Wash day today, and time to sort out and air my bags.

The News from Ireland

Picked up the latest news, mainly commentaries on the Irish game, at an "e-cafe" just up the road from the hotel, which I downloaded onto floppies to peruse later at the hotel.

Tom Humphries in the Irish Times, in his customary purple prose, was calling it "a walk on the wild side. In perfectly ordered Japan this Irish World Cup adventure is a riot, a sun dance, an anarchic subversion of football logic" adding that "perhaps no contribution from Roy Keane to his team was as great as his having left it". And he finished with: "The odds have tilted in our favour. Summer gets dizzier. "Dunphy, Only A Game," said one banner in the Kashima last night. Only a game to make grown men cry."

English As She Is Spoke

English is used creatively here. Sweatshirts and t-shirts carry all kinds of nonsensical slogans. Pocari Sweat is a popular drink, Creap a coffee lightener, and Potato the name of a rock magazine. On vending machines, Coca-Cola products carry the slogan "I feel Coke," while cans proclaim "I feel Coke & Sound Special." A century ago Basil Hall Chamberlain called this creative use of the English language "English as she is Japped."

When the James Bond movie Dr. No came out, the Japanese office of United Artists originally translated the title as "We don't want a doctor", and even had posters printed with that title. The mistake was discovered at the last moment.

The Real Japan...

I was wondering whether I was doing the right thing by sticking mainly to cities during this trip. You can't cover everything in a couple of weeks. Anyway, I came across some statistics about urban and rural Japan. Of Japan's 123,000,000 people, 75% live in urban areas, and 25% live in Japan's ten cities that have over 1,000,000 people each: Tokyo (12M), Yokohama (3M), Osaka (2.6M), Nagoya (2.2M), Sapporo (1.6M), Kobe (1.5M), Kyoto (1.4M), Fukuoka (1.2M), Hiroshima (1.1M), Kawasaki (1.0M). The Tokyo-Yokohama-Kawasaki corridor is virtually one city, and the world's largest, and 40,000,000 people live within fifty kilometers of the Imperial Palace in Tokyo. So all this seems to indicate that urban Japan is the real Japan these days.

Quotes

"We declared war on America and Britain.......it being far from Our thoughts either to infringe on the sovereignty of other nations or to embark on territorial aggrandisement."
"Despite the best that has been done by everyone, the war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan's advantage."
Emporer Hirohito in his address to the Japanese people announcing Japan's surrender at the end of World War 2.

In 1995 the Japanese Prime Minister apologized for Japan's actions in the war.

The Beautiful Game

Late afternoon went in search of the Irish pub, Kells, that Michael had told me about, to watch the match between our fellow Group E members, Cameroon and Saudi Arabia. The result, 1-0 for Cameroon, was also a good result for us. Cameroon were lucky in the end even to get Eto'o's goal, and the result leaves us needing only a 2-0 win to ensure passage to Korea for the second round. On the other hand, Saudi Arabia were far better than they were against Germany.

There were several groups of Irish in the pub, and I watched the Group A France-Uruguay game with a couple of lads from Portlaise (one of them had his flag, "Cavanagh's Pub" taken by the police at the stadium, and it was not recovered). France could only draw 0-0 with Uruguay, so things are looking decidedly dodgy for them. Zidane again did not play, Frank Leboeuf came off injured early on (though recalling his play last Friday, that may have been a blessing in disguise) and Thierry Henry was sent off on 25 minutes.

In the same group Senegal midfielder Salif Diao was at the heart of all the action in Senegal's 1-1 draw with Denmark. First, he took down Jon Dahl Tomasson and Denmark went up (in the 16th minute) on a penalty. Early in the second half, Diao scored to equalize. Then, finally, as the match turned ugly, he was sent off.