I told you we shouldn’t have named our baby Adolf! －だから、アドルフって名前にすべきじゃないって言ったのに－

I read an article this morning which said that 20 per cent of British parents end up regretting the name they choose for their baby.  I know the feeling.  My wife gave birth to our first child last week, and we thought long and hard before naming him Ewan.  I wanted something which was Scottish, but we also needed something that worked in Japanese, and that hopefully he wouldn’t hate later in life.

It’s easy to see how you might come to regret the name you choose, even if you don’t pick something as obviously ill-advised as Adolf or Akuma (the name, meaning “wicked Devil” that an unfortunate Japanese child was given).

Just think of the poor parents who searched long and hard for an unusual but stylish name – something that would stand out from the crowd.  Eventually they find the name “Elsa” and are sure that the name has given their daughter the ring of dignity and uniqueness she deserves.  Then the next month the Disney movie Frozen comes out starring a princess named Elsa.  Now whenever they introduce their baby, people say, “Oh, like the princess!” or, “She does look a bit Scandinavian, doesn’t she?” or, “Careful with that ice, Elsa, ha ha!”

And that’s not as bad as the poor couple who chose to be even more unique and name their daughter after an ancient Egyptian goddess of health, marriage and wisdom.  When they chose the name Isis, I’m sure they thought it sounded beautiful and was full of hope and positivity, as well as being very unique.  Then shortly afterwards the terrorist group ISIS (the Islamic State in Syria group) became known the world over for beheading people and playing football with the heads.  There’s not much positivity there.  Now when they introduce their baby, they have to start with the explanation, “We don’t actually support terrorism, you understand.”

Well hopefully no terrorist group calls itself EWAN, Disney don’t do a Scottish themed blockbuster starring Prince Ewan, and that he doesn’t grow up to hate his name and change it to Taro.  At least we didn’t call him Adolf.

Vocabulary:

ill-advised – not sensible or wise; misguided

wicked – bad; evil

to stand out – to be noticeable or distinct

(to have) the ring of (dignity) – to sound or appear dignified

Scandinavian –[the film Frozen was set in a fictional Scandanavian kingdom]

to behead (someone) – to cut (someone’s) head off

Superhuman Brits and confusing commentary at the Olympics －オリンピックでの超人的な英国人と分かりにくい解説－

How have the Olympics been for you?

It turns out that my country is a nation of superhumans.  That has been nice to know.  Britain is currently second in the Olympic medal table.  With a population of around 65 million, we are ahead of China.  Who said that Brexit would be an economic and cultural disaster?  Actually, I think I did.  Well, the Olympics are showing that we still have some energy in Britain after all.

But on the other hand, I have found it quite difficult to enjoy most Olympic events.  Without being able to see the impressive sight of powerful athletes, or graceful gymnasts, or at least the weird sight of synchronised swimmers, I am left listening to the commentary.

I can enjoy listening to football commentary.  A good commentator can paint a picture of the players’ movements and the flow of a complicated game.  For example: Maradona has the ball on the left wing.  He flicks the ball past the full-back and makes it to the by-line.  He whips in a cross...  Can Pele get on the end of it?  He jumps with Beckenbauer.  And he bullets a header into the top left corner of the goal, past the hand of the despairing goalkeeper Banks!

In contrast, how would a commentator describe Olympic events?  Can you even work out which event the commentator is describing? 

1
Bang!  They’re running.  They’re running.  They’re running.  And it’s all over!  Jamaica win the gold!

2
He could hit a really big nail with that!  Now he’s starting to spin.  He’s going round and round.  He lets go.  Thud!  Okay, here comes the man with the tape measure. 

3
Boing!  There she goes.  She has jumped quite high.  Boing!  This time a jump and a twist.  Boing!  This time a jump and a flip.  Boing!  A jump and a back-flip.  Boing!  Oh, no.  She moved her leg.  The judges won’t like that.

4
She runs up.  She does the funny little dance and jump.  And she as landed in the sand.  She looks pleased.

5

The two competitors take one final look at each other.  Now they get ready to jump, bouncing gently on the board.  There they go.  Splash!  Oh, my.  Should the water be that green colour? 

Perhaps you can see how difficult it is to enjoy the Olympics from the commentary alone!  But enjoy the rest of the events.  And well done to all the medallists, especially the superhuman ones.

 

Vocabulary:

Brexit – British exit from the European Union

a gymnast – Someone who does gymnastics, or indoor events using mats, trampolines, springboards, parallel bars etc.

synchronised – of events, clocks, actions etc., arranged so that they occur at the same time

boing – the sound of something bouncing
 

Events:

1 – The 100m sprint

2 – The hammer throw

3 – The trampoline

4 – The triple jump

5 – The synchronised diving.  Due to a mistake when cleaning, the pool turned green at this year’s event.

 

 

Follow the past masters, but not too closely －名人を真似ろ、ただしそっくり過ぎるのはダメ－

1 - It is the best of creative times, it is the worst of creative times

So much great work has been written in the past that we have run out of new ideas, and writers are forced to shamelessly borrow from successful works of the past.

For evidence of this you need only look at the increasing number of lawsuits for plagiarism in the music world recently.  American band Spirit unsuccessfully sued Led Zeppelin over the similarity of parts of the famous hit “Stairway to Heaven” to their own song, “Taurus”.  Ed Sheeran is facing two separate lawsuits over plagiarism.  The most recent one claims that he copied large sections of Marvin Gaye’s hit, “Let’s get it on” in his own hit, “Thinking out loud”.

2 - Someone must have slandered Jimmy P., for one morning, without having done anything truly wrong, he was sued

Jimmy Page, the guitarist in the band Led Zeppelin successfully defended the band from the charges of plagiarism in an American court.  But even though he won, the band will still have to pay their own 600,000 dollars in legal fees.

It has always been difficult for musicians and writers to make money from their work.  It used to be record companies and publishers that kept most of the profits.  Now that they are also having difficulties, it is the lawyers who smell the chance for a profit.

3 - Successful writers are all alike.  Every unsuccessful writer is unsuccessful in their own way

Although Led Zeppelin won their lawsuit, it is interesting to note the reason that they won.  It was not because the jury decided the tracks were not alike.  It was because the similar parts are also like sections of lots of other songs.  Led Zeppelin successfully argued that they were not copying a single track, but were following a long copied tradition.  Perhaps Ed Sheeran will make the same argument.

If so many successful creative works become popular by closely following long copied patterns, perhaps to find something truly original you should look at unsuccessful works and unknown writers instead.  You would never find me borrowing sentences from famous creative works of the past!

Vocabulary:

shamelessly – without embarrassment or shame

a lawsuit – a legal dispute taken to a court to be decided

plagiarism – The illegal copying of another person’s work

to sue – to take legal action against; to bring to court

to slander – to say unfair or untrue things that damage someone’s reputation

a jury – a group of citizens who decide if someone is guilty or innocent in a trial

 

1 – Title adapted from the opening lines of Charles Dickens’ “A tale of two cities”

2 – Title adapted from the opening lines of Franz Kafka’s “The trial”

3 – Title adapted from the opening lines of Leo Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina”

Shame on you －恥を知れ－

Being shamed in front of a crowd of onlookers can be very painful.  Picture yourself making a mistake at work and your boss pulling you into his office to criticise you.  Now picture your boss waiting for a large meeting to criticise you in front of all your colleagues.  How much worse would that be?  And what if your boss could record your shaming and broadcast it all around the world?

An innocent English teacher was once shamed in a minor way in front of his class of Japanese students.  At the end of the lesson, he turned to a pretty female student, smiled and said, “Have a nice weekend.”

She looked at him somewhat coldly and replied, “Shame on you.”

There was a short silence.  The class wondered why she was so angry.  Did she feel that the teacher was trying to chat her up and was being sleazy?

It turned out that she had actually meant to say, “Same to you,” and had merely misspoken.  But the teacher felt the embarrassment of his public rebuke quite painfully for a moment nonetheless.

I recently finished a book which suggests that much larger scale public shaming is gaining in popularity in the internet age.  The book is “So you’ve been publicly shamed” by Jon Ronson (2015).

Jon Ronson picks out many examples of people who misspoke, or wrote a badly worded or thought out joke, or broke the social rules in some minor way, and who were then subjected to a vicious attack from strangers on the internet.

One example was of an American woman who often travelled on business.  She had a blog with only a few followers in which she would write cynical jokes about the countries she was visiting – joking that she might not find anything to eat in Britain since its food has such a bad reputation, for example.

Just before boarding a plane to South Africa, she joked that she hoped she wouldn’t get AIDS while in the country, but that she probably wouldn’t because she was white.  It’s not a very funny or appropriate joke, but it seems clear that she didn’t mean it seriously.

So when thousands and thousands of people wrote furious messages to her, many people suggested that she should be violently attacked, and she was sacked by her company before her plane even landed, the reaction was disproportionate.

As a writer of a blog who often makes cynical or silly jokes, I felt sympathetic.  Reading the book also made me consider more carefully what I joke about.  For example, a big news story in Japan recently concerns the Emperor.  Many news organisations are reporting that he would like to abdicate.  I wondered whether I could find something in the story to write about before I began to worry that saying something silly about the Emperor might cause people to get angry.  Now you’ll never know my anecdote about seeing the Emperor one day in Kyoto, and what silly thoughts I might have had about it.

You can always read Jon Ronson’s silly anecdotes to keep yourself amused instead.

Vocabulary:

to chat someone up – (informal) to flirt with someone; to make romantic advances towards someone

sleazy – of a person, vulgar or inappropriate, especially someone who makes inappropriate sexual advances

a rebuke – a sharp criticism or expression of disapproval

vicious – deliberately cruel or violent

disproportionate – of a reaction, response etc., being unequal to the original comment or situation; over the top

to abdicate – of a member of a royal family, to give up one’s position; to cease to be king, Emperor etc.

an anecdote – a short, amusing story

 

A world of sci-fi killer gadgets, and a gadget killer － キラキラSF機器の世界と機器殺し －

How often do the predictions of science-fiction writers come true?

Not very often.  For example, do you remember the film “2001: A space odyssey” by Stanley Kubrick?  Weren’t we by now supposed to have astronauts comfortably flying around to far off planets, and computers so intelligent that they suffered nervous breakdowns?

Well, this week I found one science-fiction story which has proved remarkably accurate in its depiction of the future.  “The murderer” was written by Ray Bradbury in 1953.  That was sixty-three years ago.  I’d like to post a few extracts of the story.  See if anything about his imaginary world rings (and beeps, and flashes, and rings again) true about the world today. 

In the first extract, a prisoner meets the prison psychiatrist for the first time.  He has been arrested for destroying gadgets such as tvs, telephones, radios, a robot vacuum cleaner and so on.

 “The murderer”, by Ray Bradbury (1953), extract 1:

“I’m here to help you,” said the psychiatrist, frowning.  Something was wrong with the room.  He had hesitated the moment he entered.  He glanced around.

The prisoner laughed.  “If you’re wondering why it’s so quiet in here, I just kicked the radio to death.”

*

The psychiatrist is uncomfortable in a room without gadgets and confused as to why anyone would want to destroy technology.  And why does the prisoner talk so passionately about “killing” gadgets?  He explains how difficult it has become to avoid the constant noise and interruption of technology and electronic communication...

Extract 2:

When it wasn’t the television or the radio or the phonograph it was motion pictures at the corner theatre; motion pictures projected, with commercials projected onto [clouds]... When it wasn’t [advertisements on clouds], it was music... in every restaurant; music and commercials on the buses I rode to work.  When it wasn’t music, it was inter-office communications...
*
The prisoner goes on to explain how, with his wrist radio always attached, his boss could contact him all of the time...

Extract 3:

You can’t leave your car without checking in: “Have stopped to visit gas-station men’s room.”

...”What took you so long?”

“Sorry, Sir.”
*
The prisoner remembers the scene on a public bus.  Nobody is paying attention to the people around them, but are focussed instead on using their personal communication devices.  Most of their conversation is just pointless descriptions of what street they are now on...

Extract 4:

[On the bus] sat all the tired commuters with their wrist radios, talking to their wives, saying, “Now I am at Forty-third, now I am at Forty-fourth, here I am at Forty-ninth, turning at Sixty-first.  One husband cursing, “Well get out of that bar, damn it, and get home and get dinner started.  I’m at Seventieth.”  [And the bus radio playing music and commercials.]
*

The psychiatrist decides that the man must be mad, and goes back to his world of constantly bleeping and flashing devices.  The prisoner is equally sure that the world must be mad and looks forward to enjoying the quiet of his prison cell. 

That’s quite an impressive prediction of how the world was set to go from a man writing in 1953!  I don’t want to destroy all technology, of course.  I’m happy to have x-ray machines and aeroplanes and computers.  But when I am sitting on a train and everyone is totally engrossed in their smartphones, or when people playing Pokemon Go start ignoring the rules and dangers of the real world because they are so engrossed in their virtual game (as I wrote about in last week’s blog), then I feel sympathetic to “The Murderer”.  Perhaps some gadgets deserve to be killed after all.

I’ll leave you with a final thought from Ray Bradbury’s short story.

Extract 5:

They went too far.  If a little music and keeping in touch was charming, they figured a lot would be ten times as charming.

*

Vocabulary:

a killer gadget – slang: an amazing, or amazingly cool piece of technology

an astronaut – a human who travels to space

a nervous breakdown – a collapse of mental stability

to ring true – to sound accurate; to have the sound or feel of truth

a psychiatrist – a doctor who treats mental problems

to frown – a facial expression involving the wrinkling of the skin of one’s forehead, usually showing displeasure

men’s room – male toilet

to be engrossed – to be absorbed; to be so focussed on something that you don’t notice anything else

I’m bored with reality - Give me monsters －現実に飽きた。モンスターちょうだい－

“As the internet of things advances, the very notion of a clear dividing line between reality and virtual reality becomes blurred, sometimes in creative ways.”
Geoff Mulgan

 “Gotta catch ‘em all!”
From the Pokemon franchise 

In a maternity ward, a new father ignores the birth of his first child because he is busy catching a monster.  In Singapore, a man is deported for a bitter harangue against the country where he can’t find any monsters to catch.  On the banks of a river, a teenager searching for monsters instead finds a dead body.  In a museum commemorating the victims of Nazi murders, people repeatedly disturb the solemn quiet to battle monsters.  In Phoenix, monster hunters break into private property to get at a monster.

These are some of the strange incidents caused by the release of the new Pokemon Go game.  The game is marketed as “augmented reality”.  That is, it adds to reality, rather than creating a virtual world wholly and clearly separate from reality.  Players have to go to places in the real world to find monsters to catch.  If they use their device’s camera, they can see the monsters, which seem to exist in the real world.

The game has become wildly popular.  I wonder if this is a craze, which will be successful for a while before the novelty wears off.  Or is this the future?  Will we see more and more role playing games blending their virtual worlds with the real world?

As some of the stories above show, people are already getting into trouble in the real world because they have become so absorbed in the world of monsters.  My favourite of the strange stories was the Australian who was transferred to Singapore.  He had become so addicted to playing Pokemon Go in Australia that, when he found out that it wasn’t available in Singapore, he became furious.  He recorded a nasty rant about the country and posted it on Youtube.  He claimed that any country that didn’t have Pokemon Go was “stupid” and that Singaporeans must be stupid.  Some Singaporeans saw the video and contacted the man’s company to complain.  He was fired, and the Singaporean government even stepped in to take away his visa and deport him back to Australia.  Perhaps he found a monster in Singapore after all.

What will happen when other video games copy the idea of augmenting reality?  For a war game, will you have to travel to real bridges and strategic points in order to virtually shoot opposing players?  I can see the blending and confusing of reality and virtual reality causing problems in America, where there are so many real guns around.

I think on the whole I like my monsters to stay in the land of fantasy, or at least locked away in the cupboard.  If we let the monsters loose into reality, who knows when they will turn on us?

 

Vocabulary:

a notion – an idea

blurred – clouded; fuzzy; hard to see clearly

to be deported – to be forced to leave a country by that country’s government

a harangue – a lengthy and aggressive speech

to commemorate – to respectfully remember, especially after someone’s death

solemn – serious and respectful

augmented – having been added to or made greater

a craze – widespread but short-lived popularity

novelty – the interest which comes with something being new

furious – extremely angry

a rant - an angry, out of control speech

 

I want my 14 minutes and 55 seconds of fame! －14分55秒の名声がほしい！－

“In the future, everyone will be world famous for 15 minutes.”

Andy Warhol

“On the Web, everyone will be famous to 15 people.”
Attributed to Scottish artist, Momus
 

Andy Warhol’s comment in the 1960s that everyone would, in the future, have 15 minutes of fame has become something of a cliché.  With the democratisation of sources of news and information, such as social media, Youtube, and even humble blogs, the idea has seemed prescient.

The more recent quote that on the Web, everyone will be famous to 15 people is a humorous, but also telling observation.  If more people are providing information, then fewer people must be accessing each source of information.  Bloggers and Youtube posters can have fame of a sort...  if the 15 people who read or watch really love their posts.  By the way, it would be rude to ask how many people read this blog!

Anyway, I had brief contact with a more traditional source of news recently.  Just before the British referendum on leaving the EU, I got a call from a Japanese tv station, asking if I would appear on a national morning news show to give my opinion on the vote.

Naturally, I immediately thought of the advertising possibilities and agreed.  If I could just get them to mention my Tokyo English school - Nerima English - or the fact that I teach Skype lessons and telephone lessons to students who could be anywhere in Japan.  The students would come flooding in.  Wouldn’t they?

So a cameraman and an interviewer came round to my school and talked to me in Japanese for about 15 minutes.

We immediately ran into difficulties.  The interviewer asked if I agreed with the proposal in the referendum, or disagreed (賛成しますか？ または賛成しませんか？)  This confused me.  The referendum question was worded without a Yes or No answer in English.  It asked, “Should the UK leave the European Union, or remain in the European Union?”

Interviewer:  Do you agree with the referendum proposal or disagree?

Me:  Um...  What?

Interviewer:  Umm...

Me:  I want to stay in the EU.  Do you understand?

Interviewer:  Ah, okay.  Let’s move on. 

The interviewer then asked me why I wanted to remain in the EU.  I took a deep breath and then started a long, rambling speech.  I tried to explain that I was worried about the direction a leave vote would send British politics in.  I explained about the workers’ rights that the EU protects, and my fears that a UK outside of the EU would try to gain an economic advantage by ending these protections, and perhaps ending our wonderful free health-care system.

I spoke about other points and fears – about Scotland’s future being unclear, damage to the economy and Britain’s influence in the world, and so on.

And after the exhausting 15 minute interview, what did they show on tv?  I appeared for about 5 seconds.  On the tv screen, I said, “Britain has a free health-care system.”  And then they moved on to another British person.  Viewers wouldn’t even be sure if I supported leaving the EU, or supported remaining.  There was no mention of an English school in Tokyo.  No flood of new students...

I want the rest of my 14 minutes and 55 seconds!  Somebody call Andy Warhol!  I was promised 15 minutes!

 

Vocabulary:

the Web – the worldwide web; the internet

to attribute  a quote to (someone) – to say that (someone) made the quote

a cliché – an overused phrase

prescient – displaying a knowledge of the future, or an ability to accurately predict the future

telling – revealing; significant

to come flooding in – of offers, letters, emails etc., to suddenly appear in huge volumes, like a flood of water

rambling – of a journey or speech, to move randomly and widely from place to place, or from topic to topic