A Small Pond for Small Fish －小さな魚に、小さな池－

Scotland’s national sport is football – that is the sport that some countries call soccer.

We used to be really good at football, probably because we have been playing it for such a long time.  Mary, Queen of Scots (1542 – 1587) is said to have enjoyed playing an early version of football.  My own favourite team – Celtic – were once the champions of Europe. 

The trouble is, Scotland is a small country.  And once every other country in the world started playing football, we became less and less successful at it.  After 23 years of trying and failing to reach a major tournament, Scotland’s men’s national team qualified for this year’s European Championship.  We had home advantage at our first game, which we nevertheless lost on Monday to the Czech Republic.  So it is more melancholy for us. 

100 years ago Scotland was a big fish in a little footballing pond.  As the popularity of football has grown around the world, we now find ourselves to be a little fish in a huge ocean.  So I would like to suggest that Scotland stops trying to do well at football, and finds a less popular sport.  If our country of 5 million people put all of its effort into producing competitive trampolinists, we could be confident of being the best in the world.  A trampolinist in a well knows nothing of the wide ocean (as long as he doesn’t jump all the way to the top of the well). 

I think this is true, not just for countries, but for individuals.  Why learn the piano?  You will have to compete against millions of pianists for attention.  Wouldn’t it be better to be the best bongo player in Tokyo?

 

Vocabulary/ notes:

to have home advantage – in a sporting contest, to host the match at your own local ground

melancholy – a persistently gloomy state of mind; a feeling of being down or depressed

“A trampolinist in a well…” – A well is a hole dug into the ground to find drinking water, which can be pulled up with a bucket.  this is based upon the Japanese proverb, “A frog in a well knows nothing of the great ocean.”

 

I Always Knew Osaka was Great －やっぱり大阪はめっちゃええ－

Congratulations, Osaka!  You win the silver medal in the category of “World’s Most Liveable City”.

There is a yearly ranking of the world’s cities by a group called the Economist Intelligence Unit.  The group considers a number of factors, such as how stable life in the city is, how well developed its infrastructure is, how good its healthcare provision is, and how well it educates its citizens.  Then it compares 143 major cities around the world, and ranks them from 1st to 143rd.  In the 2021 list, Osaka came 2nd, and Tokyo came 5th.  The overall winner was Auckland in New Zealand.  Adelaide (Australia) came third, and Wellington (New Zealand) came fourth.

The EIU, who made the list, said that the coronavirus pandemic affected this year’s results.  Many European cities fell down the list because their health systems suffered greater problems than cities in New Zealand, Australia and Japan.

But are the EIU using the correct criteria to judge cities?  How would the different cities rank according to these factors?

Best Street Food:  Bangkok and Singapore move up the list.  Osaka still does well.

Best Green Spaces and Access to Nature:  My hometown, Glasgow does well.  Sydney does well.  Osaka falls.

Best Musical Culture:  Glasgow shoots to the top of the list.  New Orleans creeps up.  Tokyo also does well.

Best Alcohol Culture and Access:  Dublin makes an entry.  Osaka and Tokyo still do well.

What would you include in the criteria for deciding the most liveable city on the planet?

Vocabulary:

to be stable – to be able to withstand shocks, changes, difficulties, etc.; not subject to too much change

infrastructure – things such as roads, water pipes, railway lines, etc., wich are useful to human societies or economies

A Vaccination Haiku －ワクチン俳句－

Vaccination chat

Washes Tokyo’s streets like

June’s opening rains

I wrote a little haiku, inspired by the constant chat I have been hearing lately about vaccines.

My acquaintances and students in their seventies are starting to get appointments. They worry about possible side-effects. “My friend couldn’t raise her arm for two days,” one of them told me. “My appointment is not until July. So I still have time to think about whether I will take it or not,” said another.

For what it is worth, I would definitely get vaccinated if I could get an appointment. I think of getting vaccinated as like putting on a seatbelt. It is uncomfortable, but it might save your life. In a tiny minority of cases, the seatbelt might even get stuck around your neck and do you harm. But the odds are very much better that it will protect you.

It is not just people of retirement age who talk about vaccinations these days. My younger students talk about helping out their parents and grandparents to book an appointment online. In an alternate universe, in which the coronavirus hadn’t jumped to humans, all the chat would be about something else – perhaps the rainy season, or planned holidays abroad.

It will be nice, once everyone has been offered a vaccination, to be able to talk about other things.

Vocabulary:

an alternate universe – a different reality from the one we are living in

How Michael Jackson made his unique sound －マイケル・ジャクソンはどうやってあの独特な歌い方を作ったか－

I have never been a big fan of Michael Jackson, the so called “King of Pop.”

But I was listening to some of his songs on Spotify recently, and I was reminded how many great hits he had – Thriller, Bad, Smooth Criminal and Blame it on the Boogie, to name a few.

What you also notice about Michael Jackson is his unique singing style.  He punctuates his singing with little squeals and funky noises, which are a bit like high-pitched coughs.

“Ah-hnng – Stop pressuring me!  Ah-hwyygh – Stop pressuring me – Glagh – It makes me wanna scream – Whoo!”

Listening to the great variety of little noises he made while singing, it made me wonder how he came up with his unique singing style.

After much consideration, I decided that probably he was performing in shoes which were two sizes too small for him.  One day, he must have ordered a new pair of shoes, and put them on just before the concert started.  They were too tight for him, but the concert was just about to start and he had no time to find another pair.  So he went on stage and started singing and dancing, all the while in a lot of pain from his tight shoes.

“You know I’m bad – Aoow! – I’m bad – Eek! – I’m really, really bad – Ouch!”

The audience loved his new sound.  And Michael wore those tight shoes for the rest of his career.

 

Vocabulary:

to punctuate A with B – to mark A with regular little breaks of B.  For example, “He was very unhappy.  He told me what had happened, but he punctuated his story with cries and sobs.”

a squeal (verb: to squeal) – a very high cry or sound.  For example, “The piglets (baby pigs) squealed to get their mother’s attention.”

 

Are You a Cat Person? －ネコ派ですか？－

 What a wonderful thing it is to have a pet!  When you feel stressed or down, they are a great comfort.  And in times of crisis, they can help in other ways. 

I am more of a cat person than a dog person.  Here are some thoughts I had about the usefulness of pets in a crisis.

 

The Long Siege Swing 

Well, hungry honey, let me whisper in your ear:

Everybody wants to eat a cat,

Because a cat’s got meat and fat,

If you know where it’s at.

Notice: everyone’s picking up on that feline meat,

‘Cause even the dogs are obsolete.

 

A rat with a tail

Makes your jaw muscles fail,

When they chew the plague.

With a ‘roach in a pot,

Though with mustard, and hot:

It will taste quite vague

Cha-cha-ba-dum-bo-day

 

Who wants to catch a lark, or bony stuff like that;

When everybody wants to eat a cat?

 

Vocabulary:

a siege – a military operation to surround an enemy or group, and prevent them from accessing food or supplies

feline – of cats or related to cats

obsolete – no longer produced or used; out of date

a ‘roach – a cockroach (a kind of insect)

a lark – a kind of bird

 

An Olympics without Fans －ファンのいないオリンピック－（ジャパンタイムズに記事が掲載されました）

I wrote an article about the delayed 2020 Tokyo Olympics.  You can find the link here:

ウィルのジャパンタイムズ掲載記事リンク（2021/05/10）

 

The Olympics usually has exciting moments, such as underdogs surprising everyone by winning their event.  But will the Olympics be exciting without the atmosphere produced by fans in the stadiums?  How exciting can a 100 meter sprint really be, when it finishes in only ten seconds?

 

Vocabulary:

an underdog – a person who is expected to lose in a competition or contest

A Four Year-old’s Idea of Death －４歳児が持つ死のイメージ－

How do you teach a four year old about death? 

Thankfully, my four year old son has never had to see any people die.  But he nevertheless got into some kind of panic about the concept of death recently. 

The trouble started when he got confused about the connection between getting older and getting bigger. 

“When I’m five,” he asked, “Will I be as big as Mummy?” 

“No,” I answered.  “Maybe you’ll be bigger than Mummy when you are 16.” 

“And when will I be bigger than you, Daddy?” he asked.  “Will I be bigger than you when I am 100?” 

I laughed.  “No.  When you are 100, I will be dead.” 

He didn’t seem upset at the time, just a bit confused.  He had never experienced death as a problem for humans.  Perhaps the only time we had previously discussed death in front of him was when we bought poison in case we had any trouble with cockroaches. 

But a few days later, when I was about to brush his teeth, my son suddenly started sobbing uncontrollably.  “I don’t want you to die, Daddy!” he said. 

“I’m not going to die for a long time, don’t worry!” I said.  “And anyway, when I die, I’ll go to Heaven.  It will be great in Heaven.  Maybe I can meet God there, and I can ask him lots of questions.  And when you get very, very, very old, you can meet me in Heaven again!” 

By the way, as I see it, there are no cockroaches in Heaven.  They go to their own afterlife, I think. 

I thought I had solved my son’s tears and panic about death.  But I think I talked about Heaven just a bit too much.  A few days later, my son started crying again.  “I want to go to Heaven now!” he said. 

No wonder people came up with religions, in order to have an easier answer to give to these sorts of questions.

 

Vocabulary:

to sob – to cry noisily, making loud gasps for air between tears