The time of life to be grumpy －イガイガの時期－

“I charm you and tell you of all the boys I hate,
All the girls I hate,
All the words I hate,
All the clothes I hate,
How I’ll never be anything I hate,
You smile, mention something that you like,
How you’d have a happy life if you did the things you like”
Lyrics from “The dark of the matinee,” by Franz Ferdinand

“The 35 to 54 year old group of men is the grumpiest of any in Britain today: Grumpier than their parents, who survived the war and felt lucky to draw their pensions; Grumpier than their children, who seem perfectly happy taking a lot of drugs and spending all night on the internet.”
From British tv series “Grumpy old men”from 2003

Curmudgeon is a lovely sounding word. But that is not reflected in its meaning. A curmudgeon is a bad-tempered or surly person. Someone who is always grumpy or complaining about life is a curmudgeon. If you go to a flower viewing party and complain that there are too many people, and that there aren’t enough bins, and that those people over there are talking too loudly, then you are probably a curmudgeon.

The thing is, no one likes a young person who is bad tempered. There is a sense that you should be enjoying the prime of your life. But it is kind of acceptable for older people to be curmudgeonly. If you worked hard when you were young only to see the younger generation laugh at you because you struggle to use a smartphone, then perhaps you have a right to be grumpy. If you’ve got various aches and pains which come with old age and you see youngsters running around without effort, maybe it is understandable to be a little envious.

I realised last week that I am taking my first steps towards being a curmudgeon. I was in Kamakura with my wife. We were slowly inching our way up a hill near a famous temple. We were holding onto one another for support and trying not to look too tired from the climb. Then a group of kids came screaming and running down the hill beside us, full of slightly idiotic energy. I spent much of the rest of the afternoon getting irritated by their over enthusiastic displays of energy.

Oh, well. It is my 35^th birthday in a couple of weeks. According to the tv show “Grumpy old men,”which I have quoted above, I am entering the perfect time of life to be a curmudgeon. It’s time to start practicing the phrases I’ll need:

“It’s not like it used to be in the old days.”
“Why do they have to have the music on so loud?”
“Oh, not a party!”
“Why are those kids still awake after 9 pm, anyway?”

I feel a little better already. Being grumpy seems to suit me.
 

Vocabulary:

grumpy – bad tempered and sulky

to draw a pension – to take out or receive money, usually in old age, after you have retired

the prime of one’s life – the best or most important time in one’s life

to inch one’s way (forward/up/down etc.) –to move at a very slow pace, advancing by inches (a few centimetres) at a time

 

Surviving minimalism －ミニマリズムから生き延びる－

My wife recently discovered a smartphone app which allows the user to sell things directly to other people with the same app.  It’s a bit like taking your old things down to a second hand shop and cashing them in, except that you don’t physically have to go anywhere.

My wife is not a woman who does things by halves.  Every night I am disturbed by the sound of a smartphone camera clicking as she photographs more and more items to put up for sale on line.  She has sold old skirts and dresses; knick-knacks and souvenirs from Scotland; antique mugs and more.  She seems to have become obsessed with the idea of minimalism and downsizing.  She is like a black hole, ripping through the apartment and sucking into oblivion anything which is not firmly attached to the floor.

Not only is she selling her own stuff, I find my own pile of earthly goods getting smaller little by little too.  I have been encouraged and cajoled to get rid of a Braille writing tool (“You don’t use this any more, do you?”); fan goods to remind me of my favourite football team from back home (“You can’t go to the games while you’re in Japan anyway”); old audio books (“How many times can you listen to the same book?”) and more.

I have started to look for hiding places around the house for my things.  Otherwise I’ll be sitting on a bare wooden floor in my underpants.  It’s tough living in a minimalist household.

Or maybe one day she will point the camera at me and put my picture and description into her app.  If you see a Caucasian man for sale on line – second hand, a little worn but still serviceable – please give him a good home.

 

Vocabulary:

minimalism – The idea of living with only the smallest possible amount of material goods

to cash something in – To exchange something, such as a cheque or second hand goods, for money

 “[Someone] who doesn’t do things by halves” – [Someone] who commits 100 per cent effort to what they are doing; someone who doesn’t take half-measures

a knick-knack – A small, worthless object, such as a souvenir, office toy etc.

to downsize – To make something like a company’s scale, the size of your house etc. smaller

oblivion – Non-existence

to cajole – To persuade by persistent effort

bare – Empty; naked

Caucasian – Of a person, having a fair skin colour

serviceable – Of an item for sale, able to be used; working

Elephants in the clouds, elephants in the toilet －雲にいる象、お手洗いにいる象－

“Humans see elephants in the clouds instead of understanding that  they are in fact randomly shaped clouds that appear to our eyes as elephants.”

“Humans look for explanations even when there are none.”

“We see the winners and try to learn from them, while forgetting the huge number of losers.”

“{Some traders} eat like chickens and go to the bathroom like elephants.”

Last week an incident with my white cane reminded me of a book that I read some years ago.  The book is “Fooled by Randomness: The hidden role of chance in life and in the markets” (2001) by Nassim Nicholas Taleb.

The main point of the book is that the human brain is not good at dealing with randomness.  We like to pretend that there is order where there is only chance.  So we see elephants in clouds, or invent superstitions to explain why we were successful one day but failed the next.

We fool ourselves into believing that future risks can be pretty well judged by examining the patterns of the past.  Thus, we tend to under-estimate the impact of unique or rare events.  Taleb gives the example of a stock market trader who bets on the market continually going up year after year.  He might make small gains which build up for years.  And then if he keeps gambling because he has been successful in the past, he might lose everything if the market suddenly crashes.  He sums this scenario up with the amusing description of a man who eats like a chicken (taking in money in lots of small portions) and goes to the toilet like an elephant (when he loses, he flushes huge amounts of money down the drain at once).

Last week my white cane, which I use to feel for obstacles in front of my feet as well as to let other people know that I am blind, suddenly broke.  I had been using it safely for five years and when it split into four pieces it was completely unexpected.  When I first started using a cane, I worried that it might suddenly break if it collided with a bicycle or car and I used to carry a second cane with me, folded up and placed in a shoulder bag.  When it didn’t break for month after month and year after year, I started to forget about the danger and stopped carrying a second cane with me.  Like a chicken, I was happily eating my good fortune day after day and thinking nothing of any elephant-sized trip to the toilet I might have to make tomorrow.

Actually, I am glad to report that I was very lucky.  My cane broke when I was with my wife and father.  So they were able to guide me to a safe spot until we could find another cane.  If I had been out in the street by myself, it would have been a very awkward situation.

So I guess the moral of today’s blog is not to dismiss avoidable risks which seem unlikely but which will have a big impact if they occur.  Enjoy your chicken feed while it lasts.  There is a long queue for the toilet...

 

Vocabulary:

randomness – The lack of a pattern or predictability in events.

a superstition – A belief without a logical basis, such as luck, the supernatural etc.

to under-estimate - to make a guess about value, probability, cost etc. which is too low

a drain – A pipe or channel used to carry water away

a cane – A stick used to help people walk, or blind people to walk safely

to split – To break into separate parts

to collide – For two or more objects to hit each other

awkward – Causing difficulty; hard to deal with

to dismiss – To treat a theory or idea etc. as unimportant, impossible, unworkable etc.

 

 

 

Don’t forget your credit card －クレジットカードをお忘れなく－

I usually publish my blog on Thursdays but my father is coming to Japan to visit from Wednesday, so I will be rather busy.  I will keep it short this week and publish a little early. 

I’m not sure if my dad reads my blog but just in case, here is some vocabulary inspired by his visit: 

To treat (one’s son) to dinner – to buy dinner for (your son).  It could be sushi, tempura...  Either way, you can use this useful phrase.

“It’s my round.”  You say this in a bar or pub when you offer to buy drinks for the other people in your party.  It could be whiskey, wine...  Either way, you can use this useful phrase.

“Don’t be silly.  Put your wallet away.” – This is a phrase used when you want to insist on paying, rather than letting someone else do so.  It could be in an electronics store, a furniture store...  Either way, you can use this useful phrase. 

I’m only joking.  I’m really looking forward to Wednesday, and normal blog service will be resumed next week.

Will

 

Chilied cricket versus steaming chicken feet －チリ・コオロギ vs 蒸し鶏の足

It can be hard for travellers to go to a foreign country and order food in a restaurant when they are not so familiar with the local language.

I have had a few disasters myself.  In Thailand, I saw a restaurant selling chicken feet.  I had never tried chicken feet before so I thought I would give them a go.  I pointed to a few which were sitting behind a glass counter.  I expected to get one or two as a side dish.  Instead, a while later the beaming chef produced a steaming plate piled high with chicken feet.  Tentatively I tried one.  It was rubbery and absolutely disgusting.  I didn’t think that I could eat many of them without vomiting.  I then ordered something else and played the old game of moving the feet around artfully to make their numbers appear smaller.  I switched some to my other plates, hid some under my rice and told the chef that they were delicious as I paid and left.

Britain is not generally known for exotic food.  The worst a tourist might expect is to order a hamburger and expect it to have any ham in it.

But perhaps that is all about to change.  It takes a lot of space and water to raise cows and pigs for human consumption.  So some environmentalists have suggested that we ought to eat more insects as a way of protecting the environment.  Partly for that reason, a new restaurant has opened up in the UK which specialises in cooking insects.

The owner of Grub Kitchen said, “We want to pioneer the Movement to normalise the eating of bugs on a day to day basis.  We are treating them as a normal food item, incorporating insect protein as an ingredient but using normal flavours we are familiar with and everyday food items we recognise.”

Sample items on the menu are chilied cricket cocktail and Pad Thai with worms.

I think it’s a wonderful idea.  I have never eaten an insect before but I think it must be a better way to get protein than farming intelligent animals.  Hopefully, the insects will suffer less than farmed cows and pigs.  And it will help the Earth too.

But I can’t help but wonder what will happen to unfortunate Thai tourists who come to Britain and find themselves in this restaurant without quite understanding what it is.  They might be feeling homesick and be hugely relieved to see Pad Thai on the menu.  Without knowing the word “worm”, they might guess that it is a cut of chicken.  Soon after, they’ll be hiding bits of worm under their napkins. 

Vocabulary:

a cricket – A type of leaping insect

to give something a go – to try something

to be beaming – To be smiling broadly

tentatively – Hesitantly; carefully and without confidence

to vomit – to bring up the contents of your stomach, for example when you are suffering from food poisoning

artfully – skilfully; creatively

an environmentalist – Someone dedicated to protecting the environment, or nature

grub – This is a slang term for food.  For example, “That restaurant has great grub.”

a grub – A type of insect

to pioneer something – to be one of the first to do something; to help to develop something new and make it popular, successful etc.

a bug – This is a slang term for an insect

to incorporate something – to take something in or include it as part of the whole

Pad Thai – Thai style fried noodles

a worm – An animal with a long, soft body which burrows underground

 

 

Monkey magic strikes again －モンキー・マジック、再登場－

Since it is approaching Halloween, it is not a bad time for a horror story. For the first part of the story, you can read last week’s blog. To summarise, an elderly couple living with their son come across a monkey’s paw with the apparent ability to grant three wishes. But it seems to do so in a twisted and evil way. The couple uses one wish to ask for 200 pounds. The next day their son is killed at his factory in a tragic accident and the old couple are given 200 pounds in compensation.

Be careful what you wish for. And be careful of giving your wife everything that she asks for…

 

An edited extract from “The Monkey’s Paw” by W.W. Jacobs, part 2 of 2:

In the huge new cemetery, some two miles distant, the old people buried their dead, and came back to a house steeped in shadow and silence. It was all over so quickly that at first they could hardly realize it.

 

It was about a week after that the old man, waking suddenly in the night, stretched out his hand and found himself alone. The room was in darkness, and the sound of subdued weeping came from the window. He raised himself in bed and listened.

 

"Come back," he said, tenderly. "You will be cold."

"It is colder for my son," said the old woman, and wept afresh. Suddenly she cried wildly.  "The paw! The monkey's paw!"

He started up in alarm. "Where? Where is it? What's the matter?"

She came stumbling across the room toward him. "I want it," she said, quietly. "You've not destroyed it?"

"It's in the parlour," he replied, marveling. "Why?"

She cried and laughed together, and bending over, kissed his cheek.

"I only just thought of it," she said, hysterically.  "Why didn't I think of it before? Why didn't you think of it? The other two wishes," she said, rapidly. "We've only had one.  We'll have one more.  Go down and get it quickly, and wish our boy alive again."

The man sat up in bed and flung the bedclothes from his quaking limbs. "Good God, you are mad!" he cried, aghast.

"Get it," she panted; "get it quickly, and wish--Oh, my boy, my boy!" 

The old man turned and regarded her, and his voice shook. "He has been dead ten days, and besides he--I would not tell you if I didn’t have to, but--I could only recognize him by his clothing. If he was too terrible for you to see then, how will he be now?"

"Bring him back," cried the old woman, and dragged him toward the door. "Do you think I fear the child I have nursed?"

He went down in the darkness, and felt his way to the parlour, and then to the mantelpiece.  The talisman was in its place, and a horrible fear that the unspoken wish might bring his mutilated son back seized upon him.

Even his wife's face seemed changed as he entered the room. It was white and expectant, and to his fears seemed to have an unnatural look upon it. He was afraid of her. 

"Wish!" she cried, in a strong voice. 

"It is foolish and wicked," he faltered. 

"Wish!" repeated his wife.

He raised his hand. "I wish my son alive again." 

The talisman fell to the floor, and he regarded it fearfully. Then he sank trembling into a chair as the old woman, with burning eyes, walked to the window and raised the blind. 

***

"What's that?" cried the old woman.

"A rat," said the old man in shaking tones--"a rat."

His wife sat up listening. A loud knock resounded through the house.

"It's Herbert!" she screamed. "It's Herbert!"

She ran to the door, but her husband was before her, and catching her by the arm, held her tightly.

"It's my boy; it's Herbert!" she cried, struggling mechanically. “What are you holding me for?  Let go. I must open the door."

"For God's sake don't let it in," cried the old man, trembling.

 

"You're afraid of your own son," she cried, struggling. "Let me go. I'm coming, Herbert; I'm coming."

 

There was another knock, and another. The old woman with a sudden wrench broke free and ran from the room. Her husband followed to the landing, and called after her appealingly as she hurried downstairs. Then she raised her voice, strained and panting.

"The bolt," she cried, loudly. "Come down. I can't reach it." 

But her husband was on his hands and knees groping wildly on the floor in search of the paw.  If he could only find it before the thing outside got in. Knocks reverberated through the house, and he heard the scraping of a chair as his wife put it down in the passage against the door.  He heard the creaking of the bolt as it came slowly back, and at the same moment he found the monkey's paw, and frantically breathed his third and last wish.

 

Vocabulary:

a cemetery – a graveyard; a place where people are buried after death

to be steeped in (shadow) – to be filled with (shadow)

subdued – quiet or dispirited

tenderly – affectionately; lovingly

to be aghast – to be filled with horror or shock

to regard – to look at

to be mutilated – about a living thing, to be badly disfigured or cut to pieces

to falter – to lose strength or momentum

to reverberate – of a loud noise, to repeat several times as an echo

frantically – desperately

 

Monkey magic －モンキー・マジック－

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a blog about the subject of making wishes and having them granted through magic. I mentioned a wonderful story by W.W. Jacobs called “The Monkey’s Paw”.

Here is an edited extract. An old man, Mr. White, lives with his wife and son.  When his old friend, a soldier, comes to visit, unfortunate consequences follow. In the first part, the soldier gives Mr. White the paw.  His son doesn’t believe in the magic, and makes fun of it. In the second part, the old couple gets a visit from one of the bosses at their son’s company.  Remember that in 1902, 200 pounds was a lot of money!

 

An edited extract from “The Monkey’s Paw” by W.W. Jacobs (1902):

 

"Well, it's just a bit of what you might call magic, perhaps," said the soldier, offhandedly.

His three listeners leaned forward eagerly.  The visitor absent-mindedly put his empty glass to his lips and then set it down again.  His host filled it for him.

"To look at," said the soldier, fumbling in his pocket, "it's just an ordinary little paw, dried to a mummy."

He took something out of his pocket.  Mrs. White drew back with a grimace, but her son, taking it, examined it curiously.

 

"And what is there special about it?" inquired Mr. White as he took it from his son, and having examined it, placed it upon the table.

"It had a spell put on it by an old magician," said the soldier, "He wanted to show that fate ruled people's lives, and that those who interfered with it did so to their sorrow.  He put a spell on it so that three separate men could each have three wishes from it." 

"Sounds like the Arabian Nights," said Mrs. White, as she rose and began to set the supper.

Mr. White took the paw from the table and eyed it dubiously.  "I don't know what to wish for, and that's a fact," he said, slowly.  "It seems to me I've got all I want."

"If you only paid off the mortgage on the house, you'd be quite happy, wouldn't you?" said his son, with his hand on his father’s shoulder.  "Well, wish for two hundred pounds, then; that 'll just do it." 

His father, smiling shamefacedly at his own credulity, held up the talisman, as his son, with a solemn face, somewhat marred by a wink at his mother, sat down at the piano and struck a few impressive chords.

"I wish for two hundred pounds," said the old man distinctly.

A fine crash from the piano greeted the words, interrupted by a shuddering cry from the old man.  His wife and son ran toward him.

"It moved," he cried, with a glance of disgust at the object as it lay on the floor.

"As I wished, it twisted in my hand like a snake."

"Well, I don't see the money," said his son as he picked it up and placed it on the table, "and I bet I never shall."

 

***

 

The next day, Mrs. White brought the stranger, who seemed ill at ease, into the room.  He gazed at her furtively, and listened in a preoccupied fashion as the old lady apologized for the appearance of the room.  She waited for him to state his business.

"I’m sorry, but your son was caught in the machinery," said the visitor at length in a low voice.

"He died.  The company admit no liability at all, but in consideration of your son's services, they wish to present you with a certain sum as compensation."

Mr. White dropped his wife's hand, and rising to his feet, gazed with a look of horror at his visitor.  His dry lips shaped the words, "How much?"

"Two hundred pounds," was the answer.

 

                   What’s your next wish?

 

Vocabulary:

a paw – The hand or foot of an animal, such as a cat or monkey

to make fun of something – to tease or laugh at something

offhandedly – without showing something special significance; casually

absent-mindedly – without paying attention; with your thoughts elsewhere

to fumble – to search for with your hand in a clumsy way; to try to pick something up in a clumsy way

a grimace – a facial expression which shows a strongly negative reaction, such as disgust or pain

dubiously – doubtfully; uncertainly

a talisman – a charm

credulity – willingness to believe; gullibility

solemn – serious; grave

to be marred – to be spoiled; to be made imperfect

to be ill at ease – to be in discomfort

to be preoccupied – to be thinking about something else

furtively – in a way which seems you want to remain hidden; slyly

liability – legal responsibility