How to Fix Results

FIXED - Formatting and pictures, I don't know why it did that.

Don't read this if you're a grandparent.

Read this article by the BBC.

Read the whole thing, and now sit back while I demolish it.

First up, an opinion I voiced a few weeks ago that caused upright outrage in the comments section.  Check out the post I uploaded here; read the first few lines, become bored, then skip to the comments.  The gist is this: a chinese person was claiming that they don't copy others, and their education system is a unique flower uncorrupted by those Japanese dogs, or the damned meddling Western Pigs.  (By the way, doesn't that sound like an awesome american football or rugby league team name?)

Then feast your eyeballs on this quote:


.... willing to adopt the best educational practices from around the world to ensure success.


The BBC often get things wrong, as do I, as do the Great Chinese Peoples Republican Party members.  (That is probably a real title somewhere in china.)


In this case, the reporter is not wrong.  He is so far from being wrong, that he is in fact correct.


Alas, I will undoubtedly be listed to the chinese governments 'behead on sight,' list, which interestingly includes a large number of the BBC themselves.  That or they just won't let me into the country.

The thing that makes me chuckle about this situation, is that they see copying as a great national source of embarrassment - as if china hasn't stolen ideas for the last fifty years, and mass produced them on the cheap.  As if the entire economic foundation of china isn't based on 'finding,' plans for western developed electronics, then 'appropriating,' their designs for domestic and international markets, at a fraction of the original cost.


There are literally millions of examples, and if really needed, I will take it on my own back to list a hundred of these copies.  I will do it, if the internet starts getting uppety again.


(Please don't make me trawl the internet to find that shite.)


So here we are - after a paid up communist party member denies it, the BBC does some hard hitting research and finds that china actually copies people.


And wow, it works.  Why be ashamed of that?  Communists 0, privileged shanghai schoolkids 1, the rest of the world ???  Results yet to be confirmed.


So moving onto the rest of the article (thanks for persisting through that amazing rant).


Early on in the article we learn that the results are only based on two major cities.  Shanghai, the western centric (oh crap, I've lit another bonfire under someones ass with that intimation, haven't I) city of china (and to qualify that, it's western centric compared to the rest of china, as a traditional port for western and asian countries alike.  It was also one of the first economic development zones established by the commies, way back when.)  and Hong Kong, which was owned by Britain a decade or two ago.

Unsurprisingly, Hong Kong has solid foundations in infrastructure, housing, waste management, education and whatnot, thanks to the influence of imperial rule.  What HK has done so well, is take these foundations and apply good, communist work ethic to everything - improving things in a way its ex-rulers could only hope to accomplish.


What I didn't know until reading this article, is that some consider the Shanghai leading light and economic development zone to be elitist.

Shanghai controls who lives and works in the city through China's notorious "houkou" or permanent residency system, allowing only the best and the brightest to become residents with access to jobs and schools.

"For over 50 years Shanghai has been accumulating talent, the cream of the cream in China. That gives it an incredible advantage," says Ruth Heyhoe, former head of the Hong Kong Institute of Education, now at the University of Toronto.

Notice how I prefaced that statement with the word 'some.'  That's because I'm afraid of waking up with a horses head in my bed.  It's only a single after all, and there wouldn't be much pillow real estate.

The truth is this: china is a third world country.

It also has a behemoth of an economy, built on the back of a billion exceedingly poor chinese.

When you make a million people work, take all their money and pump it into a few cities, population totaling tens of millions, is anyone surprised when they turn out to be extremely strong in any discipline they wish?  Couple this incredible economic power with nazi style person management, that is to say; only the blonde haired blue eyed individual (in this case, the best and brightest) is allowed into the city, should they be proud of their achievement, or ashamed at the thousands who die every day in their countrysides from curable diseases, or lack of sanitation or clean water, or AIDS.

Congratulations china, your communist ideals are truly worthy of praise by one and all.

I no longer expect a shitstorm, more of a shitvolcano accompanied by a shithurricane and shittsunami.


I don't even have time to address the claim that the tests are inclusive of migrant labourer children, and the undesirables - despite the vast, vast majority of them being too young for their testing, making their claims false.  It's all in the article, read it again.

Time for Change

Immediately after the France game, I was calling for the head coach to be beheaded.

After a few days of thinking, I have changed my mind.  I believe the scrummaging coach, defensive coach, attacking coach, kicking coach and coaches coach should bite the bullet, or rather, be made to eat the bullet by Jonno himself.

For some unfathomable reason, we gave the French a sniff in the first five minutes.  We let them get their noses ahead, and we couldn't reply.  We took the touchline instead of a possible 3 points, and we let France believe.  This was never a game going to be won by English flair, because let's face it, the French invented the word.  But we couldn't go into the game thinking we could grind out a win either.  Grinding wins are hard-fought, well defended and fraught.

You don't go into a match attempting to play that kind of rugby, it just happens.  If you go in with that mindset, you lose.  Just as we saw against Argentina and Scotland, going in with the intention of playing close, tight-knit rugby will net you a needlessly close result.  When you couple that mindset with a complete, total, unthinkable level of handling - the likes of which England hasn't seen since the amateur days - the fraught game won't go your way.  The whole reason you win games of the kind seen in world cups past, where one point separate both teams, is clinical finishing.  That doesn't just mean taking your opportunities, which is a pre-requisite in the modern game, it means never knocking on.  Unforced errors killed every single opportunity England had.  Every single time England were attacking, we knocked on.  Or threw a pass to no one.  Or turned the ball over.

Mark Cueto had a shocker.  He was responsible for four knock-ons alone.  Normally someone I rate, he severely let himself down.  It's a shame for such a player to suffer such an ignominious end to his career, because he's generally been underrated.

Of course, this is a game of many individuals, and I struggle to think of a string of three phases, where our ball would be called quick.  Come to think of it, I can't think of a string of three phases without an unforced error.

The referee was always going to favour France (see the previous post) but England need to wise up.  We lost entirely on penalties.  It is no longer acceptable to give away more then three penalties a game, in our own half when we're not turning points in.  This will result in nine points against us to zero, which is a deficit that can be overcome.  England did, in fact, put a number of points on the French in the second.  For the reason of repeated stupidity, the forwards coach must go.

The scrum is okay, it held for the most part.  It never looked threatening though, and for that reason the scrummaging coach needs to go.  Okay is not good enough in international rugby.

We need someone who can turn balls over, either in midfield or in the forwards.  B.O.D and the dreadlocked kiwi centre whose name I forget do this in the midfield, where teams like south africa have forwards who punch, bite and gauge their way to turnovers.  The closest we get to this at the moment is Tindall, but he is getting older, and he wasn't playing at the weekend.  Those who dislike Tindall are also the first to overlook his poaching and gain-line metres.  Maybe, in a few years, Tuilagi will have the ability to steal ball in the tackle.  That is assuming he learns how to tackle.

During the Sunday matches I spent my time counting the number of legal tackles (that is, tackles where the tackler has wrapped his arms around the player being tackled) and reached double figures part-way into the second match.  That's fine when the ref lets it go, but they don't for northern hemisphere teams.  Tuilagi is going to get sent off, along with lawes and stevens, and they won't know why.  Bye bye, defensive coach.  Please hire the Argentinian defence coach.

The kiwis are the pin-up attacking team.  They spent sixty five minutes doing nothing with all the ball while playing Argentina.  Then, in the last fifteen, they scored a boatload of points.

England need to learn from this.  New Zealand are patient.  They have the ability to wait the better part of an entire match to score.  England spread it wide, praying for the back three (one of the pockets where England is actually world-class) to do something.  It's irresponsible because, once again, this is a team game.  For those three to work, you need the rest of the team to front up and take the game to the opposition.  Run over the gain line, break tackles (even one will do!) offload, do everything England weren't doing.  England need a new attacking coach, to teach the entire team how to attack effectively.  There's no point having a game-plan consisting entirely of 'give it to the fast person on the outside.'  That's what you tell kids when they're ten, and it doesn't even work there!

I've a feeling Jonno will go, but the real culprits will be left behind, to continue without a care in the world.



In other, less important news, Jewish people are shit-stirring once again.

This is why nobody takes religion seriously.

In other, other news:  I am broke because I accidentally sent too much money back home - leaving me with fudge all.  I can't even remember when payday is, so I'm scrimping like a person has never scrimped before.

EDIT:  Check out this quite amazing video.  Turn your sound off though, as some stupid bint is in the background screaming and being needlessly dramatic.  The fact a massive amount of rock breaks in front of the camera, a one in a million event, isn't enough for the screaming woman.  Seriously.  Annoying.

The man is pretty cool though, 'I'm pleased I caught that.'  Nice.

Broken Keyboard, Going Insane

So right now I'm typing with an on-screen virtual keyboard which is incompatible with everything.  Can't even use the skype. GRRRRR.

Hello Grandad

First up, I hope you're feeling better Grandad.  Well enough to read this at least!

If the hospital offers you omelette for dinner, refuse.  Actually, if the hospital offers you any food whatsoever, ensure it's tested by someone else before you partake.  That information may well save your life.

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In a first for me, I'm leaving the title until the end of the post.  Hopefully I'll have thought of one by then.

If it's still blank, you know I completely forgot about it (hence why I always write it in first).

So I have a cold.  It's an annoyance as it's attacking my throat.  The very thing I need to speak, in order to teach, in order to make money.  It's a shame that it decided to attack me there, as I don't really need this many fingers, or toes.  Then again, I'd much prefer never being able to speak again, than never playing rugby well; which is an interesting segue into the next part of the blog - the Tokyo Gaijin are playing the Japanese national deaf team on Sunday (the segue was disabilities, by the way), and I'll be extremely interested in finding out how they get on.

I won't be playing, instead choosing to rest the unknown ass-muscle that's been causing pain and watching the various rugby matches at the weekend.  I'll be testing the viability of activity on said muscle, as sitting will be the primary orientation for watching said rugby.

In fairness, I was out running last night and it felt stiff, but fine.  It didn't hurt, and although I wasn't up to full speed, it wasn't the hindrance that I encountered last weekend.  I'm not taking any chances however, as there will be a few friends watching me next weekend at the Sano tournament.  Nothing is left to chance when I might look like a prize plum.

Why, you might asking, did I go out running if I have a cold?  Firstly, in my backwards world, everything has a life expectancy.  Whether you're an antelope or a flu virus, you can only live so long.  That said, if you exist in a warmer environment (as a single celled organism) you can expect to grow faster and spread quicker.  If we assume there is a point when the bacteria compete for nutrients and apartment space, getting them to that point quickly will surely cut down on recovery time.

If your body is ready to fight the infection, then speeding that process up can't hurt either, right?  Running around and getting the blood pumping is important.

But not if you've just had a heart-attack, so Grandad, please don't go running around.  Sit in the garden.

Then again, if you see something that needs dead-heading, you're likely to go and do it, which is probably bad for you at this point.  So maybe, just sit inside and look at the garden through the window.  Get one of the grandchildren to do the labor.

Onto some more rugby coverage then: and an interview with MJ that you can find anywhere on the interwebs.

Normally I don't pay much attention to these things, but one radical change to the makeup of the England back line stood out to me; I felt compelled to listen to this particular presser to see if any clues were given as to why.

The change I'm referring to is the placing of two fly-halves onto the pitch.  One at inside centre, in the form of flood, and the other actually playing at fly.  James Haskell has been preferred at number 8 in the scrum, despite not being a number 8.  This time around Johnno put him on the bench, giving a 'real,' 8 the chance to shine.  This would make sense against a team that traditionally likes biting, gouging and de-testicling, as the physical confrontation will require sturdy nerves at the set-piece.

Why, then, throw someone who doesn't know what he's doing at inside centre into the deep end of the blue pool?

He isn't big enough or strong enough.  He cannot tackle at his weight, let alone above it.  Prior to this arrangement, opposition teams needed to bring impact players into the ten channel via moves.  Now they can just plow straight over the top of him without needing to plan anything.  The french twelve will laugh as he leaves flood on his ass.

If they are sensible, they will have flood defending somewhere out on the wing, bringing a forward in to do the actual work.  Either that, or switch tuilagi into 12, and push flood out to 13.  This doesn't solve any problems however, it merely shifts the french focus of attack to 13.  We can only thank the lord that Matthieu Bastareaud isn't playing.  For those who have never heard of him, he's the french equivalent of Tuilagi.  Neither have an ounce of flair about them, but both are massive and relatively quick.  He would have minced Flood, but luckily he's not in the picture.

MJ was also quick to point out that Haskell was unlucky to be moved to the bench, a fact he reiterates a number of times.

I'm not sure this is the case, however.  He was chosen above an established number 8 to do an adequate job at the set-piece, and excel at the breakdown.  How many penalties have England given away, and how many times have we turned the ball over?  Lots to the first, not many to the second.  Then look at the second in reverse, how many times have we given the ball away?  A fair number, which suggests we're playing too far away from our forwards too early in phase play (i.e spreading it to the wingers and praying, allowing them to become isolated) or the loose forwards aren't working hard enough.

It's been aeons since an English pack were consistently competitive at the breakdown, so the likes of Haskell and Moody need to step up.

They might be great in broken play, but if we don't get some ball in areas and situations that allow for those off-loads and runs, they're essentially handicapped.

The other problem with Flood, aside from his lack of tackling ability, is that we've lost a hard runner.  Tindall doesn't have many fans at the moment, because all he does is run with his head down.  This may not be popular, but we rely on our wingers and full-backs to attack, it doesn't come from first phase midfield play (whereas the AB's rely on bosh from up front, flair from the midfield).  This means creating opportunities wide on the field, capitalising where possible.

With Flood we theoretically get that flair, the game-breaking plays other teams enjoy, at the expense of someone who sucks in defenders during phase play.

The problem is simple; this combination has not worked before.  It was tried a number of times and lacked punch.

If you want the flair of Flood, you play him at 10.  You will leak points.

If you don't want to leak points, you play wilko at 10 and hope he sparks into form.

You can't play both on the pitch and expect to get the best from both, with one out of position.

Actual Rugby ７’ｓ

So yesterday I titled the post rugby 7's, without actually providing any news of my sevens exploits.  This was an oversight on my behalf, as I simply didn't have enough time to finish writing it.

The university academic year started yesterday, so I was busy filling in profiles and figuring out passwords, attempting to kickstart my Masters.  It appears that everything takes longer by correspondence (duh) so I'll have to wait a while longer, before I can start writing things.

On the flip side, this allows me enough time to continue writing about the world cup, and my own endeavours on the pitch.

To begin with the ego massaging portion, I participated in a small sevens tournament between five teams local to the Mito area.  I had tweaked my left ass-muscle a couple of days before (an injury that is still causing discomfort) so was only operating at 80%-85%.  It also hurt a fair bit, and I had to be dragged off in the third match after a big fat lump tackled me exactly where it hurt.  Bastard.

I iced the hell out of it and went back to play in the final match, but was particularly useless.

In total I scored around seven or eight tries, and kicked all of them bar two.  To underline the friendly, non-competitive nature of this event, everyone who scored was expected to kick their own goals.  This took me by surprise at first, and I completely fluffed the attempt.

From then on, even from a decent angle, I was deadly accurate.  This surprised me somewhat as I'm not the best place-kicker; but drop-kicking is something that I mess around with on occasion.  Everyone has their own routine when place-kicking, Wilkos' is infamous of course, but everyone has their style and preparation.  I was quick to formulate one, designed to give me breathing and recovery time, and let my team meander back at their own pace.  The routine was quite simple.  Check with the ref where it was to be taken from.  Go back a reasonable distance.  Tuck the gumshield behind my right ear (always my right ear for some reason).  Ask the ref if it was okay to take the kick.  Take a couple of breaths, bounce the ball on the floor a couple of times.  Take the kick.  In all, this little routine took about thirty seconds, but was pretty effective.  A 75% success rate is not world class, but it will do at this level!

I'll certainly be interested to see if that holds up in the next competition, in two weeks time (another 7's tournament, somewhat closer to home this time.)

The actual games were very much like sevens, and were extremely fun.  Japanese players are uniquely suited to playing 7's, as they're pretty quick, and quick witted.  Being tiny doesn't matter in 7's which is perfect.

The play was frenetic, and my favoured drift outside the defender and quickly step back inside worked wonders every time.  Our teams conversion from possession to points was almost 100% in all bar one of the games (which we lost to the subsequent winners, a university team no less).  When I did get caught, it was often by the bootlaces, allowing me to pass the ball on.  A couple more of those, and I would be back up on my feet and ready to help out.  Again, I wasn't at 100% but it was fun, and encouraging.  I will get onto some more fitness this week and next, and be in top shape.

There was an MVP award, which (deservedly) went to an oldboy who was the playmaker for another team.  He looked about sixty, but I suspect he has spent much of his life in the sun.  Fair play, he even scored one against us.

Of the internationals:  I'll start with England.

The last time I checked, this was a world cup.  I might be wrong, but it is my belief that the world cup is the biggest prize in international rugby.  Nervy and disjointed performances are expected in football world cups (often cited as one of the factors contributing to terrible English performances past) so why can't a team put in a performance that isn't great without being slammed by everyone.  We still beat the scotch.  Something France failed to replicate, I might add.

We are still playing the French in the quarters.  We are in the game.

If you didn't follow the 2007 world cup I suspect this may be shocking news to you, but we were godawful for large parts of that tournament too.  For the vast majority of pitch-time in fact.

What will actually happen when we play the French is a massive unknown.  The French are notorious for blowing hot and cold, and are a team where past form means nothing.  England also fulfil this expectation to some extent, especially during the world cup.  England and France are big game teams, and the games don't come much bigger than those on Saturday.

Whether this expectation of improved performance is realised - well.  That is another kettle of fish.  The ability of both teams to perform well with no prior form is well established.  Whether we'll see it.  Who knows.

Another team who have discredited form books the world over are Ireland.  How they pulled out a victory over Australia is impossible for me to understand.  The aussies weren't there for large parts of the match, and I'm torn as to whether it was because of the Irish, or because they simply didn't get off the bus.

What this now means however, is Ireland are one of the favourite northern hemisphere nations.  I believe my above stated rule of form meaning nothing is also applicable in reverse however, so I'm backing Wales to pull out a win over the Irish.  The guiness army had one big game in them, I doubt they have two.

An awful number of column inches have been dedicated to one man.  This man was prominent before, but now he is infamous.  Dan Carter (pronounced  Dein kya da) is/was the kiwis Jonny Wilkinson.  He kicked the goals, put the team in the right areas of the park, and let loose the likes of Nonu and Umaga, more recently Sonny Bill 'I love talking about myself' Williams and Israel Dagg.  Now he has torn a ligament I never conceived existed, he is out of the tournament for good.

Currently, Wilko is not on top form.  We do, however, have a replacement that can play well on his day (in Toby Flood).  The problem with Flood is that he can't tackle.  His defence is not good enough, and every team we play target him.  The other problem is that he isn't consistent.  He will play some games so well, he immediately warrants inclusion in the next.  He will subsequently have a shocker and exit stage right, with Wilko emerging from the left.  This situation of having two players for one position is fantastic, and a direct result of Wilko being injured for long stretches.  This necessitated a replacement, and having been through a few, Flood emerged as the next best.  He's not world class, but he's good enough that those around him, should they play well, will keep England in the competition (at least until the final, assuming we make it that far.)

Dan Carter has never been injured.  He was made of rocks, stones and metal.  According to the kiwi press, he is actually an artificially created human being, based upon the Wilko android - but upgraded to version 2.0.

This has led their second fly-half, a man named Colin Slade to have zero game-time in an all-blacks shirt.  The world was watching when he played in his first world cup rugby match, and he was found wanting.  He is the kiwi equivalent of Charlie Hodgson.  They might just forego the embarassment and put their second scrum half in at fly.  He has experience there, and he has the skills to pay the bills in that regard.

This is great news for the rest of the world, as he is pivotal in the all-blacks plans.  I still think the only chance for opposing teams is a typical all-black choke in the semis or quarters.  If they reach the final it's theirs; home crowd advantage, previous track record against the northern hemisphere teams, climate, the bizarre un-kickable balls they use down there.  All things point to them being unbeatable in the final.

#Edit#

I was unfortuante to read an article by this idiot.  It's unfortunate for two reasons.  No wait, make that three.

Firstly, he does nothing to counter the pernicious treatment of sportsmen within England, by the british press.  It's okay when the Welsh lose control and go drinking, stealing golf carts and the like; in fact it's all a bit of a laugh.  When a kiwi gets pissed off at three England players, it's almost the end of the world.  It's certainly the end of chivalry, they should all be hung, drawn and quartered.  By their testicles.

Grow up.

Secondly, it's disappointing because he takes himself, and his profession, far too seriously.  He is not a white knight, here to save us from morally unacceptable behaviour.

Grow up.

Thirdly, it's disappointing because; well read it for yourself:

I was upset by news that Kim Jong Il spends £120,000 a year on dog food while most of his countrymen starve. Given that the North Korean loony presumably defrays much of the expense by eventually eating those same pets, the reports were surely misleading.


No.  You weren't.  You weren't saddened, tearful or moved.  You didn't care, and you don't care.  You are sitting in your home office, with a cup of coffee, thinking of the next drivel leak onto the page.  At best, you were reticent.  At worst, you were callous.  Using the death and suffering of the North Korean people to evoke an emotional response from the audience, to further your own career and ambitions.


And why is it okay to stereotype North Koreans as dog-eating savages, whereas their South Korean brethren  are off-limits for such banter.  Oh wait, banter is between two equals. 　In his own terms, he is a bully (read the article).


It's nice to see some good, old fashioned blind hypocrisy.


#And Another Thing#


The referee for the England France matchup is a known Anglophobe, who even served a ban for arguing with an England coach (who was later cleared of charges).  The rugby committee in charge of organising this tournament have proved to be quite inept in the planning stages, with the smallest nations having three and four days break between matches, while the biggest nations take full six and seven day rests.  The reason isn't conspiracy, it's purely marketing.  Most people pay the most money to watch the big teams, and they can't do that at work.  Hence the Saturday and Sunday matches for the big nations.


They have monumentally fucked up here, however.  kiwis aren't ones to let things go at the best of times, and this moron has proved in prior encounters that he is as stubborn and bent as any of his antipodean brethren.  His track record is one of hilarious ineptitude, having been kicked out of the kiwi refereeing group for three offences, serious enough for bans, he joined the aussies and is somehow officiating top level rugby again.


Either way, England are screwed.


Thanks kiwis, at least you fear us enough to dishonourably eliminate us from the competition, without playing us.

Rugby 7's

So I helped coach the Musashi University team on Saturday.

No one spoke any English (in a squad of over 30 players, in a university setting no less) which was rather disappointing to say the least.  It made things difficult, but we soldiered on.

They are (supposedly) in the same league as some other serious opposition, the likes of which professionals are picked from at a later date (they follow the american system where schools and universities are the primary source for new talent, not academies.).  As such, I expected an extremely competent display from the team.

I probably set my expectations somewhat too high, but overall I was disappointed with numerous factors in their play.  I fear I wasn't able to get across my feelings of encouragement, nor the simple ways they can improve.

In an added twist, the team we beat by sixty or seventy points while playing for the Tokyo Gaijin team, were the opposition for Musashi.  It was a training session, but one in which both teams competed.

Simple thing like turning their bodies towards attacking players when initiating switches, (leaving them chronically exposed to bone breaking tackles) or sending four players into the same defensive channel while in attack (meaning they slow each other down, and make it incredibly easy for the defence) were compounded by their lack of simple defensive patterns.  They knew only one form of defence, which was easily broken by a team three times their aggregate age, and one quarter their pace.

Perhaps I'm being somewhat harsh, but I honestly expected them to thrash their opponents ninety percent of the time.  Proceedings were decidedly equal among the backs, and only the pace of the youngsters gave them an edge.

I have since sent them a couple of extra defensive practices, along with a simple trick for offensive teams, that's become prevalent in the past couple of years (inside balls away from first and second receiver.)  This simple ploy has netted me a number of tries this year, and works (in Japan) from first phase ball (although the rest of the world uses it later, when defences are stretched.)

On the plus side, they had an exceptional scrum half who was able to feed the forwards balls that put them through gaps in the opposing line.  It's just a shame he can't replicate that in the backs.

I have no idea how strong the forwards are, as I was primarily concerned with the fast guys who spent as much time looking at themselves on shiny surfaces.

Too much hair-gel for my liking.

Harry Potter. HARRY FRIGGIN' POTTER?

So I watched the second to last Harry Potter the other day.

I abhor Harry; I really, honestly, deeply, truly do.

What I don't dislike is the special effects department at whichever studio produced the second to last movie.  I had the opportunity, for the first time ever, to stream the movie in high definition.  Being able to stream movies in Japan is something of a hit-and-miss affair, with many of the bigger sites only allowing you to access content from within their country of origin.

As such, the ability to stream a 720p copy of any movie, without constant buffering and choppiness, was new to me.  I ended up watching the whole thing and thinking, for the most part, the quality was very good.  This is most certainly the future of content consumption, and the server-side file size wasn't bad either.  All told, it was around one and a bit gigs, which, over the course of two hours, isn't a terrible drain on bandwidth.

Please, content providers of the world, let's start using high definition for everything!

The film was still pretty terrible.  It reminded me why I read Tolkein, Prathchett and Dick, and watch things like this.

This post was originally longer, but blogger just deleted all my writing.

There were musings on the rugby, on my upcoming sevens tourney(s), one this weekend, one in a few weekends time.

All I will repeat is this:  England versus Scotland will be equally difficult for both teams, both teams being within a few points of Argentina means they're comparatively close; even if past performances indicate an England win, everyone seems to forget that this is a world cup.  It is, essentially, the beginning of the knockout stages and only one team can win.

Everyone has labelled the Wales pool 'the pool of death,' which is patently tosh.  Wales and SA are likely to go through, whereas England, Argentina and Scotland were always three teams capable of beating each other.  That is a real pool of death.

The Problem of Time

So I was reading this article from the BBC.  It directly relates time to results, and number of graduates to quality of education; and by extension the viability of an economy.

With a few short sentences, let me quash this notion.

The most important idea stemming from this article is the need for education.  Not just university education, but a high quality education throughout the formative years.  They then throw this in:

In China, you see children going into school at 6.30am and being there until 8 or 9pm, concentrating on science, technology and maths. And you have to ask yourself, would European children do that?


Firstly, the kids in Japan do the same thing.  china modeled itself on Japan after all.  I can tell you, with absolute certainty, the kids here learn roughly nothing in every lesson.  The reason they stay behind for so long (obviously not everyone does this, only the diligent students) is not to excel, but to merely keep up.  The twelve hours the kids put in, relative to the six or so I did at school, do not equate to a doubling of performance in tests.  They don't even equate to a furthering of ideas or techniques - kids here go into university with the same basic knowledge and skills as the UK.  The extra hours are a vacuum, a time portal where nothing is achieved.  I see this every day in English class, but also in the other classes I see, and the notes from other lessons splayed across desks.  The maths classes in the second grade, for example, have been drawing the same graphs for three weeks now.  That's not advanced knowledge or understanding; it's identical to my classes back when I was fourteen.


Then you realise they don't study the number of subjects we do, and the picture begins to look even less like asians are superheroes.   


In England we study (for better or worse) English, Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, (world) History, Geography, Art, Music, P.E, R.E and a modern foreign language.  There might be more, but I can't remember them all.


Here they study: Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, P.E (I haven't seen a P.E class in about 4 weeks though) Music, Art (looking good so far, isn't it) and then it stops.  They are taught English, kind of.  Geography and History are taught as one subject - they don't want their kids to know about things like nanjing or the second world war, so they don't teach world history so much as the foreigners and that lot did some bad stuff, but you should really know about Japan and our glorious history.  That, of course, is somewhat too long a title to represent a subject, so they call it social studies instead.


An interesting side-effect is that Japanese people couldn't tell you a thing about the dinosaurs, where africa is, what a sedimentary rock is, or why the ground shakes underneath them sometimes.


What they can tell you: what the square root of pi over forty divided by the sum of three radii of circle diameter 42.


SO they study three or four fewer subjects than us, for much longer, but only achieve a few percentage points higher test scores, on average, than their western counterparts.


Unless it isn't abundantly clear by now; the workaholics carry this country, and their efficiency is appalling.  It takes them nearly twice as long to learn the same amount of information as their western equivalents.  This isn't because they're stupid.  They're not smarter, but they're certainly not less intelligent.  They simply don't utilise time well and suffer long hours instead.


This is mirrored in their sports activities.  They train for hours every day in school, and they look well drilled.  When it comes to actual competition they fall apart.


They have no intensity in any training, they only train things that can be performed rote.


And yet our politicians want to emulate them?  Folly.  Pure and simple.


They should hire my old maths teacher, whose motto was 'work smart, not hard.'


Or they already did, and the memo they sent around parliament was missing the smart part.

Wrap Your Eyes Around This

So the write-up for the previous game in Tokyo never materialised (this happens at most clubs, as everyone is too busy doing other things).  I bugged the writer a couple of days ago, citing the need for an objective opinion regarding the matches, and frankly speaking, something to send mum to prove I'm not housebound and lonely.

Today Joffa, the writer and general coach/manager/forward of the team delivered.

Also, thanks be to him, as he obviously saw that I was down after the second match.

So without further ado, here are the (somewhat more) objective match reports.

The first match is here.

The second match is here.

You don't particularly need to read them in any order.

What I Done Did

So yesterday I played  match in Tokyo.  I wrote down my initial impressions of the match afterwards, and here they are:

The furthest I've been without using the bullet train, todays game was a twenty minute walk from Hodogaya station.  You can look up Hodogaya, because I'm having trouble pronouncing it, let alone writing.

They say the harshest critic is yourself.  This is rarely the case with most people I find, as everyone always looks for external mitigating factors that contribute to their lack of success.  These same people will, of course, congratulate themselves when success occurs.  I find myself being on both sides of this coin.  When success comes, it's all me.  When failure comes, it's all me too.

Today was certainly one for coin clips, and at first it fell very much on the negative side for me.  I didn't hit with authority, I only scored one try (taking my average to around 2.5 per game) and I missed a tackle, leading to a try.  Playing at full-back against a team that broke our line frequently, with a pack that lost every scrum and lineout, it was to be expected that I couldn't stop them all, but it's that mentality that pervades sport here; and in which sports are Japan genuinely world class?

I don't want to be a loser, even if I'm in a nation that's quite happy to be.

Of course absolute negativity serves no purpose, so as food for thought the previous leaves room for improvement.  Next week is a sevens tournament, and everything I lacked at full-back will need to be perfect.

I played at full-back, and despite two howlers early in the first (having the ball ripped by their number 8 when I was clean through (after bunker-busting three tackles) and not passing on another clean break for a certain try) my game picked up.  I was told their team liked to kick (hence why I was at full-back) but that threat never materialised (I assume the lie was purely ego-massage on my behalf).  Positives: I wasn't caught by the first or second tackler with ball in hand, all game.  Apart from one try, I did enough to stop everyone.  I scored a sneaky one on the blind side from a ball passed at the floor five feet in front of me.  I joined the line a bit and helped out.  I made lots of line breaks that started being converted in the second half.  Apart from the aforementioned two, I set our wingers up a number of times, and as I started trusting them and drawing defenders - at times lots of them - we made in-roads.

I was awarded man of the match by the opposition, which makes three in a row for the games I've played in Japan; but for all the good I still feel disappointed.  We won forty odd points to seventeen but our club acknowledged our no.7 as man of the match.  It's great the opposition found me to be intolerable - but a jury of my peers in my own club didn't see it the same.  That's extremely disappointing.  All the small malcontents, mistakes and disappointments have come together leaving me feeling rather annoyed with the result.  In this instance, the sum of the minor setbacks outweighs the greater body of positive good.

Hard Disks

I just bought a couple of hard disks online.  The interesting thing?  The transaction was completed in Japanese, with liberal use of an online dictionary and free translation service.  It will be extremely interesting to see if anything turns up next week.

They came out to a hundred and fifty quid for the pair, two, three terabyte disks.  I don't trust large platter sizes as far as I can throw them, as the saying goes, which is ironic because modern hard disks weigh a ton - so they won't go far.

As such, I'll mirror them, copy all the important information over from my one terabyte external drive (which is nearly four years old, and has accompanied me across the globe) and then copy everything from my current drive worth saving.

I'll then erase the external and reformat my current drive, yielding one and a bit terabytes of 'secure,' internal storage space (mirrored) and the same again in non-mirrored internal and external drives.

I can finally stop deleting stuff!

Yes, I am a terrible hoarder of digital wares.

Some Amount of Time (don't read while eating)

So for the next couple of weeks the elementary school I'm working at is conducting experiments on the pupils.

These experiments include trying to stack as many as possible on top of each other, or seeing how many synchronised collapses (between pods of four students) can be achieved in a limited time.

In other parts of the world this is called sports day.  Here, I am somewhat reluctant to call it that because no sports are involved.

They dance around to cutesy sounding (see: vomit inducing) songs while trying to maintain a semblance of synchronisation.  They all spend their time in front of TV's and computers, just like me.  Unlike me, they never leave this sedentary state.  Ever.  The result is, quite frankly, hilarious.

I'm (probably) contractually obliged to withhold laughter when I see twelve year olds picking up their lightest classmates (three of them picking one up, in a pyramid style formation) to quickly drop him, but I'll be damned if it isn't one of the funniest things to see the kid who was dropped, jump back up and kick the crap out of the inevitably larger people who dropped him.  After a few hits I intervene of course, but I fear the big kids won't learn the lesson of Napoleon without some peer-prompting.

The reason I mentioned computers and television?  The 'dance routines,' have nothing to do with strength.  They are entirely co-ordination and balance.  Upon seeing this, I was immediately worried.  Having seen the older kids in middle school struggle to stay on their feet when simply running a relay I couldn't see how the younger, naturally less well balanced, would fare while picking each other up.  My fears were proven.

No one has been hurt yet.

What none of the teachers seem to realise is, having the really fat kids (of which there are only, mercifully, a few) hold the bigger kids is a mistake.  It's about poise and balance.  The little kids are really good at balancing their peers on each others shoulders, but the fat kids wobble all over the place.

And they can't balance them either.

I question the point of having a sports event without sports, but the designers knew their stuff when coming up with things for the kids to do.  (Having been to a couple of these now, it seems the events are universally adopted across the prefecture, if not all of Japan.)  It is a crying shame the american passion for cheer leading and other pointless activities has leaked into Japanese society, but they do at least incorporate some traditional Japanese dances.  The one I linked a few weeks ago is quite popular - and it looks fantastic when done properly.  If you ever get the chance to check it out (I don't know why you would, but anyway...) I would definitely give it a look.

This week I have a cold, and as a result have been having a few nose-bleeds.  I assume brought about by sneezing my way through the day; although my head being nanometres from an explosion might also be the cause.  I suspect my eyes might be the weak-point through which the pent-up pressure will dissipate.  If you see a headline in the news akin to 'man explosively decompresses, makes terrible mess,' it will either be a food poisoning outbreak; or my head.

On the flip side, real-world considerations of an explosive nature were announced today.  The yanks are selling a number of upgrades for the Taiwanese air force.  Having been lucky enough to meet a number of Taiwanese people, I can safely say that Taiwan is a country devoid of respect for china.  As such, it is a country, not a protectorate of china.  It is not chinese Taiwan.  Every Taiwanese person thinks this, everyone in the world knows this - but china refuse to accept it.

Then again, I just remembered that china is the most powerful country in the world, who regularly employ cyber espionage specialists to steal secrets from other countries and ensure their name is not besmirched.

ALL HAIL CHINA, LEADERS OF THE (FREE) WORLD.

That should appease them for now.

The funny thing is that Taiwan is not worth as much money to america as china - so they get the shaft despite being an 'ally,' for decades.  China is sworn enemy number three behind Iran and North Korea, but they have all the money in the world; so let's appease them.

Capitalism, the finest example of hypocrisy this side of communism, which is itself the finest example of hypocrisy since capitalism, which is itself the finest example since hypocrisy since communism, which is...

Google, owners of everything (and that article is three years old (just skip to the list of companies, her writing is devoid of any merit)) are accused of being a monopoly and unfairly taking advantage.  If all the worlds searches are conducted through google, and google sites are some of the most visited on the interwebs, doesn't is stand to reason that they would, in essence, be linking to themselves.  This is an inevitable conflict of interests for the consumer, but one that can't really be legislated against.

I guess they'll have to pull a microsoft and split the company up.  There go a few hundred jobs.

In other news, it turns out Hugo Boss was a nazi.  I actually had to google who Hugo Boss is, then I found out he does perfumes or something.  I stopped giving a crap at this point.

Wikileaks founder and (almost) convicted pervert has written a book.  Interesting stuff, as is the constant insistence that this guy is a rapist.

There are very few cut-and-dried cases of media deception in this world.  Most are deliberately muddied in order to obscure the facts, and in the best case scenario, discredit all sides, leading to a stalemate.  As such, nobody ever knows what's truth and what's a lie.

The Assange case was one of the most blatant pieces of governmental pressure the world has seen, leading to false accusations and arrest warrants born of fictitious crimes.  Wikileaks launched, showing most of the world how corrupt, broken and vindictive the secret police of america are - then within hours he's a rapist.

Erm.

The guy probably isn't an angel (no one is) but I would be inclined to believe him, even if he murdered a goat, with his teeth, right in front of me.  If someone puts false claims like that around the world within hours of him becoming infamous, he has obviously done something extremely important.  If it shows the world how useless america, england, France, Germany and the Scandinavian countries are - more power to him.

The seriousness of female rights took a turn for the worse, with female soldiers reporting back that war sucks.  These are women who aren't fighting on the front lines, and they're getting PTSD.  I'm sure men who fill their roles also do, but the BBC doesn't do a report about a man who drives a sergeant to and from work every day getting PTSD.

This is all written about the american military, so I wonder how much of applies to the army, navy and air force back home.  The image I get is one of the american military basically being a militia of hooligans, whereas only our army falls into that category, and only then some of the time.  That's probably just media bias, and a skewed view of england.

Quote of the year comes from a certain Lei Chen Wong of WildAid.  Speaking in this article to the BBC regarding the de-finning of sharks, for the raw ingredient of shark fin soup.


"There is this myth in China that sharks will regenerate their fins, but that's not true. They actually die a very slow, painful and cruel death"


I refuse, outright, to believe that a human being could be so stupid as to think a shark would regrow its fin.  Honest to god, if I met someone who believed this, I have no idea whether I would be able to control my laughter before punching them in the face.


If I chop your leg off, will it grow back?


Jesus christ chinese people are stupid.


Another peach of a quote: 'Materialism is well developed in China but other things, such as morality, haven't progressed so well,' as if materialism was something to be encouraged along the lines of morality.  Astounding stupidity abound in this article then.


That's it for the news roundup; I'm tired from all the laughing and raging I've been doing.




The Japan Tonga game was something.  It was, essentially, a game of sevens perpetrated by a group of fourteen year olds, such was the level of control evident.

I personally love that kind of rugby, where turnovers happen every third play, and members of both teams are strewn about the pitch.


The second half saw things calm down and it was much less interesting from then on, but Tonga were most certainly worthy winners.  Whenever Japan got the ball they looked dangerous, until they passed the ball a second time; at which point they dropped it, or ran into someone twice their size and four times stronger, or they ran into touch, or kicked it.


Japan would have been a threat if they knew which way to run.  Unfortunately they didn't, and that ultimately cost them the match.


They look good in broken play, so I suggest they stick to sevens rugby.  I think it would suit their style much more than the full game.  It was a solid victory in the end, despite Japan beating them in the pacific nations cup not long ago.  Maybe it was just a fluke that time around?  The next pacific cup will show whether they're consistent contenders in that particular tournament.


For the state of Asian rugby, they really need to start pulling their weight - that means not just losing well, but winning too.


On a side-note, the saffers are playing Namibia today, which is the first time two African nations have met in the tournament.  It will be a resounding defeat for Namibia, but at least the claim that rugby is a global sport is starting to ring true.  Now we just need a fully competitive 20 team tournament, and rugby will be alongside football in that regard.

SUPER MASSIVE (small to medium sized) TYPHOON

A typhoon is going to make landfall today, with strong winds (obviously) and lots of rain (obviously).  It's already been pretty wet today, and this is just the leading edge.

I fear for my house because it's made of paper, held together with nothing but hope and the building is administered by a crazy landlady who tries walking in whenever she feels like it.  Luckily, I've had my door locked ever since my second day of being here, when a random foreigner walked into my house of his own accord.

That seems to be commonplace here.

Of the typhoon; the temperature has dropped to the low 20's, which is glorious.  I hope it's a factor of the season rather than this weather event, but I suspect it isn't.  It's also heading up the length of the country (see the link).

It's only a small one so people aren't particularly fussed, although I am somewhat suspicious of the projected trajectory.  Look at the previous path of the storm and you'll see that it went around in a circle.  No way did anyone predict that; which means this, like an earthquake, is unpredictable at best.  I wouldn't be surprised if it missed Japan entirely.

As an addendum, the internet delivers when no question has even been asked!  That's what the graph in my previous post should have looked like, and that's why the chair, once it's attached to the machine, is a real bastard to pull loose.

#Update#

All the kids are going home in ten minutes because the typhoon is trying to kill people down south.

Initially I laughed because they have to ride home on their bikes if their parents won't pick them up; but then I realised that I'm obliged to stay until my contractually pre-arranged hour.  Why send the kids home?  Because they don't want the little brats caught in the strongest part of the storm, which will be from now, until who knows when (the centre of the storm is passing right over us, and it's not calm like a tornado) which means I will be riding home in the hell-storm.

That wiped the smile off my face.

Then again, IT WILL BE HELLA FUN!  I can't wait.

I want to go stomping around outside pretending to be a dragon, splashing around in the puddles roaring.

Then I want to play a game of rugby in this weather, for about twenty minutes I bet it'd be awesome.  No one would be able to pass the ball.  After that twenty minute period I'd be exhausted and go home.  Probably with polio.

Oh, Berlusconi

So the Italians are blaming each other for failing to predict earthquakes.

Much like alchemy and the hunt for lead-to-gold conversion, it's an impossible feat.  The nature of tectonics is one of mystery, not so much in the mechanics of plate movement, but more so the exact nature of what triggers the stored energy to release.

Plate tectonics is one of those subjects that I can absolutely see the appeal in studying.  I am a self confessed nerd, and playing with computer simulations while trekking around the world with laptops and sensors appeals to me.  The whole being imprisoned thing, not so much.

I find it incredible that we learn in school, around the age of fourteen, that earthquakes cannot be predicted.  We also learn that usually, but not always, tremors are a form of stress relieving quake that lessen the chance of a major earthquake occurring imminently.  Of course this doesn't always hold true and the only fact relating to earthquake prediction is that there is no accurate system for prediction.

I find it incredible because the entire Italian government was absent for that rudimentary lesson.  I find it incredible that a petition of five thousand scientists (not lay people) is ignored.

But then I find it incredible that global warming is attributed entirely to people, when I learned in school that we're still leaving an ice-age.  Ten thousand years is a long time for you or me, but not so much as a blink on the face of a planet.  Everyone has collectively forgotten about that fact, too.  Wilful ignorance.

The common factor behind both of these facts is money.  The government needs a scapegoat to keep Berlusconi in power and money, and Al Gore; well he certainly doesn't need any more money.  P.s He failed to gain the presidency of a country who elected George Bush twice.  That ruins any credibility he pertains to have.

While 'people like money,' is hardly a newsworthy headline, there have been some other developments in the world at large.  Primarily sporting, and largely due to rugby.

The non-sporting news that I found most interesting, aside from this fabrication (which I include for the insightful comment of a certain '3d,' in the comments section 4 posts down) - is this article from the BBC.  Showing that genetics is a dish best served cold, it proves that the world is can be a bizarre place.

I would like to think, however, that most people see the opposite as being true.  The fact their skin colour being different is in the news, shows that genetic quirks are very much the exception.  You are not unique, I am not unique, nor will your children be, or their children.  Stop pretending to be special, people!  (Hint: you're not.)

This fantastic invention is definitely in the 'why didn't I think of that,' category.  At least it would be, if we lived in a slum.  Then again, they have far more pressing things to worry about, so I suppose it's not really in that category at all.

I think fifty or sixty watts might be pushing it; then again it's literally impossible to tell with a camera what the exact impact is.  It would have been nice if the reporters did a direct comparison using the same sensitivity (or moving picture equivalent) but what can you expect, this is generic BBC reporting at its finest.

Well done to the designer for making it public domain.  It would be somewhat difficult to patent, but I'm sure an american would have found a way.

Graphene is a real technology, at last.  The single layer graphite material is touted as being the new magic material that will bring us kicking and screaming into the 25th century, today!

Childish tag lines aside, this new material is said to be a superconductor, among other things.  Currently superconductors are composed of elements that normally exist in a gaseous form, being cooled (or super-cooled, as the media like to super/extreme everything) to exceedingly cold temperatures.  They form liquids, which do not have a measurable resistance.  They are extremely useful for making magnets.  Not the kind of magnet to hold stuff to your fridge, but the kind of magnet to hold your fridge to stuff.

The reason they can't just turn the magnet off?  The superconducting part.  Once a current is passed through the superconductor, assuming it's a closed loop, it will just keep circulating until natural decay sets in.  You could warm the superconducting liquid up, but that would be like filling a bottle with water, sealing it and then heating it up.  If you can't imagine what this would do, go try it now.  Preferably in a microwave.

For the full effect, go take out a loan for five million dollars and set fire to it.



Graphene is also super-strong, super-flexible, super awesome!  It was only invented (I don't say discovered because it's a material in the same way that polyester is, and must be manufactured) in 2004, so this kind of turnaround, from invention to implementation is unheard of in this day and age.  I would assume a product of this potential would require at least a decade of cancer testing.

As an aside:

Skip to 2 minutes in this video.  Magnetic field strength decreases or increases with the square of distance - so the closer it gets, the less likely you will ever remove it.  Conversely, in the first video, the chair is easily removed once a wedge between it and the machine has been forced in.  The three extra centimetres mean the force felt by the chair is substantially weaker.  As the man drags the chair further away, it is subject to exponentially decreasing forces.

I don't know what this graph is for, but it demonstrates the principle.  There would only be one sector in the perfect example, but I'm too lazy to google that.

Similar to the graph above.  The high point is right next to the machine, the low point is in another country.

Alas I am running out of time to finish this post, so will postpone the rugby analysis.  I will however say well done to ireland, a country who have chronically under-performed in the past decade, finally made their mark. Unfortunately they might have only one big game in them, and should they make it to the other big hitters in the quarters or semis, might struggle.

They obviously played well however, and I won't begrudge them that.  Once again, well done.

The Problem with People

So I have to perform an open class ballet.  It's obviously not the dancing kind; but it requires jumping through a thousand proverbial hoops.

I was in a couple of practice classes today (as a foreigner I am incapable in everything I do, so half a dozen practice classes must be performed in order to reach acceptable standards) that entailed me being told to do something, then being told off for doing it.  Luckily I only have to perform this charade with one teacher.

Unluckily that particular teacher is a bag of nerves and emotion, who is struggling to contain it all.  If I hear of a murder-suicide spree at the weekend, I will know the perpetrator before the name is announced.

I am supposed to lead the class in English.  I have no problem with that, except the class has never been conducted in English before.  The kids are therefore bemused whenever I say something, because they've barely heard me speak up to this point.  The whole class is a lie, from the English speaking in class (which is nothing more than rote repetition in a normal class) through to my involvement in the teaching.  I am normally asked to stand still and do nothing, reciting a line on occasion.  The kind of job a robot will do in five years, and I'm certain robots are already doing my job in the private education sector.  Pointless doesn't cover it.

I have no problem being pointless, my work-related stress levels are somewhere below those of a pharmaceutical opiate tester - but I do object to the lies this particular teacher is feeding to those involved.  She knows I have no involvement in class, the students know, I know, yet she insists that we try to make it look like we're equals.

We're not.  On any level.

Couple this with a severe hormone imbalance, and the two practice classes were disastrous.

Considering how little this means to me, I feel she has a lot of work to do.  Have fun with that, woman who needlessly kept me for four hours unpaid overtime in the past two weeks.

Also of note - I am working in comprehensive schools.  Three of them.  My lesson plans were written by a man who thinks 'thru,' is the correct spelling for 'through.'

Needless to say, I end up re-writing most of the plans.  Perfect, my lessons are not.  An adventure into the unknown worlds of English teaching; they most certainly are.

Oh, and the kiwis to be fifty points clear of the japanese team come full time.

Myth of the Day

I have to bust ridiculous myths every day.  The kids can't speak a lick of English, so these all come from the teachers, grown adults.  They're not quite 'is it true you bathe in the blood of animals you sacrifice to ramu,' they are however pretty stupid.  Today:  'Sam sensei, is it true English people eat five meals a day?'  I tend to eat whenever I have downtime, and I'm always hungry, so I assumed my own gluttony was assumed normal for the English.  'Oh, I read that English people eat tea and crumpets in the afternoon, and scones with jam after breakfast, before lunch.'

Yes.  Literally every person I have ever met does this.

I've never paid attention to the myths about asia, so I can't really contrast and compare.

What I learned today is, basically, the Japanese government has a massive funding crisis.  They haven't updated their textbooks since 1890, and they failed, at that time, to include how the 'average,' Englishman lives - instead preferring to focus on the queen.  I mean, come on; seriously?



Another myth that I feel like disintegrating - america is great.  Read this article from the BBC, and thank god that you don't live in america.  Sucks to live there and be average, I guess.

Rugby Bonanza

So at the weekend, there was more rugby around than you could possibly shake a stick at.

Not only that, but I played in only my second game on Japanese soil.  I played for Tokyo Gaijin Rugby Club.  Gaijin means foreigner in Japanese, so it's an exiles team, basically.

Match report first:

Coming off the back of a reasonable performance last time (playing for Sano club a couple of months ago, I scored four tries but missed a tackle) I was expecting to improve in all areas of the game this time around.

I was to play only a half, as our team had a total of thirty players, and everyone wanted to get onto the pitch.

I started on the wing, and was destined to stay there for the half I played.  The opening exhanges were forwards based, and the ball never made it past the outside centre.  Around five minutes in, our team (Tokyo Gaijin) kicked on and started putting some passes out wide.  A series of fine passes was undermined when the final two in the movement ended up behind the player, with me taking the ball with no momentum on the wing.  Luckily that didn't matter, and I pushed through the first tackle, dummied the winger, and left the full back on his backside to score next to the posts.  That was the first of three - but I can only remember two.

I was only called upon defensively a few times, but I managed to bundle two into touch, and turn over two balls in that time.  One turnover was a direct steal from one of their backs, the other was their number eight running into me, thinking he could bowl me over.  Unluckily for him we probably weighed the same, and I held him up to force a turnover from the referee.

The second try I honestly don't remember.  It might not even exist.

The third came in the form of a breakaway on the right, going through one and past another.  This one was notable only for the pettiness of their inside centre, whom I took objection to.  I had scored the try, and three seconds later he slid into my head, knees first.  I was already getting back up after the try at this point, and the lateness, coupled with the illegality, suggests this guy is a terrible loser.  Luckily I was still holding the ball and got it up to my head before his knees reached me.

Needless to say, I was less than impressed.  No punches were thrown however, and it was at this point the team was completely changed.  Over the next two minutes there were half a dozen changes, and I was taken off the wing.  It's a shame, because I'm sure I would have prevented the try down my wing, scored by their inside centre of all people; with around ten minutes to go.  I would have stopped that guy with vengeance.  I was so angry at that point, I probably would have stopped him with enough force to ensure he was also prevented from working for the next week.

The second half descended into an under 10's game with around twenty to go, with no structure present on either team.  It was quite entertaining to watch for that fact alone, but it shows what I've said about Japanese sports in general: defence is a lower priority in all their sports.

For the effort I got a man of the match award, which was my own personal aim prior to the match.  I was a little worried as being on the wing affords so little time with the ball, or even tackling for that matter.  I had stayed with the captain the night before (in one of the most plush apartments I've ever seen) and didn't want all the travelling to be wasted.  It ended up okay in the end, but I still want more ball!

That's one and a half games of rugby in Japan, seven tries, and half a dozen turnovers.  Tries being indicative of attack, turnovers being indicative of defensive work (it's not enough to make all your tackles, that's a given; good play hinges on providing something for your team), and nothing being mentioned of the heat.  It gets hot here, really hot.  (No sunburn this time though, yay!)

Thanks to Alistair Nimmo (whose nickname should most certainly be nemo) for putting me up the night before, and thanks to the team for a hot, but fun game of rugby.

I'll put the Tokyo Gaijin match report up here when it's written, and you can contrast and compare proceedings.  Obviously this blog is written by me, so it's ego centric...

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So of the internationals played this weekend.  Three games stood out for me.  The England Argentina game was as to be expected.  England ground out a win despite shoddy refereeing, and despite Wilkinson not being able to kick a thing.  To be fair, this entire tournament has been problematic for kickers, with percentages well below normal.

Talking of shoddy refereeing; the game I played in Tokyo had additional rules.  Firstly, all tackling must be conducted under the armpits.  Say what?  No shoulder to shoulder contact allowed.  That referee is obviously an ex-footballer (to be fair he was about 35kg's).  The second rule: no hand-offs in the face.  Chest only.

This one actually forced me to change the way I played the match.  Normally you hit up a straight line and then step while forcing the opposing players' face away.  This time, I had to push them backwards with a hand to the chest and hope the outside man didn't turn inwards.

Japanese fake rules do not make for interesting rugby.

It's not a safety orientated rule either, because our scrum half showed how easily a hand can slip to the face during a hand off, as the man tackling him stood bolt upright.  He couldn't grip the shirt and his hand went up as a result.  This happened a few times during the match, but was only penalised once.

Anyway; if anyone thought England would easily beat Argentina then they were deluding themselves.  Argentina are one of the top ranked sides in international rugby, and have emerged out of seemingly nowhere in the past decade to become a force to be reckoned with.  When they join the tri-nations next year, they will only become stronger.  I can't help but feel it's a trick the six nations missed, as their inclusion in any tournament greatly adds to its commercial viability.

Delon Armitage had a good game, showing an interesting aspect to having two full-backs on the field, as he was adept under the high ball.  Foden made some ground with limited ball, but in a game dominated by shoddy refereeing and forward domination, the backs didn't have any momentum.

The Wales South Africa game showed the importance of refereeing once again, as James Hook kicked a penalty for it to be disallowed.  In a one point match, that kind of mistake is rather important to the outcome.

The game actually mirrored the warmup match between England and Wales in which England lost. In that match, England had all the possession and all the territory, but still lost.

In this match, Wales had all the territory and all the possession, but still lost.  The northern hemisphere have a criminal inability to convert possession into points.  There were a dozen missed half opportunities, not just the penalties.

It was also telling that Wales took ten or more phases to march SA back twenty metres, turned the ball over and found themselves forty metres back in three phases.  The Welsh defence is not able to hold up against southern hemisphere attack.  The forwards stopped their counterparts most of the time, but the SA backs ran rampant.

The only back on the Welsh side who made in-roads was Jamie Roberts, (I think that's his name) who took a huge number of balls up through the middle, and consistently made ground on each.  Williams forgot he was playing with fourteen other people on the pitch and kept getting pushed back.  Stay on your wing, mate.

On the first match performances alone, Wales are looking the sharpest of the Northern Hemisphere teams, which is disappointing because they won't make it out of the quarter finals.

The last match of interest was Romania Scotland.  This match is significant because it illustrates something rarely seen on a world stage in any context.  Scotland has gone from being a tier one rugby nation, to now being tier two.  Romania were all over Scotland for the vast majority of the match, but ran out of steam in the last ten minutes.  For Scotland to rely on superior fitness means they don't have the skill to get results.  They have slipped, and only time will tell if they can stand up with the best once more.

Contrary to what most people are saying, I don't think the Japan France game shows us any more than we already knew.  Japan upped their game (expected - it's a world cup) and France were asleep for most of the game (expected - it's France).

That's it for the bumper rugby edition.  Phew.

(Boy do I ache today, I didn't even do that much yesterday!)

Possible first match on Sunday. Preparations Afoot.

There's a fifty/fifty shot of a match down in Tokyo, this Sunday.  I've been hitting the gym hard in preparation, and I've been doing ridiculous amounts of running.  Mainly sprints one day, full on ball-to-the-wind running the next.  I had a rest day on Wednesday, and today ran up to the gym.  It's a 40 minute run, so it simulates a half quite nicely.  It also simulates the final moments of a match, because the last five minutes is up a beastly incline.  It's probably one hundred metres vertical, if not more, with a road that takes an agonising amount of time to navigate.

I rolled into the gym at around 8.45, drenched in sweat.  When I was in uni I used to workout with a guy that used to say, 'if everyone is looking at you, you're doing something right.'  I can't tell whether they were mortified or horrified at the big ugly foreigner messing up their sterile, exercise-free gym; but I was stared at for sure.

Tomorrow will be a rest and travel day, assuming I play.  If I don't then I'll watch all the rugby, then hit the gym.  Sunday will be a run, a run to the gym, or a sprints session.  It depends on how my legs are feeling.  Then Monday will be a rest, and possibly Tuesday, then back to the grind Wednesday at the latest.

If I help train the kids at the local secondary, Tuesday will be a grindstone day.  If not, a rest day.

I'm desperate to play, but the more I want to play, the more things transpire against me.  Fingers crossed for a repeat 4 try performance and man of the match award.  Two of those in Japan, and I think everyone will be confident in saying Japan really is a minnow rugby nation.

So my best friend in Japan is okay, and so is his wife.  They're pretty ill by all accounts, and they're on awesome sounding steroids.  He can't go to work, or play rugby.

I sent him this picture:

 and told him to make use of the steroids.  He replied with this:

A bit of work to go, but with a few weeks of steroids, he can do it!

I expect him to be fighting fit in no time!



Oh, and Sonny Bill Williams is the most overrated player since Gavin Henson.  He will not play a full eighty minutes against any of the big teams.

The Importance of Getting it Right

So I just received a message that a fellow rugby player won't be helping me train the local kids because...  Well read it for yourself:

'Because my wife is decease.'

Now I really, really, really, really, really hope she hasn't died.  His level of English, and my level of Japanese means that I have sufficient cause to suspect he might have meant to write something else.

If ever there was a time for accurate communications, now is it.

Japanese People Eat Rubbish Up

So Japan is the perfect example of why recycling is useless, and an affront to personal liberties.

Every item has a specific day when the dustmen come to collect it.  They are as lazy in Japan as they are in England, but they have a terrible power than they lack in England - namely everyone writes their names and addresses down on every piece of rubbish they throw out.  This is so they can fine you when you fuck up.

Now, I've been throwing out rubbish willy-nilly for my entire stay here; but that has come to and end.  The landlord has finally addressed my inadequate faculties by explaining the rubbish situation (sic).  It's only taken someone FOUR MONTHS to do so.

Anyway, the upshot is that every time you throw something out, it costs you 10 pence in rubbish bag fees.  You basically have to throw stuff out every day, sometimes more than once.

So even if you dispose of rubbish properly, you're taxed out the wazoo on bags alone.

Then if you fuck up, as I'm wont to do, your fined.

The kicker is that I was quite happily sitting in my underpants minding my own business when the landlady deigned it fit to explain the situation to me; thus necessitating a quick re-drobing.  Damnit woman!

And like buggery am I going to write my name and address on the bags.  I have to pay taxes for those lazy bastards to go and fine me?  No, I'm fine without that, thank you.

If you ever think the rubbish situation is bad in England, or America, or Somalia.  Try Japan.

Well okay, probably not that last one.