one child.  However, only about 10 per cent of parents admit their favouritism when directly questioned. 

The article claimed that parents often favoured the youngest child, perhaps because they had become more confident at parenting by the time the last child was born.  Parents also preferred the children that they saw as being most like themselves. 

The least favourite child in the family, or the one who stands out, used to be called the “black sheep”.  Now that it is becoming rarer for parents to have multiple children, there are fewer favourites, and fewer black sheep.  There are more little emperors now!

 

The Little Sumo and the Gingerbread Dragon, part 3 －小さなお相撲さんとジンジャーブレッドの竜 パート3－

In parts 1 and 2, Daddy came out of a betting shop carrying a lot of money that he had won.  The Little Sumo and Mummy stayed in their browney-orange car.  But a knight on a horse thought that their car was a ginger dragon and charged forward to attack it.  When he realised his mistake, he fell off his horse.  Everyone gathered around the knight as he told them about the terrible ginger dragon, which was terrorising the town and stealing money from the inhabitants. 

* 

Just then a shadow passed overhead.  There was a huge rushing of wind, which almost blew the Little Sumo off his feet.  Daddy clutched desperately to the money in his hand to prevent it from being blown away.  There was a loud thump, which caused the ground to shake.  Everyone stared as a huge ginger dragon landed in the street, just next to Mummy and Daddy’s car. 

“Umm…” said the knight.  “Although being an accountant wasn’t such a bad job, really.” 

The dragon’s neck twisted and it stared down at the group with its terrible, reptilian eyes.  It opened its mouth, revealing two rows of very sharp teeth. 

* 

Part 3: 

“Kraaark!  I smell money,” said the dragon.  “Lovely, lovely money to add to my hoard!  Kraaark!” 

The Little Sumo thought that the dragon sounded a bit like a parrot, but also a bit like a human.  He wondered how something so big and heavy could fly.  His book about animals had told him that birds had hollow bones to make them lighter, and make it possible for them to fly.  He wondered if the dragon had a really light body too.  But he couldn’t see the dragon’s bones, of course.  He could only see the outside of its bright ginger body. 

“Kraaark!” continued the dragon, looking at Daddy, and the money he held in his hand.  “Give me your money, or I will eat you up!  Kraaark!” 

Daddy turned to look at the knight, who had claimed to be a dragon slayer.  “Weren’t you going to, um, do something,” said Daddy.  “Wasn’t there some work you had to do?” 

The knight waved his hands frantically.  “You mean some accounting work?  Yes.  Now that you mention it, I probably should be getting back to my office.  I have a lot of accounting work to do.” 

Mummy sniffed the air.  “Is there a bakery near here?  I could swear someone was cooking gingerbread.” 

“Kraaark!” said the dragon, swaying his neck impatiently from side to side.  “I’m getting hungry.  Give me the money quickly, or I’ll eat you!  Kraaark!” 

Daddy looked at the money in his hand and then back at the dragon.  “If you are hungry,” he said, “I could buy some bread from the bakery.  Do you, um, like bread?” 

While everyone was talking, the Little Sumo noticed that the dragon’s huge ginger tail was swishing around.  It came quite close to where he was standing.  “Maybe he won’t notice if I touch it and see if it is very light,, or whether it contains bones,” he thought. 

The Little Sumo reached out a hand and touched the dragon’s tail.  It was strangely soft and squidgy, like a cake. 

“You had better give him the money, Daddy,” said Mummy.  “I don’t want to be eaten.” 

“Kraaark!  Yes.  You shouldn’t keep a hungry dragon waiting.  Kraaark!” said the dragon. 

The Little Sumo squeezed the tail, trying to feel for the bones inside.  Strangely, a large piece of the tail broke off just where he was holding it. 

“Kraaark!  What are you doing?  Kraaark! Shouted the dragon. 

The Little Sumo was now holding a long, squidgy piece of tail.  He peered at it closely, then put one end of the tail in his mouth and started chewing.  His eyes lit up. 

“What is it?” said Mummy. 

“Gingerbread!” exclaimed the Little Sumo, happily. 

Daddy reached out a hand and touched the dragon’s wing.  A big chunk of the wing broke off, and he put it in his mouth.  “It’s gingerbread too!” he said. 

“K – um - Kraaark!  Stay back!  Kraaark!” said the dragon.  It started shuffling backwards, trying to make room for itself to run.  Perhaps, thought the Little Sumo, it needed to build up speed before it could fly away.  But unfortunately for the dragon, it didn’t get far.  Mummy broke off a piece of its other wing, and started munching the gingerbread, and the knight had regained his courage too, and broke off a piece of the dragon’s body.  Suddenly, many of the townsfolk, who had been hiding behind locked doors came out and started tearing chunks of gingerbread off the dragon. 

“Kraaark!  I need to speak to my lawyer.  Um, krark?” 

The gingerbread feast lasted about twenty minutes.  First, the townsfolk finished off eating the dragon’s tail, then the wings, then the legs, then the body, and finally the head.  Gingerbread has this effect on people. 

Under the gingerbread body, there was a flying machine, controlled by the town’s baker.  A wire connected a microphone in the body to a speaker in the dragon’s head. 

A policeman came by, eating something.  “You’re under arrest!” he said to the baker. 

“And you can stop speaking like a parrot!” said Mummy.  “All those Kraaarks are getting annoying.” 

“The Little Sumo looked at what the policeman was eating.  “I spy, with my little eye, something beginning with D.”

 

Vocabulary:

hollow – containing an empty space inside

frantically - desperately

“I could swear…” – I am sure…; It really seems to me that…

to swish – to move with a rushing sound of air being pushed aside

squidgy – (British English, casual) soft, spongy and moist]

 

The Little Sumo and the Gingerbread Dragon, part 2 －小さなお相撲さんとジンジャーブレッドの竜 パート2－

In part 1, the Little Sumo, Mummy and Daddy were on holiday, driving in their browney-orange car.  The Little Sumo thought he saw an orangey-brown dragon in the sky, but Mummy and Daddy didn’t see it, and didn’t believe him.  Mummy parked the car to let Daddy enter a betting shop.  While the Little Sumo and Mummy were waiting for him to return, they heard a strange noise coming from behind their car.

*

The Little Sumo looked round, out of the back windscreen.  “Mummy, look!” he said.

Trotting down the street was a huge white horse.  On its back was a knight in shining armour, carrying a bright and long lance.

He spotted their mud-spattered, browny-orange car and gave a great shout.  “Huzzah!  I’ve got you now and you won’t escape my steel!”

The knight flipped his visor down and lowered his lance, pointing the deadly end forward.  Then his horse came on at speed, charging towards the Little Sumo and Mummy in their car.

*

Part 2:

The Little Sumo saw the knight and the horse getting closer to the car, the knight’s weapon pointing towards the windscreen, right where he was sitting.  He heard Mummy turning on the engine of the car and getting ready to move it.  But she would be too late to escape.

Just then Daddy came running out of the betting shop towards the car, waving excitedly.  “I’ve won!  I’ve won!” he shouted.  He hadn’t noticed the charging horse now coming towards him.

“Whoah!” shouted the knight, lifting his lance to avoid hitting Daddy.  The horse suddenly slowed and came to a stop by jumping and raising its forelegs into the air, halting just in front of Daddy, who looked very surprised.

Unfortunately, the sudden movement of the horse caused the knight to fall backward and off the horse.  He landed with a huge metal clunk on the pavement.

Mummy opened the car doors, and she, the Little Sumo and Daddy all walked towards the fallen knight.

“Are you all right?” asked Daddy.

“What were you doing?  You could have killed us!” demanded Mummy.

“Why are you wearing metal clothes?” asked the Little Sumo.

The knight scrambled to his feet.  “Be careful, Sir!” he said.  “You walked right in front of the ginger dragon!”  He pointed behind Daddy, at the browney-orange car.

Mummy looked round.  “That’s not a ginger dragon,” she said.  “It’s our orange car.”

“With brown mud on it,” added the Little Sumo.

The knight lifted his face visor so that he could see more clearly.  “Oh, yes.  It’s a browney-orange car.  You are right.”

While the knight stood, looking at the car in some embarrassment, Daddy took the opportunity to pull a large wad of green paper bills out of his pocket, and wave them in the air.  “Hey Mummy, Little Sumo – look at all the money I won!”

“Never mind your bad gambling habit just now, Daddy” said Mummy.  “I want to know about this ginger dragon.”

The knight looked at Mummy.  “You must be visitors here, if you haven’t heard about the ginger dragon,” he said.  “In recent days he has been terrorising the inhabitants of this town.  He is very greedy for money.  When the dragon sees a rich looking victim, he threatens to eat them if they don’t hand over their money and valuables.  Like all dragons, he is building a hoard of treasure.  So the frightened townsfolk hired me, a professional dragonslayer, to find this ginger dragon and bring him to justice!  I thought your browney-orange car was the dragon for a moment there.  And that’s why I’m wearing these metal clothes, young man,” he said to the Little Sumo.  “This is armor, to protect my body from the bite of the dragon.”

“Have you beaten many dragons?” asked the Little Sumo.

“Ah…” said the knight, “This will be the first.  I used to be an accountant.  I’m kind of new to the dragonslaying business, really.  I wanted to spend less time in an office, and do more work outdoors.”

Just then a shadow passed overhead.  There was a huge rushing of wind, which almost blew the Little Sumo off his feet.  Daddy clutched desperately to the money in his hand to prevent it from being blown away.  There was a loud thump, which caused the ground to shake.  Everyone stared as a huge ginger dragon landed in the street, just next to Mummy and Daddy’s car.

“Umm…” said the knight.  “Although being an accountant wasn’t such a bad job, really.”

The dragon’s neck twisted and it stared down at the group with its terrible, reptilian eyes.  It opened its mouth, revealing two rows of very sharp teeth.

*

Oh dear!  Will the Little Sumo soon become dragon food?  Will Daddy get to enjoy the money he has just won?  Find out next time!

Vocabulary:

to halt – to bring or come to an abrupt stop

a wad – a bundle or roll of paper or bank notes

a bill – a note; paper money

a hoard – a stock or store of money or valuable objects, typically one which is secret or carefully guarded

The Little Sumo and the Gingerbread Dragon, part 1 －小さなお相撲さんとジンジャーブレッドの竜 パート1－

The Little Sumo was on holiday with Mummy and Daddy.  He sat in the back of the car, intently looking out of the window.  Mummy was at the wheel of their old and shabby orange family car, driving toward their hotel.  In fact their car had once been orange.  Now it was so old an spattered with mud that it had become browny-orange.  Daddy was in the front, in the passenger seat.  He too was intently looking out of the window. 

“I spy, with my little eye, something beginning with H,” said Daddy. 

The Little Sumo scanned the people on the pavement.  He spotted a policeman.  “Hat!” he shouted. 

“No,” said Daddy.  “Try again.” 

Mummy made a suggestion.  “Is it a human?” she asked. 

“Nope,” said Daddy.  “Try again.” 

The little sumo scanned the buildings at the side of the road.  “House!” he said. 

“That’s right,” said Daddy.  “Now it’s your turn.” 

So the Little Sumo looked ahead, then to the side, and then behind the car. 

“Well, hurry up!” said Daddy.  “Have a good look around and just pick something you can see.” 

The Little Sumo looked through the window and up into the sky.  “I spy, with my little eye, something beginning with D,” he said. 

“A dog?” suggested Daddy. 

“No,” said the Little Sumo.  “Try again!” 

Mummy made a guess.  “Uh… a doughnut?” she said.  “I didn’t see that policeman we passed eating one, but I’m quite sure that policemen always have doughnuts.” 

“No, Mummy, you’re wrong,” said the Little Sumo.  “Try again!” 

Daddy spoke next.  “A duck?  No, there aren’t any ducks.  A daffodil?  No, there aren’t any daffodils here either.  Okay, I give up.  What do you see that begins with the letter D?” 

“A dragon!” shouted the Little Sumo, happily. 

Mummy laughed out loud.  “I was just joking about the doughnut.  You’ve got to pick something you can actually see,” she said.  “You can’t just make something up, like seeing a dragon.” 

“But I did see a dragon,” said the Little Sumo, pointing to the sky.  “It had big wings and a long neck, and a tail, and it was kind of orangey-brown.” 

Daddy twisted in his seat to try to get a better look at the sky.  “Well, I can’t see anything,” he said.  Maybe it was a bird or a plane.” 

“It’s gone now,” said the Little Sumo.  “But it was there just before, flying in the sky!” 

“Oh!” said Daddy.  “I spy, with my little eye, something beginning with B - a betting shop!  I want to stop and make a bet on the important horse race today,” he said. 

“Oh, Daddy!  Do you have to go to a betting shop when we are on holiday?” said Mummy. 

“Well, it’s a very big, important race today,” he said.  “I just gamble once a year.  It’s a kind of tradition.  And I might win some money for us to spend on our holiday.”  He looked at his watch.  “The race will start soon.  I think I’ve got just enough time to place my bet.” 

So Mummy parked the car while Daddy went into the betting shop.  Mummy and the Little Sumo waited in the car for him to return. 

After a few minutes, the Little Sumo noticed that his window was trembling slightly, as if the ground under the car was being pushed by a heavy weight.  Then he heard a loud sound coming from behind them.  Clip-clop, clip-clop.  It was getting louder, coming nearer.  Clip-clop, clip-clop! 

The Little Sumo looked round, out of the back windscreen.  “Mummy, look!” he said. 

Trotting down the street was a huge white horse.  On its back was a knight in shining armour, carrying a bright and long lance. 

He spotted their mud-spattered, browny-orange car and gave a great shout.  “Huzzah!  I’ve got you now and you won’t escape my steel!” 

The knight flipped his visor down and lowered his lance, pointing the deadly end forward.  Then his horse came on at speed, charging towards the Little Sumo and Mummy in their car. 

* 

Oh, dear.  I hope that Mummy and the Little Sumo aren’t speared by this knight and his lance.  Will Daddy come out of the betting shop to the scene of a disaster?  And what happened to that dragon in the sky?  Find out in part 2 next time!

 

Vocabulary:

to do something intently – to do something with great focus and attention

to be shabby – to be old and in a bad condition

to be spattered with something – to be randomly covered with many splashes or little pieces of something.  For example, “The workman’s shirt was spattered with paint.”

to make something up – to invent or create something fictional