The Roadshow Returns!

Got a gig tonight so a bit of practising is in order!

Japanese soft drinks

This is Pocari Sweat. It's one of dozens of rather strange-sounding soft drinks which are very popular in Japan. And it has recently occurred to me that I know what hardly any of these drinks taste like. So now I'm going to head down to the local supermarket and buy a load of them and over the next few weeks I plan to conduct a rather scientific taste-test to see which ones I like and which ones (the vast majority I imagine) I don't.

It's going to be called the All-Nippon Soft Drink Championship （ザオール日本ソフトドリンクの選手権大会） and as I'm sure you can imagine, there can only be one winner!

Here comes the cold!

The warm weather now seems almost a thing of the past over here in Kyushu. Yesterday morning was the first time for me to wear a coat since February and I’ve long since said goodbye to the aircon, at least until next July anyway. The spiders are all out, some of them are very big and juicy looking (I keep getting my head caught in their enormous webs) and the leaves are rapidly losing their green colour. My house is now feeling a little chilly in the morning and I opted to wear socks and light trousers in bed last night. There’s no doubt that the heating will be coming on soon and I am very close to buying one of those great Japanese kettles which give you instantly hot water at the touch of a button. Yes, the winter is not far away! And winter in Kyushu sucks because many of the houses, especially the old ones like mine, are not really built for cold conditions. So, I imagine it’s going to mean an uncomfortable few months again. But maybe it’ll provide the chance for some good photos if it snows this year!

Saturday night!

My younger brother and sister are in town! It's their first time in Japan so what better than for a visit to the karaoke box?

Bearded monster!!

Softbank shot down!

Defeat for the Hawks in the championship game! Who likes baseball anyway?

You're avin' a larf!!

Thanks to Kazu (awesome Freddy Mercury impression), Erik, Daniel, Skipper and Jesus (me) for your great performances at comedy night. You were all awesome! Thanks for a great evening guys! And thanks to all those who came to see the show. I hope we didn't offend any of you too much!

AGHHHH!!!!!!!

There's a lot of things I like about Japan, but then again there's a few things I don't. Or perhaps I just don't understand.

Today is a national holiday. I don't know what national holiday it is and I'm not really too bothered either. The most important thing for me is that I don't have to go to work and I can stay in bed for as long as I like and get a much needed lye-in.

Not so, apparently.

Why, on a national holiday, does some pillock in a van with loud speakers feel the need to drive round the neighbourhood waking everybody up spouting out political messages at 8.20 in the morning? Bloody Matsumoto, whoever he is (I'm assuming it's a man - sorry if I'm wrong) wants to thank everyone, or so it seems. Not sure what for. But of course he gets the most annoying high-pitched voice girl to screech incessently over the mic.

Another case in point, every year on November 23rd (another national holiday) one of the areas in my prefecture has their Junior High School speech contest. I have had to go to this two years in a row. But why have it on a bloody national holiday? It drives me mad! These days are supposed to be for resting.

But it seems that rest and vacation are almost alien concept to a lot of Japanese. Almost every time I try to have a lye-in in my town some b*stard with a loud speaker wakes me up. Sometimes it's the supermarket crew informing me at 7.30am that they have special offers on cans of tuna. Sometimes it's the local politicians canvassing or as is the case today, thanking me for voting for them. Sometimes it's the countryside morning siren, the only purpose of which seems to be to wake me and all those other people who have the audacity to sleep in past 8am on a weekend. Sometimes it's the local high school deciding they want to practice god-knows-what really loudly. Everywhere you go, there's noise. I just want some peace and quiet. If I wanted to be woken up at 8am every day I would have lived in the city. Agh...it drives me bonkers!

And bloody Matsumoto is still blaring right outside my window! It's not funny!! Shut the f*ck up!! I didn't vote for you. I'm not allowed to vote. I want to go back to sleep!!

Get ready...

Baka Gaijins International Stand-up Comedy Night
Sunday 9th October, 8pm, International Bar, Tenjin

As promised, the first of the promo shots for the Fukuoka Now advert. I'll be posting one every day this week...

FGU humbled as fans protest

Fukuoka Gaikokujin United made a pig's ear of their first home game of the season as they fell to an embarrassing 4-1 home defeat to Japanese outfit FC Egami.

FGU had enough chances to have got something out of the game but woeful finishing coupled with suicidal defending meant that they virtually gifted victory to their grateful visitors.

Under-fire player-manager Canning missed a host of chances for FGU and the defeat sparked angry fans into protest after the final whistle. One supporter raged 'We made this trip in the pissing rain to come and watch FGU play some entertaining football. But this was shite! It was simply not good enough. We expect more at this club!'

Goalkeeper Heneghan, playing his second game in the Fukuoka goal, was once again beaten four times. 'The lads are disappointed' he conceded. 'Of course, the conditions were not good and the pitch was atrocious, but that's no excuse. We were poor today. Defensively we were non-existant and in the attacking third we were shockingly wasteful. We'll have to improve or it's going to be a long, hard season.'

Next weekend FGU welcome arch-rivals Hiroshima Jets to Fukuoka in a game they will not want to lose. The digruntled FGU fan-base will feel happier knowing that first-choice goalkeeper Ian van der Saar is expected to be available for the game, allowing Heneghan to take his usual place in the FGU strikeforce. But it seems it's going to take a bit more than that to fill the holes in the porous FGU defence.

Baka gaijins!

Fukuoka Now Magazine, October Issue

My friend Skipper and I managed to get a bit of publicity for our up-coming stand-up comedy night in the rather excellent Fukuoka Now. Scheduled for Sunday 9th, we'll have six top quality funnymen giving us the pleasure of their wit. And that also includes Skip and I as we are really really funny if you didn't already know! Well, Skip is anyway!

Anyway, it's bound to be a full house for the event, which will take place at International Bar in Tenjin. I would suggest that if you want a seat then you'd better come early. This is the event of next weekend in Fukuoka, according to some people. Actually, I just made that up. But seriously, there's a lot of interest. And I-Bar is small.

For the advert Skip and I had to do a photo shoot in my house using my rubbish digital camera. We took about 50 shots and passed the best five on to the magazine. As you can see, they chose a shot of Skip eating ramen coming from my nose. See, didn't I say that we were funny?

In the run-up to the event I'll post the best five photos from our promo photo shoot over the next seven days! Some of them are very silly!