The Parable of the Ponderous Parallels

or, Be Careful What You Wish For

The football World Cup has begun. You can tell this because both social and mainstream media can now be divided into three broad groups: people talking about football; people griping about people talking about football; and people who insist on continuing their discussions about less pressing matters such as conflicts in the Middle East, American gun massacres, child abduction, and so forth (this last is by far the smallest group).

Nudge Nudge, Wink Wink

The football World Cup is almost upon us. I care less about this as I get older, but it’s still a pleasantly diverting way of killing time over the summer months. I think not living in the UK makes it a bit easier as I don’t have to deal with all the hubristic triumphalism that invariably attends the England team’s entry to the tournament, nor the weak-assed post-imperial wailing and self-abuse which accompanies their inevitable exit on penalties in the second round.

Of Diplomats, Footballers, Jokes, and Cake

There’s something called Paris Syndrome, which is like Stockholm Syndrome except with less cross-country skiing and more museums. That’s actually a lie. The happy truth is that Stockholm Syndrome, where a group of hostages will come to agree with and support their captors, is in many ways the polar opposite of its Gallic counterpart.

Indistinguishable from Magic

3.    The Third Law

Close enough

I was in Hong Kong not so long ago for a friend’s wedding. I know him from uni and a few other folks had flown out from various points around the globe. It was something of a mini-reunion and was great to catch up with them all again. It was also nice to be able to walk into Marks and Spencer and buy a slightly disappointing plastic-wrapped prawn sandwich, then complain stridently about it in English. Simple pleasures.

Indistinguishable from Magic

1.    Lukewarm in Ulsan

My first spell in Japan coincided with the the Japan/Korea Football World Cup. That was fun. England’s training camp was on this Bond-villain island lair somewhere, in keeping with their friendly and approachable image, but Ireland’s was in some rural backwater in western Japan, so I tagged along with a couple of Irish mates to see their team train and play a practice match against Sanfrecce Hiroshima.

All of This is True

3. Romance of the Damned

I’m going to talk about football now, specifically the English Premier League. Don’t worry if that’s not something you particularly care for, I’m completely confident that you can substitute in your home country’s most popular sport and you’ll know exactly what I’m on about.

In which I bitch about TV commentators being shit

Which is rather like complaining that water is wet, I know. But Christ on a bike, did you see the Olympics’ closing ceremony on NHK? Just fucking useless. Take a fucking bow.

Faster, Higher, Stronger

It’s a sad time in any man’s life when he realizes he’ll never represent his country at his chosen sport. Or any sport for that matter. However inept he might be, I think that every man likes to think that if he gave up everything and dedicated himself totally to a single goal for four years, he’d be able to get to the Olympics. However, I’m of an age now with some of the more ‘experienced’ athletes in London, which means that making it to Rio would be really pushing it.

Class Squared

Japan’s world champion women soccer team have kicked up a fuss after being left in economy class while their male colleagues lived it up in business on a flight to Europe for the Olympics.

“I guess it should have been the other way around,” World Cup heroine Homare Sawa, 33, told Japanese media after arriving in the French capital on Monday.

“Even just in terms of age, we are senior,” she said, with a smile.

“When we won the World Cup, our seats were changed to business class for our return flight,” she said. “I hope we can produce a good result again and be treated the same way.”

Perseverance, or, The Impossibility of Perfection

On my more confident days I tell myself that these posts are all part of one congruous whole. Each one is a single shining facet of an individual diamond – the diamond of a unified world view, the most precious stone of all. 

More Art

On the other days I tell myself to stop spouting fanciful horseshit and overblown metaphors (‘unified diamond of my worldview’. Jesus wept) and accept the less lofty fact that these are merely individual steps on an endless imperfectable journey towards the unattainable goal of better understanding. Then I remind myself of the ‘fanciful horseshit’ thing again and just get on with it. Because it’s the journey, not the destination, y’know? No human endeavour is ever truly perfect, which means the manner in which you achieve imperfection is important. And that, apparently, is an oxymoron.

  

Take me out to the ball game

Today is the start of Japan’s professional baseball season. I don’t follow baseball that much, in all honesty. I’ll keep half an eye out for the local team’s results pretty much wherever I am though; I barracked for the Crows when hating Wayne Carey was practically mandatory. Almost any sporting event is good to watch live, but it’s hard to get too worked up about a sport which, in the UK at least, is the exclusive preserve of stroppy teenage girls. It’s always struck me a bit like cricket for people who’ve forgotten to take their Ritalin.

Darren Jarman's extra limbs were something
of an unfair advantage.

Nadeshiko Redux: Keeping the Punters Happy

(Skip This Bit if You’ve Come for the Ladies)

I’ve recently inadvertently discovered the benefits of link-bait/search engine optimization. As well, I suppose, as the benefits of putting stuff up while it’s fresh instead of sitting on it for a few weeks in case I don’t get any other new ideas.

It used to be said that the easiest way to ensure a decent hit count for an online article was to include the words BRITNEY SPEARS SEX PICS in it. Though this was back when the internet was young and lawless, and when pictures of Britney Spears getting serviced were something you might actually want to see. I don’t know who the current equivalent would be. One of those ‘reality’ stars maybe. Simon Cowell? Please god not Simon Cowell. Don’t make me link to SIMON COWELL SEX PICS.

Fuck. I feel dirty and cheapened (yet also ever so slightly aroused).

My own personal version of BRITNEY SPEARS + SIMON COWELL SEX PICS has turned out to be Homare Sawa. I suspect that sentence may need some explaining.

Who's Afraid of Homare Sawa?

For those of you who may have missed it, Japan won the women’s football world cup last summer. It’s easy to be cynical about all the manufactured emotion surrounding events such as this, but after the March disasters it was a genuinely uplifting occasion.