A Nippon in the air

As we're at a loose end this weekend for a change, the missus and I are in the enviable position of having the whole of London as our plaything on Saturday evening.  It's vital to always have a plan when you live in the the metropolis; otherwise you end up squandering its gifts and are left solely with the sheight bits - the crowding, expense, noise etc.  We were furiously scratching the collective noggin at home last night then when it occurred to me that we hadn't been for a Japanese meal for a yonk or several.

We both adore Japanese grub.  It umami-heavy, which we both enjoy - think Marmite with Worcestershire sauce poured all over it.  It's also possible to stuff one's face with Japanese food and remain lithe and lovely.  That's why the Japs are so trim.  In fact the only downside to it is the amount of salt it contains.  This does lead to seriously high levels of stomach cancer in the land of the rising sun, which, again, helps the populace to stay slender I suppose.

When we lived in north London a few years ago, we discovered a tremendous Japanese restaurant in Camden.  It's dead authentic (like I'd know).  Well, all the staff are Japanese, and one is expected to sit on the floor, cross-legged.  It's uncomfortable, yes, but in a Sunday colour-supplement, north London twat fest way.  

I'm always really mindful of my pees and cues when eating there.  I'm generally a polite person anyhoos, but with the Japanese, particularly so.  They set even greater store by decorum than the English, but they're far too genteel to vent spleen at you for any inadvertent offence caused.  And, as with all things Japanese, eating is pregnant with unstated rules.  A devil-eyed westerner can bone-up on some of these, of course, but not all.  Even rainman would struggle with the myriad complex niceties.

Still, it's worth it.  One little innovation of my own devising would help matters though: hollow chopsticks.  That way one could suck up the miso, using the chopper like a straw, and then wield them in the usual way to see off the noodles and raw kipper.  Bingo.

Hubba Bubba

Bubba Watson won his second US Masters title yesterday, which pleased me.  I don't know anything about Bubbles and don't especially care for the game of golf either, but he's unusual in the game as he is entirely self-taught.  His victory, therefore, is one in the eye for the golfing purists and equipment nutters.  This is to be welcomed.

As I think I've ranted before in these pages, men treat sporting equipment and technique as a secular religion these days.  It demands absolute blind faith.  Despite the lack of any evidence to show that any of this gear or tuition does anything beneficial, men unthinkingly shell out for  the latest equipment in the mistaken belief that it will afford them perpetual happiness.  If it did, gents, you'd stop buying it, wouldn't you?

Why should it be, I wonder, that women are immune to this particular malady?  They're not adverse to a bit of marketing bullsheight themselves of course (anti-wrinkle cream, anyone?).  Hmm, it must be that they see sport for what it actually is, an ultimately pointless, albeit highly ritualised game of war.

That's why I have some regard for boxing.  It gives the lie to this notion that sport somehow has a noble and transcendent meaning.  Boxing cannot claim to be constructive when its explicit aim is to render the opponent insensible by punching him or her in the face and abdomen.  Yes, one has must use guile and skill to achieve this end, but the same is true of most anything.  I dare say most stranglers look back on their early attempts at throttling as gauche and tactless.  It doesn't make the practise a worthy pursuit for schoolchildren.

The sporting apotheosis of the gear obsession must be fishing.  Fishing is a uniquely male sport, and without laydeez present to argue the case for common sense and restraint, anglers really go to town on equipment. 

The wife and I were down at the coast a couple of weeks ago.  The town we ended-up at had a long Victorian pier, the end of which was overrun with anglers.  The very amount of equipment each was dragging around after him was heartbreaking: rods, nets, spools of different gauge line, floats, flies, harpoons, GPS worms, you-name-it.  And, I understand from a chap in the office who fishes, it's all carbon fibre these days.  Of course it is!  How is 15-stone man supposed to land a 10 ounce Herring with a metal or wooden rod.  Anyway, it's a moot point because there weren't any fish on the pier.  Yes, despite the computer-aided kit, the anglers were being ripped a new one by the kippers and whelks.  Oh, well maybe next year's rod will be the one.