Wheeeee!

I'm more of a Safari user, but this ad for the Firefox browser is really funny!

Ribbit. Friggit.

In some ways the picture speaks for itself... but let me rant.

Why? Why would anyone put something like this in front of their kitchen sink? Assuming it hasn't been given as a present, it clearly reflects a decision to purchase. "Oh honey, I know just what we need for the kitchen. Look, won't it make washing up so much more fun?"
I can't help but envisage Kogo's otherwise shy and silent girlfriend giggling hysterically like an overexcited five year old girl, rubbing the soles of her bare feet against the rug as she does the washing up, soap bubbles floating up, glistening in the summer sun. "Oh thank you, frog, thank you for being there for me."

Every time I look at this frog I see red.

Nippontastico.

Well, I surpassed myself by being roughly 12kg overweight on baggage this time (over a max allowance of 20kg!) Thank God they said nothing at check-in because Japan Airlines' excess baggage charges could have amounted to hundreds of pounds in my case...

My flight was fine, although I didn't sleep at all, which was kind of traumatic given that I'd only slept two hours the previous night. However, the trip was jazzed up by being able to watch live footage from a camera at the front of the plane during take off and landing, and a camera looking down from underneath the fuselage during the rest of the flight.

Got through immigration where they continue to stamp my passport in the most random order of pages possible, wrestled with my mountains of baggage, and was then met by Student services people who bundled me into an expenses-paid taxi into Tokyo (fare came to £125). Nodded off for twenty minutes during the trip which brought my sleep-count to 2h 20mins in the previous 48 hours. Nevertheless I was still somehow able to direct my utterly clueless taxi driver around Tokyo. The London cabbie with his encyclopedic knowledge of the city is an exception, for sure, and after seeing the insane size and density of the rabbit warren that is Tokyo, no person in their right mind would expect another human being to learn the streets off by heart (especially since just about no street in Japan short of a major dual-carriageway has a name). Still, I was a little shocked that I in fact had a better understanding of Tokyo's overall layout, a better sense of direction, and was better at reading Japanese roadsigns and maps than my taxi driver. I think the student services must have slipped me a cut-price Korean masquerading as Japanese...

Back in flat, sitting down on sofa-bed, can't quite believe I'm in Tokyo again. Start to feel hungry so decide to find left-over blueberry muffin which I couldn't finish at Heathrow and saved for later. What I said as I reached into the bag to retrieve it captured perfectly my altered state of mind at the time:

"Speak to me, Muffin child."

Remember to turn the light off before you go to bed.

These kinds of pictures used to amaze me a few years ago, and in many ways they still do. But the more I've read about energy issues over the past two years I've started to comprehend the sheer wastage that exists all around us, and I suddenly see this picture in a different way. I don't want to get into a despairing rant about the coming energy/oil crisis, so to put it simplistically, this is what we're fighting for: just to keep the lights on.



(Click for full-size image)

The Third Way

Hold your horses Mr Geldof! No need to go around rallying pop stars in the name of saving Africa, my mum has got a better idea! No really, it's great - you'll kick yourself for not having thought of it before!

"What someone should do is empty Africa of all the Africans, make them go somewhere, and then all the European plumbers and carpenters could go in and fix the place, build new towns and cities and make it work and then all the Africans could come back and everything would be fine."

"Where exactly would you send them?"

"Oh, I don't know. Somewhere."

Israel, anybody? Now that would set the cat among the pigeons.