How long does it take to get boring?

When I was a teenager, IBM was going bust, a senile old man surrounded by the young turks like Intel and Microsoft. Well, except Intel had been around for an age, and Microsoft never felt young and exciting. But what do adolescents fed on overcaffeinated beverages know about anything?

Of being battered, and of toilets, and the Future

Today was my first day of training in Tadotsu, and indeed the first exercise I've had since last Wednesday, if you exclude walking to the supermarket and purchasing Pringles. For no apparent reason, I couldn't sleep until two this morning, which meant the day was a bit of a struggle, as it started with a couple of hours of being thrown around by Japanese students in the morning, and then being walloped by a chap from Australia, before an afternoon session of wearing sweaty body armour in an overheated room and getting punched and kicked again. By about 4pm I was ready to drop; by half past five, having sat through a lecture delivered in untranslated Japanese I was ready for bed.

A salutary lesson about car hire in Japan

This morning was a bit difficult; after waking up with hair that appeared to have exploded, and a mouth like dessicated coconut, I had a nutritious breakfast of French fries and croissants. I didn't boast too much about how I'd got a taxi home last night, rather than walk for a couple of miles from the station to the flickering beacon of the ANA Gate Tower Hotel. Then we went over to the airport to pick up our hire car.

Unfortunately, to hire a car in Japan it's a legal requirement to have a Japanese translation of your license.