Bungle comments

On a more serious note, animal hoarding is generally a sign of mental disorder.

Will they and their pets qualify for half-price flights in Japanese airlines, I wonder?

I'm surprised they could afford to feed them. 40 cats is a lot.

The sisters should consider themselves grateful that it didn't occur to the cats to eat them.

Re: aircraft doors

Given that most modern aircraft have plug-in doors, and that the aircraft is pressurised while in flight, I say good luck to anyone trying to open one.

Furthermore, I suspect it's the undiagnosed crazies we have to be concerned about rather than those individuals being medically treated or supervised.

I've found that a lot of Japanese turn their high beams ON, not off, in oncoming traffic -- at least with me when I'm on my bike.

1 Bugbear with driving at night is with Japanese using fog lamps in all weather. From the driver’s perspective, they only throw light immediately in front of the car (meaning that they are next to useless in fair weather), but for oncoming traffic, having four sets of lights coming at you out of the dark is pretty dazzling, especially in the rain.

If it isn’t illegal to use fog lamps in clear weather, it should be.

You're right she broke the law but she wasn't holding an umbrella. It was hanging on her hand (wrist) and it got caught in the wheel. From that we can assume she was using both hands to ride the bike.

Then we can also assume that had it started raining, she would have held the umbrella while riding there bicycle.

Cyclists in Japan are notoriously cavalier in their attitude towards road safety, and I for one am happy to know that this feckless cyclist will be prosecuted.

Lets not forget she was a nursery school teacher... would you want a woman like her taking care of your kids? I wouldn’t.

Calling a 65 year-old “elderly” is, frankly speaking, ridiculous.

The 65-75 age group would be better defined as “senior” rather than elderly.

Beats me why Murakami is a feted writer. If his other novels are like 1Q84, they must be as dull as ditchwater.

Police believe he may have been speeding at the time and lost control of the car.

You don’t say.

Around 1.6 million households in the sparsely populated northern island of Hokkaido

How can a place have 1.6 million households and be “sparsely populated”? Is Hokkaido the size of Uranus?

Toyota Motor Corp said it halted daytime operations at its subsidiary's transmission manufacturing plant in Tomakomai, southern Hokkaido, and decided to suspend nighttime operations as well, as it is unclear when power will return to normal.

...

Seafood company Maruha Nichiro Corp stopped production of frozen and canned foods at a plant in the prefecture

I take it Toyota and Maruha haven’t heard of generators? Tsk tsk.

KIX is fine for the carrot-crunching, mikan-munching yokels in south Osaka and Wakayama, but what about the rest of us who live in civilisation? At best it’s an hour-and-a-half to Kyoto if you’re prepared to be price gouged. Who it their right sense would locate an airport there?

Plenty of pork in Wakayama, it seems.

Part of the problem re: logistics is that Japanese hauliage companies opt for hard-sided trailers as opposed to the canvas ones used in Europe, where it is possible to stow the canvas walls thus permitting the wind to pass straight through an (unladen) trailer.

He was going to feed his cat mosquito coils?

My rabbit eats mosquito coils. He’s yet to develop malaria.

@rocketpanda

Actually, it’s the father’s background that interests me. Haiti is one of the most impoverished and backwards countries in the planet and yet he could emigrate to the ‘States and enjoy a first world education. Later going to Japan he marries a Japanese woman and they then settle in the ‘States. Money never an object, he puts his daughters through tennis school, one of whom becomes a top class player. That’s some story.

Either we have been sold a lie about Haitians being dirt poor, or Naomi’s papa has friends in high places, hopefully, none of them called “Doc”.

Scratch that last comment about no one getting out.

Only the homeowner made good his escape yet it was a neighbour who alerted the fire brigade. Suspicious, no?

I don’t live an old timber house.

Unless you had a stonemason carve your furniture, fixtures, and fittings out of granite and have your linen woven entirely out of asbestos, then there will be a fire risk.

I would have thought at least one family member would have made it out alive. I hope this wasn’t murder/suicide.

By Japanese law, the cops can't actively engage with bikes unless the bike has physically injured someone

I find that very hard to believe given that a pair of coppers had no problems issuing me with a ticket because they didn’t like the way I made a left turn.

There’s more than one way to skin a cat, as your copper acquaintance knows well enough.

I am not sure if it is just me but if I have cash in the car, I lock the door. Anyone else?

It goes in the boot, too, as to be out of sight.

How possible to be 3 on a motorbike ?

It's not - hence the fatalities.

Of the six who died, four are... aged between 14 and 18...

Say no more. Case closed.

Make no mistake, it may only be a one year suspension officially, but these guys are done.

Japanese really need to start moving away from these token crappy mascot thingies. I mean, can’t a nation of 127m people come up with something more meaningful than banal oversizeds plastic junk dolls?

Pools should not be allowed to get that crowded as it’s impossible for the lifeguard to monitor everyone simultaneously. Someone could easily drown unnoticed.

Jesus wept. Reading this, I despair of humanity.

As Taiwan and the Philippines didn’t fight back in any meaningful way, unlike Chinese and Koreans, they were spared some of Japan’s barbarism.

Instant ramen.

I’ve heard a lot of young Japanese men mistake erse for quim.

With apologies to the film Rob Roy.

Terrorists are terrorists.

Correct.

The effects of being blown to pieces by a bomb from the 'RA or a bomb from a white supremacist are pretty much as devestating as from an ISIS terrorist.

Describing the effects of terrorism is a complete non-sequitur. What we should be discussing is the risk of terrorism (probability x impact), and what can be done to minimize said terrorism.

London has always been a target for violence, dissenters, and assasinations.

Not until very recently by Muslims, thou'.

There reports that after a group of elementary school kids were taken to see an exhibition of Yanobe’s works, some were seen leaving in tears while others were overheard discussing going back on acid.