Discombobulation of life

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhrxqa8AjfI

After reading an article which talk about a Japanese football player being caught having sex with a 15 year old, well not caught in the act, but caught after he left his wallet in the basket of her bicycle (ooops), I thought that I would check out the age of consent and found this website (http://www.avert.org/aofconsent.htm)I had not realised that the age was 13 in Japan. Rather low for a country so sexually repressed that sex education is not taught at school. But pretty nifty for avoiding scandals, which the Japanese love to do. So there you go. And for those interested, here is the article about the Japanese footballer: http://football.guardian.co.uk/breakingnews/feedstory/0,,-6930227,00.html
and here
http://soccerphile.blogspot.com/2007/06/japanese-soccer-news.html

Having waited what seems to be an eternity for the List, it has finally arrived. This list represents possibilities. It is the beginning of the next part of my life, the next part of our life, mine and my fiancée's. As we are still waiting for visas to be arranged, a large number if countries are unavailable to us. But the rest still have so much potential.

There are posts available in China, in Mexico, in South America, Egypt, Eritrea, Jerusalem, and even Paris. But where does one start when there is so much to consider? Some people will insist that employment opportunities are the most important factors to consider. For others, finding an environment for their children to grow, is what they are looking for. I know that for those who want to eventually become diplomats, and have a grand role in the global game of politics, they will choose very carefully, ensuring that all their choices are those that will lead to their goal, places with political difficulty, Iraq, Israel. places fraught with danger, Bogotá, Port Au Prince. For others, the choice will be based on the amount of sunshine, or the proximity to others countries worth seeing. But right now all I can think of is: which place has the best food? And right now my nose is pointing towards Buenos Aires. and Beef.

Throughout mankind's history, people have struggled for freedom. The freedom to say what they want, to go where they want and to do what they want. From this freedom, trade has made headway and has probably surpassed anything that our ancestors could ever have dreamed of. however, this freedom has also gifted us with the curse of choice. A curse you ask yourself? Yes a curse I tell you. But how bad can it be to be able to choose between a Hamburger and and cheeseburger. What harm is there in preferring a peperoni pizza to a Ham and Pineapple? Well there is probably no harm in that at all. There is no harm in choice but choice does lead to confusion. Choosing whether or not one would like cheese in a Hamburger is not the only decision one has to make at the kiosk at Burger King or Mikey D's any more. gherkin or no gherkin? relish or no relish? onions? extra patties? mushrooms? bacon? bacon and cheese? bacon, fat stripped off and low fat cheese? And then we have Pizzas, deep pan, thin n crispy, extra cheese, half and half (for those of us really indecisive people), cheesy crust, sausage in crust? no crush, pull apart pizza, fondue pizza.

Where the hell does it all end? Why does it all have to be so darn complicated?

I need a suit. A black one. Simple enough I thought. So off I went to a store to get a suit. They started talking to me about cuts, and types of wool and light weight or heavy weight. So I left and went to another store. A little more up market so the first guy ignored me, like my £500 pounds is not going to be as good as someone else's. "Oh we have work suits, which are heavy duty but too warm for the summer. Ok I thought, so I shall take a lighter suit. But alas, they did not have it in stock, and the guy did not seem to have any intention of ordering one in for me. So I left. I do have to say that Aquascutum have some fantastic Jackets. My mother loves their coats and while there are many things that I would not listen to her about, fashion is something she seems to know about, though she is probably the least fashionable person I know. She does dress well though.

I digress

My problem right now is this: I found a really nice black suit from a shop called Pellini Uomo, manned by Italian wearing suits, gold chains and tans that can only be described as radioactive. Nice guys but how do you know what to believe? Yeah they know about their product, but they are also there to sell suits. The thing is, the suit fits. Really nicely. But it costs £400, down from £800 apparently, though there has been a sale in that shop since I started work in London again.

With this is mind, as a consumer I have three choices, well probably more, but I have narrowed my choices down to three. First, I could get the suit. It fits, it feels good, and I look darn good in it. Second, I could say no, go to Selfridges, find a designer suit, pay £600 but really would I be paying for the suit or the name? Where does the suit end and the Hugo Boss, Oswald Boateng, Ted Baker begin? or I could go to TM Lewin, get a £250 suit, then used the money saved to get a really nice shirt from Duchamp (http://www.duchamplondon.com/)(I love this shop). I really cannot decide. And that is where freedom of choice has got me. I am in stasis hoping that something happens that will point me in the right direction. Am leaning towards the last idea but only cos that shirt is so wonderful.

Ok, so not my article, but good to read for anyone who cares about slavery and Africa

Sun Sep 9, 2007 11:13PM EDT
By Daniel Flynn
FREETOWN (Reuters) - Scarred by war and worn by time, the tumbledown wooden houses which dot Freetown are a vestige of the Krios, descendants of freed slaves who once made Sierra Leone a beacon of Western culture in Africa.
Patched with rusty scraps of corrugated iron, their broken windows covered by bits of cardboard, the old board dwellings -- "ole bod ose" in Krio -- are a fragile reminder of the former British colony's rich but endangered heritage.
Freetown was colonized in waves by Black Poor from London, emancipated American slaves resettled from Nova Scotia, and Maroon rebels from Jamaica's rugged interior. They merged to form a Creole ruling elite -- the Krios.
The Krios, who today number 100,000 of a population of 5.7 million, were more Western than African. For a century after its founding in 1827, Fourah Bay College was the region's sole European style university, earning Freetown the title the Athens of West Africa.
"These houses are unique. They are a physical sign of the Krio culture," said Tom Walsh, director of the British Council, which funded an exhibition on the colonial dwellings. "But it's a fragile heritage given Sierra Leone's economic problems."
Many of the wooden houses have been gutted by fire, others torn down to make way for concrete as Sierra Leone struggles to recover from a brutal, diamond-fuelled civil war in 1991-2002.
"People don't prize the old Creole buildings," said historian Joe Alie. "Sierra Leone is a melting pot but most people here aren't aware of their unique history and culture."
BURST OF IDEALISM
Sierra Leone was founded in a burst of idealism by British abolitionists as the "Province of Freedom" in 1787. For half a century after Britain's abolition of the slave trade in 1807, the British navy deposited captives freed from slaving vessels from along the length of the West African coast.
The ancient gateway through which they passed, inscribed to "British Valour and Philanthropy", still stands near the waterfront. Mosques peppering the city testify to the Muslim faith they brought, at odds with the Krios' devout Christianity.
Today, the original red-brick Fourah Bay College building lies in ruins, occupied by squatters. In recent times, with Sierra Leone holding this year its first elections since U.N. peacekeepers withdrew in 2005, the Krios' sway has crumbled.
"The Krios are not as powerful as they used to be," said waiter Saliou Diallo. "But we still speak their broken English."
The Krio language, which has become a lingua franca for Sierra Leone's Temne and Mende tribes of the interior, testifies to the country's hybrid origins. Although its roots are English, its structure is influenced by African languages and its vocabulary is a mishmash of African and European words.
"Ow de body?" is a common greeting derived from English, but another, "Kushe-o", was brought by freed Nigerian slaves from the Yoruba tongue. "Sabi", to know, descends directly from Portuguese diction, as does "pikin" the word for a child, while "boku", meaning a lot, is adulterated French.
When spoken correctly, the language is virtually unintelligible to an English speaker. But many Sierra Leoneans now fear their native tongue is being polluted by English.
"Krio is changing. The younger people don't speak proper Krio," said Joe Kay, curator of the national museum, home to a trove of dusty treasures. "Now they're trying to teach Krio in school because people speak English at home ... because they think it helps their children."
MOTHS
Prosperity has lagged peace in Sierra Leone. With most people surviving on less than a dollar a day, heritage is not a priority. There is no system for listing historic buildings and the Monuments and Relics Commission is composed of volunteers.
Freetown's place-names tell a rich history. The Waterloo neighborhood was founded by Africans who fought for Britain in the Napoleonic wars, while Congo town is named for the freed African slaves who settled there.
Destruction Bay still conceals the ancient hulks of the captured slaving ships which were broken up there to prevent them falling back into the hands of slavers.
Further up the river Rokel, the crumbling ivy-clad fortress on Bunce island was a major slaving fort for more than a century, but unlike similar sites in Ghana and Senegal, it lies in ruins. Efforts to renovate it were scuppered by the civil war, but the British hope to revive them.
"Bunce island is not very well known given its historical significance, much less so than the slave forts in Ghana, and some would argue it has even greater significance," said Walsh.
In the new Fourah Bay College, where dogs sleep in the stairwells, the national archives lie abandoned in two rooms.
Among the yellowing letters from colonial governors and the inventories of slaving ships lies the colony's founding charter, listing the gifts paid to Temne chief King Tom for the land.
"These documents are of phenomenal national and international significance. It's just tragic that they are being eaten by moths," said Walsh. "It just needs a window to be broken and rain to get in and the records are gone."

http://board.okayplayer.com/okp.php?az=show_topic&forum=3&topic_id=157230&mesg_id=157230&page=

My office, well the main part in which I sit, is a big square room, divided into three rows running across from top to bottom. On one side of the room sit the "Japanese" managers. They are the ones that are sent over every three or four years to research for the company. What they do, I have no idea. After ten months here, I still have no idea. In the middle of the room there is a desk close to the window, where the trainees sit. The trainees work for the company and generally seem to already have pretty decent jobs within the companies but they are called trainees anyway. The managers get to travel quite a lot. In fact this week, all but one of them has spent some time abroad or out of the office. The trainees generally spend their time travelling around Europe, assimilating information or something, I figure that they probably do a lot of sight seeing too. And yes, you are sensing a little bit of jealousy here. I am not allowed abroad. I am attend conferences here in the UK but not abroad, where one would think my linguistic abilities would be better utilised. But a lot of things that happen here make no sense.

In the third and final row, I sit in the middle, one colleague on my right has been here for a while and he is pretty content to use his time catching up with his reading and going to the gym. On my left sits the accountant, though it does not seem that the is a qualified accountant, she still does a good job it appears.

Every once in a while, the managers across the other side of the room will share a joke, and burst into fits of laughter.

Every once in a while, everyone on the other side of the room will get up together and disappear for an hour or so, reappear, sit down and carry on with their work.

Every morning we have meetings. These are generally pointless. In fact I do not think that I have ever learnt anything in one of these meetings that an emailed could not have told me. Three out of five times, maybe a slight over estimation, the managers will stay in the meeting room after our original meeting, and continue a new private meeting and tell us nothing.

In fact, we rarely get told about anything that happens. And yet they worry that I may have meetings with rival Japanese energy companies and divulge information. I know nothing. I know as much about the company as I did 6months ago.

Every once in a while, the other side of the room will become a sea of awkward, never-ending bows. It is a cross between a nature show, the ones with the meerkats and one of the more absurd Monty Python sketches.

People wondered why I complain about working in a job where I do not really work for most of the day. I hope this goes some way to explaining my sentiments. I have never worked in an environment, where I have felt so excluded from everything going on around me. I have never been aware of anyone being employed in a company of this size, but not getting the chance to show what they are really capable of doing.

The Japanese are scared of China, and so they should be. Even though China may have a repressive government, they move quickly in business. Japan however has a repressive society, a society that really frowns upon dynamism, on change, on challenging the status quo, on asking for help (especially from Gaijin), on boldness, on being the nail that sticks down. And this is why Japan is a rather stagnant place in which live. Nothing really changes.

well the ball has been set rolling; I have emailed the German embassy and am waiting for a reply. I have already spoken to the French embassy and now have to relevant forms. I spoke to the Japanese embassy and they want me to go get finger printed at a police station over here and then send my prints back to Japan. Hmmm, I wonder why that would be? I am guessing that they will probably try to match my prints to unsolved crimes in Japan. The Japanese tend to feel that foreigners are the greatest source of crime in their homeland.

The French one will take 2 weeks or so, but the one from Japan will take at least two months. I know it has to get there but come on...

Recently I had been thinking that maybe there was really nothing left for me to write about. But I guess that really I was just being lazy. There is a lot, or at least there will be a lot for me to write about in the coming months. Besides, I really miss writing, even if it is just a bit of aimless rambling, and pointless meandering.

Life is exciting again.
Not in the going out, getting smashed, shagging lots type way, more in a low key, oh my god i am growing up, actually no, i am grown, type way. Weird to think that it was only waking up on Saturday morning that this realisation made any headway. But it did, and now it is on to the next part. And this is going to prove to be harder that the nearly two years that my fiancee and i have spent. Now comes the waiting. We have done all that we can as far as the paperwork is concerned and now it is up to the UCSIS or whatever it is called to sort me out as fast as it can. So maybe, life is going to be more frustrating that exciting, but at least it is moving on.

and so it begins...

I got engaged.
Pretty happy about that.

and now for some music:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=jFNmuKJDcCQ