O'Brien comments

It would be interesting to know the extent to which the local folk (i.e. the Japanese people) believe these numbers.

We're a cynical lot on here (I mean that as a compliment) and I like to think we have reasonably well calibrated BS meters.

But I wonder what the Japanese themselves make of these weird numbers, which always seem to go down when there's an event on. I've always considered them to be brilliant people in many ways, but in others they can be far too trusting for their own good...which would explain the voting records over the last 70-80 years.

Should have used a phone. I mean everyone's seen the opening scene of Pulp Fiction.

I'm all for the "alternatively abled" (or whatever we have to call them these days) having their own sports events, but given the human tendency to ruin everything we create, it won't be long before these things end up in court over some incredibly petty thing.

"What's the problem? Both athletes have only one leg and are competing in the same event"

"But athlete A lost his leg at ten years old, whereas athlete B lost his at eighteen. Athlete B feels that it is unfair that athlete A has had more time to acclimatise to his condition and thus athlete B thinks he should have a head start in the race".

"What does athlete A say about that?"

"He says he has his lawyer on speed dial".

"With my cash down, bank balance dangerous

Here we are now, c'mon pay us

Acting stupid and litigious

Here's my lawyer, he's quite shameless"

Who cares how many people are infected, we are far beyond that now. Get vaccinated and get on with it

I have to agree with this. These numbers are just a performance.

People should basically assume that the government has no interest in their well-being unless it's for reasons of political propaganda.

Get your shots, think of other people as well as of yourself (if the culture of your home country has such a concept) and generally don't be part of the problem.

I'm old enough to remember ELIZA.

Charlie Watts for more than 50 years was out there making his music while others are here making posts claiming to be his equal. Sad to fill this thread with those.

(Sniffs) He didn't play in 34/5 time with multiple polyrhythms going on and he didn't even have a huge crash cymbal which he would smash in a masculinely animalistic fashion. Some drummer (sniffs).

And to those that refuse to watch and support this powerful example of human resilience, that's your loss.

Nice virtue signalling. "If you don't watch the paralympics, you hate disabled people".

I didn't watch a single moment of the main games. Does that mean I hate the able-bodied?

I like the stones but not a BIG fan. I used to drum in rock and Cajun-Zydeco bands, but I’d could never put Mr. Watts up there with Keith moon, G. baker, Bill Ward(B Sabbath) Neil Pert, Roger Taylor(Queen). Steady, reliable, very talented YES. But “one of the greatest”? I could be wrong, and I’m sure the stones fans will let me hear it.

You're looking for musicalonanismdiscussoin.com.

And if you're going to include Rush's dearly departed drummer in that list, get his name right.

Legend.

Ahhhhh. Excuse me if I am wrong, are not the Para Olympics in operation at this time?

Oh, but that's different! The Paralympics are a chance to show the best of humanity overcoming obstacles and being an inspiration for the Children! And you know that in politics, especially in Japan, invoking The Children trumps every other argument.

I have an anecdote on this matter. (Although personally I don't think it matters whether students learn American, British, Australian, or some other kind of English: "what do you like Japanese food?" sounds wrong in all of them).

Many years ago I did the ALT gig, like many of us did. One of the yearly events was the speech contest, usually on some trite theme like peace, peace, peace, why Japan is super-special, peace, food, or peace.

My school had a couple of kids participating so the head English teacher and I took them along to the location of the contest.

The last category was for returnees who were, obviously enough, generally at an entirely different level to the others. We got to the last two (neither of which were from my school, so I was able to be objective). The first girl came up and started her speech in a decidedly US accent. I'm from the UK, so I couldn't pinpoint it to a particular region, but it was absolutely an American accent. She was pretty good, but you could still hear little hints that she wasn't native. I can't remember what her speech was about, but I'm pretty sure it was one of the above-mentioned trite subjects.

The last student came up and started her speech. I was sitting next to an Australian ALT from another school, and within a few seconds of this girl starting to talk, this Australian ALT and I turned to each other with this look which said "hang on a minute..."

This girl didn't just have a British accent. She sounded like she had stepped out of a pathe news commercial from the 50s. Close you eyes and you would be absolutely convinced that you were listening to a native speaker who went to a private school at considerable expense. Her theme was somewhat unconventional, as I recall, but she was on a completely different level to anyone else there.

The girl with the American accent won.

Few years from now, old Cornelius will be an unperson on the assumption that record stores still exist:

Customer: "Excuse me, where would I find CDs by Cornelius?"

Staff: "I'm sorry, what was the artist's name again?"

Customer: "Cornelius"

Staff (consults computer): "I'm sorry, there seems to be no record of an artist with that name"

Customer: "Could you look under his real name, Oyamada Keigo?"

Staff (consults computer): "I'm afraid nothing comes up under that either"

Customer: "You're about the same age as I am. You must remember him. Flipper's Guitar, Shibuya-kei, you know the guy?"

Staff (sweating): "I am very sorry, I have never heard of him".

I thought Koike was actually ahead of the game when Covid really started becoming an issue in Tokyo. Sadly since then she hasn't been much more effective than the geriatric brigade. Now it's just platitudes and set-up photos.

It's starting to remind me of a one-off cartoon in Viz magazine, featuring DIana (Princess of Wales) in a landmine hospital, looking at a girl in a hospital bed.

Doctor: "This young girl only has one leg ma'am"

Diana: "Oh really? And how many legs did she used to have?"

with all this and the central gov says no closing schools AND insists on holding the Para Olympics while having a SOE which consists of targeting alcohol and evening dining and which is not even being enforced. unbelievable.

I think the problem is that it's not unbelievable. It's entirely believable. That, and the fact that this central government will, barring something unprecedented happening (like voters actually thinking before voting, assuming they even bother to vote) be re-elected comfortably later this year. Then the citizens will complain, but go all quiet when asked if they actually voted.

Parsons said...how many people will watch the world's biggest event for athletes with disabilities, will be less important.

If Bach hears that. Mr. Parsons will be demoted so fast his head will spin.

I wonder if the primary difference between Japan and certain western countries is simply a matter of perspective.

In certain western countries, people ignore government requests and advice (get vaccinated and wear a mask, stay home, don't gather unmasked in large spaces, etc.) because they have a colossal ego and/or are sociopaths: "I wanna go out" "I have rightzzzzzz" "The Man ain't gonna stop me!" "It's fine to use horse wormer for Covid, it says so on Facebook", etc.

In Japan it seems more out of a sense of nihilistic apathy coupled with the fact that the government can't legally (yet) do anything than issue declarations and ask people to comply.

Re- election. That's the only thing Suga cares about. Think he gives a toss about the average folk?

Just for fun, I looked up whether "ごせん" (i.e. "five thousand") has any homophones. Turns out that a couple are apposite:

互選: "election from within, internal vote"

五賎: "five lowly castes of the ritsuryo system"

I'm guessing you're a teenager, but your parents can only be blamed for your behavior up to a point.

I know what you mean. Teenagers are famous for being selfish and saying things like "as long as I can watch all the olympic events then I don't care if a few people out of millions die, they weren't my friends or nothing".

OMG you guys I saw this report on this website and it said there's this country and like 145% of all deaths are champion triathletes who got the vaccine and it's like totally true but I forgot where I saw it but if you google it you'll find it and if you disagree you hate triathletes.

If anyone from those 7 prefectures needs hints on how to approach the SOEs, just ask anyone from Tokyo. We've been pretty much ignoring them for months.

Seems like 5K is our new ballpark figure. Almost nostalgic to look back at the days when it was 500 and people were freaking out about that (and others were absolutely insistent that we wouldn't see more than slight increases and decreases....).

The "don't worry be Happy" brigade here, keep telling us everything is fine and Covid isn't a big deal!

You forgot "...as long as it doesn't affect them personally" at the end.

Good riddance. I saw the story on this pillock when it first broke.

The only trouble is that he's been deported, which means some village in the UK is going to get its idiot back.

And then someone comes on TV with a sticker board and graphs to show how foreign countries are worse off. E.g. Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Bangladesh. 

I haven't subjected myself to the brain-melting garbage that is Japanese TV for several years now, but I can easily visualise this.

I'd like to see them tackle the subject of the woman who had to give birth at home, and the baby subsequently died. They'd need a particularly convincing talento to fake some tears in the "wipe" (the box with the face).

Once they've done that they can go back to "heeeeeeeeeeh"-ing at those wacky foreigners.

I'm sure this extremely unfortunate incident will lead to a lot of meetings where the people involved will be very proactive in blaming anyone but themselves, before deciding on the time of the next meeting, in which they will decide on a strategy, said strategy to be discussed in more detail at the third meeting, the location of which will be voted on in a sub-meeting and the vote ratified by fax.

Time for the government to break out the verbal sleight of hand.

Citizens: "Hey, government! Look! Your inaction on the virus and focus on the Olympics has led to this situation!"

Govt. spokesperson: "Japan won lots of medals at the Olympics, and some children sang a John Lennon song!"

Citizens: "God bless the LDP! I will surely vote for you in the coming election!"

I have to admit that I only really became aware of him after Kill Bill. But he was a riot in that film. The back-and-forth with his bald employee in the sushi shop was like Tarantino Manzai.

But fear not. Each day a new antivaxxer is born.

Echoes of PT Barnum. "There's a sucker born every minute".

where is the J-media when they are needed most ?

Probably doing vital investigative work into the favourite Japanese food of paralympic athletes from gaikoku.