Jeremy Clarkson classics
Found these comments from the legend that is Jeremy Clarkson. This post will only really be appreciated by the British folks here, or those who know about Jeremy Clarkson and the “Top Gear” motoring show on the BBC. Please forgive any duplicates here:
“I’m sorry, but having a DB9 on the drive and not driving it is a bit like having Keira Knightley in your bed and sleeping on the couch. If you’ve got even half a scrotum it’s not going to happen.”
“We start tonight with the highlight of my childhood. It’s the Ladybird Book of Motorcars from 1963, and as you would imagine it’s full of rubbish really. Just endless boring grey shapes, until you get to page 40, where you find the Maserati 3500 GT. Now this for me, when I was little, was like kind of Jordan and Cameron Diaz. In a bath together. With a Lightning jet fighter. And lots of jelly.”
“[about Porsche Cayman S] There are many things I’d rather be doing than driving it, including waiting for Bernard Manning to come off stage in a sweaty nightclub, and then licking his back clean”
…”the last time someone was as wrong as you, was when a politician stepped off an aeroplane in 1939 waving a piece of paper in the air saying there will be no war with Germany”
“America: 250 million w****rs living in a country with no word for **********”
On the Alfa Romeo Brera… “I only have to imagine this in black, with tan leather and I’m nursing a semi!”
Illustrating the lack of power of a Boxster - ‘It couldn’t pull a greased stick out of a pig’s bottom’
On the Vauxhall Vectra VXR:
“there is a word to describe this car: it begins with “s” and ends with “t” and its not “soot”.
Hammond:”So its fairly terrible then?”
Clarkson:”Oh no…losing your leg is fairly terrible: this is another league of badness!”
“some say, that he used to throw microwave ovens at homeless people - and that he long before anyone else realised that jade goody is a racist pig faced waste of blood and organs…………all we know, is that he’s called the Stig!”
“the Suzuki Wagon R should be avoided like unprotected sex with an Ethiopian transvestite”
“Speed has never killed anyone; suddenly becoming stationary… that’s what gets you.”
‘The air conditioning in Lambos used to be an asthmatic sitting in the dashboard blowing at you through a straw’
“Koenigsegg are saying that the CCX is more comfortable. More comfortable than what… BEING STABBED?”
“The only person to ever look good in the back of a 4-seater convertable was Adolf Hitler”
(Fed up during the caravaning trip)
“You aren’t allowed to have a party, you aren’t allowed to have music, you aren’t allowed to play ball games, you aren’t allowed to have a camp fire, you have to park within two feet of a post, you have to keep quiet, you have to be in bed by eleven. This is not a holiday, it’s a concentration camp!”
“This is the Renault Espace, probably the best of the people carriers. Not that that’s much to shout about. That’s like saying “Ooh good I’ve got syphilis, the BEST of the sexually transmitted diseases.”"
(mercedes CLs55) “Braking in this car is so brutal, it would be less painful to actually hit the tree you were trying to miss.”
“I don’t understand bus lanes. Why do poor people have to get to places quicker than I do?”
Clarksons highway code on cyclists: ‘trespassers in the motorcars domain, they do not pay road tax and therefore have no right to be on the road, some of them even believe they are going fast enough to not be an obstruction. Run them down to prove them wrong’
“I was reading The Mirror the other day and came across a letter from a reader who wrote, ‘I was riding my bike to work when this red Ferrari pulled up next to me. Out of the window, Jeremy Clarkson shouted ‘Get a car’, and drove off.’ What I actually said was, ‘Get a car you hatchet faced, leaf-eating N**i”
“Britian’s nuclear submarines have been deemed unsafe…probably because they don’t have wheel-chair access”
1) “If we are being honest HIV is a pathetic virus, it can only live in the air for 6seconds and it does what ebola does to you in 10days in 10years”
2) “Mandela just doesn’t deserve his pedestal, I’m mean the blokes a bit dodgy”
3) On Mandela’s claim that Cuba is a good advert for democracy!!! “Well Mr Mandela why don’t you go and ask one of the 12 year old cuban prostitutes which way her parents voted”
“Now we get quite a lot of complaints that we don’t feature enough affordable cars on the show……so we’ll kick off tonight with the cheapest Ferrari of them all!”
On the Lotus Elise: “This car is more fun than the entire french air force crashing into a firework factory”
“Now as you can see I lost the battle to have two engines on the back because of three very important reasons. One: weight. This is 600 Lbs and that’s the same as having a whole American sitting on the tailgate…”
“I would still buy the DB9 over this, and save myself the £60,000. The problem with this car is its gearbox, its just……..”
Hammond:”THAT bad is it?”
Clarkson:”Oh no. Robert Mugabe is bad, this is in a whole different league!” Continue reading this entry »
How to survive the summer heat
Summer can be a killer, whether you’re in Tokyo where the air conditionining just pumps out heat into the streets and fresh air is at a premium, or Okinawa where the humidity hits you like a hot smack in the face as soon as you step out of the door. It can make you tired, sick, sleep deprived and affect you a lot more than you might realise. I know the effects of this, having suffered from it repeatedly in the Maldives and slightly here in Okinawa. But there was an excellent article in the Japan Times a couple of days ago with some ideas on how to relieve these symptoms so that you can actually enjoy your summer:
By TOMOKO OTAKE
Staff writer
No sweat: take a few simple steps to avoid the worst effects of summer heat fatigue. AP PHOTO
Imagine being in a sauna for a few hours. Then imagine getting out of it and walking straight into a giant freezer for another few hours. Do this several times a day and continue the routine for a couple of months. Some people say that’s what spending summer in Japan is like.
Japan’s summer months are notoriously hot and muggy, which can lead to a range of health problems. Natsubate (summer fatigue) leaves people feeling tired, lethargic and/or sleep-deprived. Many people lose their appetite and become irritated, while others suffer digestive problems such as diarrhea, constipation and/or giddiness.
Originally referring to a condition brought on by prolonged exposure to the sweltering summer heat, these days natsubate starts early even in late June for some people, because of sudden changes in the weather and freezerlike air conditioning in trains, buses and buildings.
Dr. Takao Matsumoto, deputy director of Tokyo Rinkai Hospital in Edogawa Ward, Tokyo, who occasionally sees patients with heat-related illnesses, says summer fatigue is primarily caused by perspiration problems. Body temperature rises in hot weather, and the body tries to cool itself via perspiration. But when exposed to the heat for too long, some people’s bodies become incapable of making such adjustments.
Matsumoto noted that natsubate should not be taken lightly. If left unattended, it can lead to dehydra- tion, cramps and heat stroke.
“Many people start having problems when the temperature rises to around 25 degrees,” Matsumoto said. “Ideally, the temperature differences between outdoor air and indoor air should be kept within 5 degrees.”
So what can we do to avoid the summer’s perils? Matsumoto and other experts offer the following no-nonsense tips:
Carry clothes that are easy to put on and take off: Many offices are excessively air-conditioned. Bring a cardigan or a long-sleeved shirt to your office and wear it when you feel cold. To counter the air conditioning, some office workers nowadays bring to their offices a yutampo (hot-water bottle), which many Japanese traditionally use to make their futon warm in the winter. You can buy yutampo at a drug store for a few thousand yen apiece. Another tip is to ask your office to turn their air conditioning down (which conserves energy, too.)
Get enough sleep: It might sound elementary, but sleep is indeed essential to avoid and recover from natsubate. If you have problems going to sleep because of the heat, place a bag of ice on your pillow for a few minutes, or turn on an air-conditioner with a timer, making sure that it switches off after several hours. Turning air conditioning on throughout the night is often a cause of natsubate.
Work out regularly: People who can sweat effectively are less likely to suffer from natsubate because their bodies are better conditioned to accommodate temperature changes. Regular exercise can prepare people for that. It also helps them build stamina to survive the summer.
Diet is key
Keiko Kamachi, a registered dietitian and associate professor of nutrition at the Kagawa Nutrition University in Tokyo, meanwhile, says a regular, balanced diet is key to staying healthy through the summer.
“Eat three meals regularly,” she said. “You can also choose to have food that makes you less likely to feel tired.” Summer vegetables such as tomato, eggplant and cucumber contain antioxidants that help protect against ultraviolet light, Kamachi says. Local summer fruits such as suika (watermelon) and nashi (pears) are rich in the minerals that are lost due to perspiration. Natsumikan (summer tangerine), rich in potassium and magnesium, is also good because its citric acid helps people recover from exhaustion, she said. The key, however, is not to gorge on any particular food item but to “eat a little bit of all (of them),” according to Kamachi.
When you are tired, try taking B vitamins, as they help the body convert food into energy, both Matsumoto and Kamachi say. Not that popping a pill is going to work magic.
“Vitamin supplements can irritate the stomach, so it is better to get B vitamins through regular food,” Kamachi says.
Foods rich in B vitamins include pork, soybeans and milk. Soba noodles are also known to be rich in B vitamins, she said, noting that when you have soba, you should also drink the sobayu (the hot water used to boil the noodles) served at most soba restaurants after the meal.
The use of food to ease summer exhaustion dates back to the eighth century in Japan, when the poet Ootomono Yakamochi recommended a suffering friend eat eel to regain his strength, and people in different regions of the country have developed their own particular remedies, often using food locally grown or produced. Junko Yokota, a travel consultant who lives in the Aizu region in western Fukushima Prefecture, says that it has long been a common practice for families in her area to pick ume plums that naturally grow in their gardens and put them in jars with rock sugar. Local plums a brand known as Aizu-takada ume make great plum juice, she says, noting that, when she was a girl, her grandmother would make her drink a glass of the homemade nectar every day during the summer.
“Plums are picked in June and placed in jars, and a year later they are ready to be served,” Yokota said. “You would drink the juice, and then eat the plum as well. It’s probably thanks to those plums that I have never experienced natsubate.”
Stay cool as a cucumber soup
Suffering from the heat? Want to try a Japanese solution to a Japanese problem?
Masahiro Kumamoto, a 46-year-old owner of a seafood-products store in Miyazaki Prefecture, western Japan, says he cannot do without a bowl of hiyajiru (cold miso soup poured over cold rice), to deal with the region’s notoriously hot summer. It has traditionally been a “work-time dish” among farmers and fishermen. A self-confessed hiyajiru otaku (obsessive fan), Kumamoto, whose store is named Kumaya Shokuhin, offers the following recipe for hiyajiru, which he claims, if properly cooked, is a culinary experience as rich as the French soup vichyssoise.
The method
1. Choose the type of fish you want to use. The most common fish used in many households is iriko (dried small fish). Fry the iriko in a pan, then crush them with a mortar. You can also use hiraki (fish cut open and dried), in which case grill them and separate the flesh from the bones.
2. To create a soup, fill a sauce pan with water, add katsuobushi (dried bonito shavings) and kombu seaweed and let the water boil for a few minutes.
3. Spread miso on tin foil and heat it for several minutes, giving it a nice roasted flavor.
4. Put the fish and some mashed-up tofu into the soup and bring it to the boil. Add the miso little by little, using a touch more of the paste than usual, because sliced cucumber (to be added later) thins out the taste.
5. Now the most time-consuming part: Let the soup cool to room temperature. Add the cucumber, chopped oba (Japanese basil) and ground sesame seeds. Prepare a portion of rice as usual.
6. Cool the soup in the refrigerator for at least an hour. Cool your rice to room temperature. Finally, don’t forget to chill your rice bowls in the refrigerator.
Princess Tenko injured during a magic performance
I’m sure some of you will remember the article I posted a while back about Japanese magician, Princess Tenko. Well, reports have just come though on the BBC that she has been injured in a performance. The new story reads as follows:
Magician injured in sword trick
Japanese magician Princess Tenko has been seriously injured in a sword trick that went wrong.
The illusionist was trapped in a box by ten metal swords during a show in the Japanese city of Sabae, breaking several ribs and her right cheek.
One of the swords “would have been stuck in her right eye if it were one centimetre higher”, her manager Noboru Ochiai said.
“It will take a month to heal the wounds,” he added.
Princess Tenko has a large fan base in Asia and North America and regularly performs in Las Vegas.
‘Tremendous pain’
Renowned for her elaborate costumes and doll make-up, the magician was injured performing a trick billed as The Spike Illusion in the Face of Death.
She was supposed to escape a box the moment it was speared by ten fake metal swords, but instead was pinned inside.
The star continued her performance for 30 minutes before the show was called off.
“She is suffering tremendous pain but is more shocked that she had to call off performances,” Mr Ochiai said.
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/6913036.stm
Cool web trends/Tokyo subway map
Saw this on the excellent Japan Sugoi site and thought I’d share it with you. It’s a map of 200 of the most popular sites on the web, ordered by category, proximity, success, popularity and perspective. it’s quite cool and looks very much like the Tokyo subway system (even down to the lines).
It also has the following little things to note, as well as many others to those familiar with Tokyo:
1. Google has moved from Shibuya, a humming place for young people, to Shinjuku, a suspicious, messy, Yakuza-controlled, but still a pretty cool place to hang out (Golden Gaya).
2. Youtube has conquered Shibuya.
3. Microsoft has moved to Ikebukuro, if you know what I mean.
4. Yahoo is in Ueno, a nice place but nothing going on there.
5. Wikipedia now is in Shimbashi, the place for the square and hard-headed Salaryman, like the Wikipedia watchdogs.
6. The Chinese line runs parallel to the gshare lineh which starts with the main piratesc
7. Paper info designer Tufte is right below the Federated Media, right before joining with the interactive information design circle in a 90 degree angle.
8. gYouh are in the Emperorfs palace, in the centre of the network.
For more information, head to the Web Trend 2007 Map webpage.
