This just in...

The latest news from Fukui in the style of ITV's News at Ten. Ah, how I miss Trevor McDonald.

BONG!.....Record rains hit Fukui prefecture, leading to fears of flooding similar to that experienced by residents 2 years ago. Flood warnings are issued in most areas as rivers inch towards the top of flood defences. Roving reporter Ruisu Pakkuwuddo took this dramatic photo of the rising waters after he raced to the scene last night. Although he actually forgot his camera and had to use his phone instead. So you can't see anything. But let us assure you, the rising waters were dramatic.

BONG!.....Department store Al Plaza introduces foot-shaped stickers at every staff entrance, indicating the point where staff members must bow to customers when walking on to the shop floor (this is true).

BONG!.....New magazine "Seed Sack Mama" is launched. Are you a seed sack mama? If so, call the studio now: we can put you in touch with people who can help. Modern surgical procedures can now safely remove seed sacks in 90% of cases.

BONG!.....Following a "famous people" classroom quiz game at Takefu high school, female students request to keep the pictures of heart throb celebrities Orlando Bloom, Johnny Depp and Brad Pitt to stick on the classroom wall. Bizarrely, several girls also request the photo of British prime minister Tony Blair to stick alongside the Hollywood heavyweights. One witness, who refused to be identified, offered only this explanation: "He's cool".

BONG!....T-shirt woman invites passers-by to eat her. Allegations that "last night was bad" only serve to deepen the intrigue of the request.

BONG!.....Convenience stores begin selling ice lollies made from red beans. "It's the best bean-flavoured frozen product I've ever tasted", said one customer.

And finally... Authorities in Tsuruga have developed a low-tech robot designed to facilitate the evacuation of the city in the event of a nuclear emergency. The smiling brown robots, which stand on every street corner, are designed to give off a cheery, calming atmosphere, and will direct and encourage the fleeing populace with robotic cries of "Ganbare!" and "Fighto!". The robot also has the ability to transform into a medium-sized Family Mart in order to feed and provide toilet facilities for starving, radioactive refugees.

Think of them as floaty horses...

Did anyone get that Simpsons reference? There's a lollipop for the first person to tell me where it's from in the comment box... Ooooh, revel in the nerdiness! Soak it up people, soak it up!

Anyway, boat racing. Flick and I stopped off at the Mikuni Boat Race on Sunday on our way back from a spot of camping on the beach. We were camping with Tilly and Laura, and Tilly had heard about the boat race from Joe, who lives nearby. Initially I imagined it as some sort of yacht regatta, but then I found out it was in the middle of the town. Perhaps remote-controlled power boats in the park...?

I was way off. The Boat Race was actually powerboat racing conducted on an enormous artificial lake, overlooked by a gigantic Sony TV which relayed the action to spectators.How have I not heard of this before? Two years in Fukui and no-one made any mention of powerboat racing conducted on an enormous articficial lake overlooked by a gigantic Sony TV. Still, it's good to know there are still things left to discover... Who knows what I'll discover tomorrow? It's like an episode of Tiny Toons or something. 

Anyway, we paid our money to get in, and it quickly became apparent that the main reason for the racing was in fact gambling: a massive TV screen scrolled through betting statistics on the wall above our heads, and banks of vending machines provided punters with gambling slips (well, it wouldn't be Japan without vending machines, would it?). Despite all the high-tech wizardry though, there was the tangible feel of a fleapit betting shop back in England - maybe it was the rows and rows of crumbly old men with despair etched onto their faces, mixed with the smell of stale cigarette smoke and body odour.

It's strange - I was under the impression that gambling for money was illegal in Japan. That's why in pachinko parlours they don't give you money if you win, you just exchange your silver balls for prizes like cuddly toys. To get round the rule, the customers then take their prizes to a booth just outside the parlour, where they exchange them for money. Then presumably the prizes end up back where they were, ready to be won again in the pachinko version of the circle of life. However, according to the teacher I've just asked, it's legal to gamble on certain things, such as horse racing, boat racing and bike racing - yes apparently in Fukui city there's a bike track where you can go to bet on the riders. In my head I'm imagining people racing those granny bikes with the baskets that everyone has, but I suspect he probably meant motorbikes. You never know though...

Despite the despairing, crumbly old men the powerboat racing was pretty cool - the boats pick up a fair bit of speed and it's entertaining to see the "jockeys" lean over and power slide round corners. That's about all they do though - the "track" is just one big oval, and after a while it gets pretty boring watching the same boats go round and round in circles, even if the races only last about 10 minutes or so. I can see why they need the allure of gambling to keep it interesting...

I wonder if you could hook that TV up to an Xbox? Imagine playing Halo 2 on that...

I wonder if they give the boats bizarre names, just like they do with horses? If I raced a boat I think I might call it "Mr. Biscuit", it has a nice ring to it. Anyone else got ideas for boat names?

Here you can see just how enormous the TV screen on the other side of the lake was. I wonder how much it cost?

This is the main viewing gallery, where rows and rows of chain smoking men sat nervously clutching their betting receipts. It was pretty horrible - there were cigarette butts all over the floor and the guy behind us had kindly decided to take his shoes and socks off in order to display his decidedly grubby-looking feet (see the bottom left of the photo). It was eerily quiet for a betting hall though - everyone seemed to be lost in their own reverie.

Here's a view from the outside. I was surprised how big it was - the car park alone was huge, and there's another one round the other side. The screen on the right is either to stop spray from the boats splashing onto cars or to deflect the noise, I couldn't work out which.

I'd say that for the majority of the spectators it was all about the gambling - to the extent that some people weren't even watching the live race at all. This TV gallery was set up facing away from the lake - punters watch the race on the right and betting statistics are on the left. You can't see it from this picture, but there's a car park on the other side of the window.

Most offensive T-shirt ever?

It's well known that most Japanese people wearing T-shirts with English slogans have absolutely no idea what they mean. However, I discovered recently that the phenomenon extends to other languages too. During the school trip the other week I spotted one of my JTEs (Japanese Teachers of English) wearing a T-shirt that had something splashed across it in French. It began something like "J'ai envie...", but I couldn't read the rest so I said to her:

"Oh, I see you're wearing a T-shirt written in French [Yes, I'm starting to speak like a school textbook now]. What does it say?"

"It's written in French?" she replied, incredulously.

I rest my case. Of course, now I'm really intrigued as to what it said but I forgot to write it down - I'll take a bet that it's something wildly offensive though.

However, whatever the French T-shirt said I don't think it can even come close to the T-shirt that Flick spotted a three-year-old wearing at the Echizen Pottery Festival last weekend (yes, I know, a pottery festival - there's not much to do round these parts). Brace yourself... Do you see what I see?

Yes, you read it right: "I FUCKING HATE..." followed by a list of racial slurs ending in (just out of sight under the fold of the T-shirt) "N***ers". Un-bloody-believable.

Most offensive T-shirt ever? Most probably, and all the worse for the fact that it's being worn by a child. This has got to be the best advert for English learning in Japan I've ever seen - "Learn English Or You Could Accidentally Brand Your Children As Racists".

At least, I really, really hope it was an accident, otherwise that kid has some seriously f**ked-up parents.

Slices of life

Hello all, just thought I'd post up a few random photos of bits of Engrish and so forth. Sorry I haven't been posting much recently - I've been bogged down with editing JETfuel . It's our last issue, and we're trying to go out with a bang by making it 100 pages... which basically means I've been staring at a computer screen for 12 hours a day, in between sending begging emails for articles. Still, it's looking pretty good so far.

I've got some cracking pics from our camping trip to Ishikawa - I really want to post them, but I just don't have the time to sit down and write anything about them right now, so they'll have to wait for next week! Until then, sayonara.

Yours eyestrainedly, Lewis.

"Fuck'n Roll ROCK" - spotted on a T-shirt in my local supermarket. George At Asda eat your heart out.

I vaguely remember that this Engrish was on a bottle of vodka... Actually, the fact that I have difficulty recalling where I saw it is probably a good indicator that it definitely was on a bottle of vodka.

I've finally found Shaun of the Dead (Japan title: "Shoun obu ze Dedo") on DVD in Japan! Hurrah! I've really wanted to see this again ever since I've been in Japan. Best rom/com/zom flick ever.

I love this poster. The translation reads: "DANGER! Your electric guitar playing teenage son may be so awesome at throwing down wailing solos that he could spontaneously catch fire. Keep a fire extinguisher handy at all times." Well, maybe that's what it says.

'Cos if you f**k with the fist... YOU GET THE KNUCKLE!!! (Fukui in-joke)

Hard Gay Pirate

Japanese TV is full of half-baked celebrities. They're called "talents", which is ironic, since invariably they have none, and they're celebrities only in the very loosest sense of the word - in the same way that Tony Blair's cat is a "celebrity". These z-list celebrities tend to have a very short TV life span indeed, but they seem to make up for it by appearing on every single TV show in Japan several times a day, in order to milk their fifteen minutes of fame.

Comedians naturally tend to be the most annoying "celebrities" in the "talent" pool, since the ones that make it onto the chat circuit are invariably one-trick ponies: funny for five minutes, but intensely irritating once that five minutes is up. They all have some sort of gimmick, like "Macha Macha" who throws down the microphone, wrestler-style, after telling each joke (which must be an absolute nightmare for the sound technicians), or the "Guitar Samurai", who sings satirical songs which always end in him screaming the last line with his palm raised.

I was always intrigued by the Guitar Samurai - I could never understand what he was singing about, but it seemed pretty dramatic, whatever it was. Then one day I saw him appear on the English language learning programme "Eigo de Shabera Naito", where they helped him translate one of his songs into English. It was rubbish. I can't remember the exact words now, but it went something like: "President George Bush / He's the President of the United States / But he's a cowboy" (that last line shouted). Cutting satire indeed.

Anyway, the point is, he's not on TV now - he had his fifteen minutes of fame, and now he's been consigned to the talent-bin just outside the gates of NHK, along with all the other gimmicky comedians. Which is what I hope will soon happen to Razor Ramon "Hard Gay".

I could go on for hours about what irritates me about this chap, but I'd rather you read the excellent account on Maethelwine's Wide Island blog - he pretty much sums up what I feel about the "Hard Gay" character. Obviously, because he's so annoying, the kids love him, and children up and down Japan are gleefully shouting his catchphrase in the playgrounds: "Whoooo!!!!", followed by some rigorous pelvic-thrusting. Delightful.

So, of course, since he's so popular with children, why not make a version of "Pop-Up Pirate" ("Kuro Hige Kiki Ippatsu" in Japan) using "Hard Gay" instead of a pirate? It's the only logical conclusion.

Poking latex-clad gay men with swords has never been so much fun.

Here's a photo of Razor Ramon, aka "Hard Gay", indulging in what he does best. Good, wholesome fun.

And here we have the Hard Gay version of "Kuro Hige Kiki Ippatsu" (which translates as "Blackbeard's Narrow Escape", or, literally, "Blackbeard Is A Hair's Breadth Away From A Crisis"). Good, wholseome fun.

The Flea Market

I went to the Flea Market in the Sabae Sundome on Sunday.

It was rubbish.

That's about all I have to say on the matter. Anyone who wishes to defend the honourable pursuit of rifling through other people's tat, please post your comments below..

The Sundome Fleamarket.

The sign says "Kid's corner" in Japanese. Unfortunately this rather poorly furnished creche consists of little more than a ring of chairs, a miniature TV set and a solitary Winnie the Pooh doll.

Mosh pit news

Thanks to Karl we have new information on the 'Mosh Pit on Disney' phenomenon (see the photo under 'Oh, the things I've seen...'). Here's the email he sent: 

Saw the Mosh Pit on Disney pic on your blog and thought I'd shed a little light on the subject. Mosh Pit on Disney is acutally the second CD in a line of CDs in which punk bands cover your favorite Disney songs (the first CD is called something like Dive into Disney).

So there you go. I must get a copy of those CDs, they sound fantastic!

Shake it like a Polaroid picture

I'm pretty much snowed under with work at the moment, but I'm enjoying being busy, and the lessons I'm doing are loads of fun. All this week I've been introducing myself to the students, which means that I have to go into each class and do a talk about myself. You'd be amazed at the amount of people who have no idea what the UK is, or what continent it's on... Anyway, it' s been fun - I've been playing my guitar and telling them about ultimate frisbee and all sorts. I have to tell you about today's class though, it was hilarious.

There are some gestures that have quite different meanings in Japan. For example, when we want to talk about ourselves in England, we point a finger at our chest, but in Japan they point a finger at their nose - which does look rather comical the first time you see it. Anyway, the students were asking me questions at the end of my class today, and I noticed that some of the kids at the back were waving their little fingers at me. I immediately ckecked my flies. No, it was OK, the boys were in the barracks. What exactly were these kids trying to say? Were they implying that my member was somewhat short of adequate? Then the Japanese teacher came to my rescue: "They're asking if you have a girlfriend."

It turns out that waving your little finger means "do you have a girlfriend?", whilst giving a thumbs up means "do you have a boyfriend?". The moral of this story is that if you knock over a guy's pint in a Japanese bar, DO NOT give him the thumbs up.

Another cultural highlight was the story one of the other ALTs told me last night. Her students wrote an essay explaining what their "dream for the future" was, and one of them said she wanted to be a beautician. However, when it came to writing "I have practiced putting make up on my family and friends" she made a slight error. This is what she wrote:

"I have fingered my friends and my mother\'s face".

I'm not quite sure what kind of beauty parlour she intends to run.

I had my first tea ceremony class last night. Yes, that's right, I'm going to tea ceremony classes. I figured that there may be more to the world of tea than sugary cups of PG Tips, and lo, my eyes have been opened! If you don't know anything about Japanese tea ceremony it's basically a very long, formal and complicated way of making and drinking green tea. Everything in the ceremony has a specific function and strict way it should be performed, from picking up the tea cup to stirring the tea. My first thought was "What's wrong with tea bags?", but actually taking part in the tea ceremony was very relaxing - almost like a form of meditation. The movements are so graceful they're sort of mesmerising.

I also attended my first calligraphy class on Wednesday, which was great. The teacher is unbelieveably good - there's a lot more to it than you'd think. The paint brushes are exquisite - there are various types, made of everything from horse tail to weasel hair. Actually writing the characters is bloody hard - everything has to be done in one fluid movement whilst holding the brush dead straight, and some lines require delicate flicks at the end. After an hour I'd just about managed to write my name!

I'm going whitewater rafting this weekend. God knows why I signed up for it, it seemed like a good idea at the time... Anyway, I'll email again next week if I get back in one piece!