Where old information and old friends go to die －古い情報と友達が死にに行くところ－

Where does old information go to die?

Apparently cats find a quiet spot to hide in just before they pass on.  Humans often go to the hospital.

So there ought to be a final resting place for old diary entries, secrets and personal information we don’t want to share.  But there isn’t.  Old information just lingers on, waiting in the shadows to be brought into the light once again.  Old information is like a zombie.

I was reminded of this recently by Facebook.  I had a profile on Facebook for a few years.  It was a useful way to keep in touch with old friends I didn’t see socially any more.  That’s where old friends go to die, by the way.  When they have stopped coming to your house, and no longer call you, they appear on Facebook instead.  But anyway, I stopped using my profile about seven years ago.  I deactivated it and then forgot about it.

That was until a couple of weeks ago, when I got an email from Facebook saying, “Welcome back!  Thank you for reactivating your profile!”

It wasn’t me who had reactivated it, of course.  Someone had managed to steal my password to open my profile page.  I presume that they were criminals looking for useful information which could be used to access my bank accounts.

Well, nothing has disappeared from my bank accounts so far.  And I managed to contact Facebook to let them know that I had not suddenly moved to Brazil (from where my profile was accessed), and asked them to permanently delete my account.  It’s much easier to deactivate your account than actually delete all the information.  Deleting it is a process which takes several weeks.  It’s hard to kill zombies.

I couldn’t help but wonder what the criminal thought about me as he looked through my profile.  I worried that I might  not have led an interesting enough life for him.  I remember making a virtual bookshelf, showing some of the books that I loved.  Do Brazilian criminals like Haruki Murakami?  I posted photos from my holidays.  Did my photos make him want to go to Shanghai and Chiang-Mai, or was he bored flicking through them?

I have read that using Facebook can make you unhappy.  The reason is that you can see all your friends’ old information – all that they have chosen to share with you.  And because they want to make their lives look interesting, they only share the good bits.  So everyone else’s life looks great, while you are sat at your computer doing something boring like uploading some photos or commenting on someone else’s photos.  So you feel bad in comparison.

My New Year’s resolution for 2018 is to lead an interesting life.  I want it to be interesting for me, and not for any Brazilian criminals who might want to take a look.

Happy New Year!

Vocabulary:

to linger on - to continue, especially when it seems natural to finish, leave, die etc.

to see someone socially – to meet someone for fun, not for business etc.

to deactivate something - to turn something off; to make something unusable

to reactivate something – to turn something back on, to make it usable again

virtual – not real, existing only as a computer image

to flick through something – to look at something only briefly

 

Hand-knitted mittens, spotted ties, and the tricky business of Christmas presents －手編みのミトン、水玉模様のネクタイ、それからクリスマスプレセントの微妙な問題－

I thought that Christmas was great when I was a child.  The main reason was that I was given presents.  Santa Claus, my Mum and Dad, and even distant relatives gave me presents.  And since I didn’t have a job or money, I wasn’t expected to buy Christmas presents for other people.  They pretended to be happy with the card I made for them or the wonky picture I drew of a reindeer.

But Christmas gets more difficult the older you get.  You have to think of presents to buy for other people’s children.  “Would he like a traditional Japanese toy, do you think?  Is she old enough to read this book yet?  Do they allow their kids to eat sweets?”  Buying satisfying presents can be a tricky business.

A story by Saki which was, I think, written around 1904, illustrates this point.  The narrator is a selfish young man who is very demanding about the presents he receives.  I have edited it to make it easier for English learners to follow.

An edited extract from “Reginald on Christmas presents,” by Saki:

“There ought to be classes on the science of Christmas present giving,” said Reginald.

No one seems to have the faintest notion of what anyone else wants.  And common ideas about it are just wrong.  There is, for example, the “female relative”, who knows “a tie is always useful,” and sends you some spotted horror you could only wear in secret.  It might have been useful if she had kept it to tie up strawberry bushes with, when it would have had the double advantage of supporting the branches and frightening away the birds.  Few people have worse taste in Christmas presents than the average female relative.

This is especially true of aunts.  They are always a difficult case to deal with in the matter of presents.  The trouble is that you never know them when they are young enough.  By the time you have made them understand that you do not want to wear a pair of hand-knitted mittens, they die!  Or quarrel with the family, or do something equally inconsiderate.

There is my Aunt Agatha, for instance.  Last year I had educated her enough that she bought me a pair of gloves of a style which was being worn.  But they were blue!  I sent them to a boy whom I hated intimately.  He didn’t wear them, of course, but he could have.  Of course I wrote and told my aunt that they were the one thing I had wanted to make my existence bright.

If you can’t choose your aunt, then it is wisest in the long run to choose the present and send her the bill.

*

Merry Christmas!

Vocabulary:

wonky – a casual word, meaning not straight, bent out of shape etc.

tricky - difficult

“the faintest notion” – the smallest idea (eg. “I didn’t have the faintest notion,” means “I didn’t have even a small idea”)

one’s aunt – one’s mother or father’s sister

to quarrel with someone – to argue or be on bad terms with someone

the bill – the charge; a demand for payment

A message for all women – We’re not exaggerating －すべての女性へのメッセージ ～僕らは大げさじゃない－

Hold the front page!  A mysterious phenomenon has just been shown to be real.  Many people doubted its existence.  They laughed at the many men who claimed that it was true.  Now those who scorned will have to eat their words and say sorry.

It is not Bigfoot.  It’s not the Loch Ness Monster.  It’s not ghosts.  It’s the dreaded man-flu!

What is man-flu?  Well, I can tell you easily since I am experiencing it now.

A few mornings ago – on my birthday no less – I awoke after a very troubled sleep.  I had a fever.  My throat was extremely rough.  When I stood up, I had an awful headache.  I knew immediately I was being attacked from inside by man-flu.  I reached for some painkillers to deal with my headache, but bending over to get them out of the drawer was making my headache much worse.

“help... me...” I croaked weakly to my wife.

“WHAT?” she demanded sharply, showing little sympathy.

Being a woman, of course, she doesn’t understand man-flu.  She will catch the same cold, virus, or flu as I do.  But her symptoms will be a little bit milder.  Her throat will be rough, but not quite as sandpaper rough as mine.  Her head will ache too, but not quite as brain-stretchingly as mine.  So she gets annoyed when I complain, thinking that I’m exaggerating.  She thinks that I should just put up with the symptoms.  Until now she hasn’t known that my symptoms are worse than hers.  Women, that is man-flu.  It’s like flu, but worse.

And how do I know this?

A Canadian researcher has claimed that men really do suffer higher rates of hospitalisation and death because of flu.  He says that this may be because men have weaker immune systems than women.  This may be because men use more of the body’s energy growing, or producing growth hormones.

So it is the duty of all women to be more sympathetic to men who are ill.  And you can start today with my man-flu.

Vocabulary:

“Hold the front page!” – a phrase shouted in a newspaper office when some vitally important news suddenly emerges

a phenomenon – a hard to explain event or process

to scorn something - to show that you think something ridiculous or that you lack any respect for it

to eat one’s words – a casual phrase meaning being forced to admit that what you said was wrong

dreaded – greatly feared

to croak – to speak in a very weak voice

to exaggerate – to make something sound worse or more serious than it actually is

 

Beating traffic jams with magical thinking from China －中国からの魔法の考えで交通渋滞を打破すること－

Traffic congestion must be a big problem in China.  Not so long ago, almost everyone got around by bike.  Now a great many people can afford a car.  So the roads quickly fill with vehicles and workers have to face a horrible commute stuck in long traffic jams.

Wouldn’t it be nice if a single magical solution could make the problem go away?  Why couldn’t you just fly above the traffic jam, or make all the other traffic disappear?

This year a crazy sounding plan to build a fleet of “traffic-straddling buses” was tested and eventually abandoned.  The idea was to build buses with wheels touching the ground, but the body of the bus and passengers lifted high into the air, so that normal cars could drive in the space underneath.  It is a little like buses flying above the traffic.  But because the wheels of the bus are still touching the ground, it is not really flying.  It is more like riding on a giant elephant, while people riding smaller animals (donkeys?) pass happily underneath.  It certainly sounds like an ambitious idea, if a little dangerous.  You don’t want to be passing happily underneath an elephant when he farts, for example.  I don’t know if that was why the traffic-straddling buses idea was abandoned.

And I read a story this week about another Chinese man’s big idea to get around the traffic jams on his daily commute.  In the middle of the night he crept out and repainted the traffic signs on the roads he used.  He commuted by bus, so he painted the signs to give buses a priority lane running most of the way to his office.  Normal traffic was directed away from this special lane, allowing his bus to move along much more quickly.  It was a simpler plan than flying above the traffic jams, although a lot more selfish.  His plan eventually backfired when he was caught on CCTV.

So neither plan worked.  But you have to admire the attempts.  Sometimes imagining magical solutions can lead to interesting ideas.

Vocabulary:

congestion – the state of being blocked, stuck, unable to move etc.

a commute – a regularly taken journey from home to work, school etc.

a traffic jam – a line of cars or other vehicles unable to move quickly

to straddle – to sit or stand with one leg on either side of (eg. He straddled his horse)

to fart – to pass wind; to release gas from your lower body

to creep – to move slowly or quietly in order to avoid being noticed

a priority lane – one part of a road, which is reserved for certain types of vehicles, such as bicycles (a cycle lane) etc.

to backfire – of a plan, to have the opposite effect intended

CCTV – Closed-circuit television, often security cameras