Information, Information, Information －情報、情報、情報－

Do you want to know a secret?  Do you want to have access to hidden knowledge that no one else in the universe has? 

Winston Churchill had toast for breakfast on the day he became prime minister.  That was it.  That was the secret. 

People say that knowledge is power, but it has to be useful knowledge.  And most knowledge is useless.  You have to try to find the useful knowledge within the great sea of useless information, like a fisherman patiently catching fish. 

That seems to be the message of a short story I read yesterday, anyway.  In a sci-fi story by Stanislaw Lem, two clever robots are captured by a pirate.  The robots offer the pirate gold, but he refuses. 

“I want knowledge, not gold,” says the pirate.  “I am a university educated pirate.  So I know that real power comes from information, not pretty metal.” 

The pirate demands that the robots tell him everything that they know before he will let them go.  The robots are worried.  They know a lot of things, and it would take a very long time to tell everything to the pirate.  So they come up with a plan. 

“If it is knowledge you seek, we can make for you a gift that will keep on giving.  We can summon a demon which will scribble down secrets and forgotten or hidden information as fast as you can read it.  Only you will have access to all this information.” 

The university educated pirate agrees, and the robots summon the demon.  Then they quickly run to their spaceship and escape before disaster strikes. 

The demon does start scribbling hidden information onto an ever growing pile of paper.  It rained in Amsterdam on the 1^st of July, 1187.  Mary Queen of Scots had three pairs of blue socks.  English teacher William’s grandmother was nicknamed “Gam” because his older brother couldn’t correctly say the word “Gran” when he was a child, and the name stuck… 

And so on.  Before the pirate realizes what is happening, he is suffocating in useless information.  Soon the paper is so thick around him that he is trapped and cannot escape.  He has to spend the rest of his days consuming pointless facts. 

If you ever find yourself scrolling social media “news” feeds and reading endless headlines of celebrity gossip, perhaps you will understand how the pirate feels.

 

Becoming Britaly －イギタリアになること－

“You know, people come to Italy for all sorts of reasons, but when they stay, it's for the same two things."

"What?"

"Love and gelato.”

from “Love and Gelato” by Jenna Evans Welch

 

“You may have the universe if I may have Italy”

Giuseppe Verdi

 

I think that the U.K. is becoming Italy, and I don’t know how I feel about it. 

The news is reporting that yesterday saw a temperature of 36.7 degrees, and people in the south of Britain are currently experiencing the warmest June night ever. 

This is not the weather for traditional British cups of hot tea, and grumbling complaints about how cold it is.  It is also not good for our old houses, built to keep the heat in rather than the heat out. 

At the same time, Britain is about to get its seventh prime minister in the last ten years.  Since Brexit, we have become politically unstable and, according to many observers, ungovernable.  Britain was traditionally seen as politically conservative, boring and predictable.  It was always Italy in the past that changed prime minister almost every year. 

Are Scotland or England going to suddenly win the World Cup this year, instead of failing miserably as usual?  Will the quality of British food improve?  Will the people become more passionate and expressive of their emotions? 

I’m sure it won’t be all bad living in the new land of Britaly.

 

The Customer is Always Right? －お客さんはいつも正しい？－

I went to the supermarket this morning with a guide.  My guide helps me do my shopping, taking me around the aisles and looking for the items that I request. 

I wanted to buy some dried apricots, which I had bought before.  But this time my guide couldn’t find them in the dried fruits section. 

She turned round and said, “Hold on.  I’ll ask someone about the apricots.” 

I heard her asking someone behind me, and a young man answering. 

“I think they should be on this shelf here, if they are here at all,” he said.  “Let me see…  There are prunes, cherries, raisins.  But I don’t see any apricots.” 

My guide got a little impatient with the young man.  “Well, do you have the apricots or don’t you?  Have they been moved to another shelf?” 

The young man got a bit flustered at the criticism and then said, “You know, I don’t actually work here.  I’m just a customer.” 

It was quite embarrassing.  We had been pestering the man and getting him to search the shelves, somehow assuming that he was a staff member. 

I never did find those dried apricots.  I will have to make do with prunes instead.

 

A Shot at Glory －栄光への一撃－

“I could [have] had class.  I could [have] been a contender. I could [have] been somebody – instead of a bum, which is what I am.”

Spoken by Marlon Brando’s character in the 1954 film, “On the Waterfront”

 

What makes success?  Opportunity, certainly.  Hard work, generally.  And a little bit of luck, more often than people like to admit. 

My son’s elementary school was testing the physical prowess and endurance of its children recently.  In an endurance test, the children had to run between two points and back again before a certain time limit was reached.  The time limit got shorter and shorter as the test progressed, making the feat harder to achieve even as the kids got more tired.  As soon as the child failed to make the goal one time, the test was over and the number of completed runs the child had managed was counted up. 

From memory, my son completed only about 14 runs in the same test last year.  But he goes to a karate dojo, and they have been practicing a similar activity.  So my son was doing much better this year.  He got to twenty runs, then thirty.  He passed forty runs, then fifty.  Now he was approaching the best performers in his whole school year.  There were only two boys still ahead of him.  He tasted glory.  To be the top performer in his whole year! 

At 55 completed runs, one of my son’s shoes suddenly fell off.  We had bought him a new pair of gym shoes recently, and had bought a pair that were a little too big for him, so that he could grow into them.  The new shoes cost him his shot at glory.

There is always next year….

 

Stepping Out 一歩踏み出す

One advantage to watching a story on television, rather than watching a story being told at a theatre, is that the actors on television cannot step out of the screen and attack the viewer.  At least, as long as the character of Sadako in the Japanese horror film “Ring” is really only fictional. 

Just how different it is to watch a play was felt by an audience member in a London theatre this week.  After an emotional play about a serious topic finished, one of the actresses came back out onto the stage.  She then pointed into the front rows and complained that an audience member had been texting on his smartphone all through the play’s most dramatic and emotional scene.  The actress asked him to consider how difficult this was for the actors to see, given the effort they were putting into telling a powerful story. 

“I just hope you are a doctor and were texting something vital to save a patient’s life,” she said. 

The rest of the audience gasped and applauded the actresses criticism of the distracted texter. 

I think people should do this more often.  When my family and I had just finished our meal at a family restaurant, we went to a self service cash machine to pay the bill.  Several people were standing in front of the only machine, chatting to each other instead of putting their money in and letting the next person have access. 

We just stood quietly and waited for them to leisurely finish their conversation and eventually get round to paying.  What we should have done was step into their little bubble of reality like Sadako. 

“People… I think you will find that there is a queue forming behind you.  As much as we are all fascinated to hear about your nephew’s school grades, I think it is time for you to PAY ATTENTION TO WHAT YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO BE DOING!” 

I’m not being too harsh, am I?  No, I didn’t think so.

 

A Lost Generation －失われた世代－

There was an interesting and worrying report published in the U.K. this week.  It is about how difficult it is for young people in Britain to get a job. 

Twenty years ago, the number of young people classified as “NEETs” – people not in employment, education or training – climbed to more than 100,000.  The government of the time warned that unless this changed, it might create a lost generation.  The number of young NEETs has just risen to more than 1,000,000, a massive increase.  Now 13.5 per cent of young people of working age in the U.K. are NEETs.  Six in ten of them have never had a job. 

The report says that there are many factors causing this, including a fall in the number of casual jobs, such as in bars, high street shops and restaurants which are suited to young people.  Another reason is an increase in mental illness in youngsters, which some people blame on smartphones.  Another reason given is the increase in the minimum wage that young people are entitled to, and increased rights for workers and taxes on business, making it less attractive for businesses to take a risk by hiring a young worker.  Then there is damage caused by the coronavirus pandemic and disruptions to education. 

It has always been difficult for young people to get a good and well paid job.  My older cousin told me that years ago he was given his first job by our uncle.  Our uncle owned several shops and a bar. 

“I can give you a job,” said our uncle.  “It will be tough work, but a good experience for you.” 

So my cousin took the job, working in the bar at night.  He took orders, cleaned glasses and learned how to pour drinks.  He was surprised to find that his uncle’s bar offered night entertainment to his gentleman customers, including a stripper. 

At the end of a hard first evening’s work, my cousin went to our uncle and asked for his wages.  Our uncle pointed to the lady entertainer who had taken her clothes off. 

“You got to see that for free didn’t you?  You don’t need any more wages than that.” 

My cousin quickly started looking for another job.

The Football Kid －フットボール・キッド－

Karate Sensei Kreese:

What do we study here?

Karate class (shouting):

The way of the fist, sir!

Kreese:

And what is that way?

Karate class (shouting):

Strike first; strike hard; no mercy, sir!

 

“Lesson not just karate only.  Lesson whole life.”

Mr. Miyagi

Both from the film, The Karate Kid

 

My nine year old son plays for his school football team.  They take part in competitions against teams from other schools, as well as private football clubs. 

The private clubs tend to have better players, and stricter coaches.  The school teams want to give a chance to all of the children to play, not just the best ones.  That is just as well for my son, since he is not one of the best players! 

Especially for young children, there has to be some balance between trying to win and trying to develop other life skills, such as confidence, friendship, and an appreciation of hard work.  At least that is how I see it. 

Not everyone agrees with my view, however. 

My son’s team were playing one of the strongest private club sides in the area recently.  My son’s team scored a goal against their better opponents.  Then the captain of the other team shouted, “Come on, guys!  We shouldn’t be losing goals to a team as bad as this!” 

This is where the coach of the club side should have said something like, “Hey, xx-kun!  You shouldn’t say things like that.  Don’t disrespect your opponents.” 

Instead, the coach just laughed.  I got the impression that the captain was repeating the same thing the coach had said to the team before the match.  It made me think of the coach as the nasty karate teacher, Mr. Kreese who taught the children in his dojo to compete with no mercy or sympathy for their opponent. 

I hope there is still room for teachers more like Mr. Miyagi, whose karate training methods included trying to catch a fly with a pair of chopsticks.