Friday, June 02, 2006

Empress Michiko has caught a cold: Paper mills urge public to stay calm over tissues

Empress Michiko has caught a cold and has been rested. In related news, Paper mills urge public to stay calm over tissues

Sometimes headlines need no further comment, but the consequences of an unmuffled Royal Sneeze at a public event are too horrible to contemplate. I am trying to control myself in the light of these shocking stories. Wouldn't do to have an accident...especially now, with this reported shortage of tissue paper :-)

The Japanese obsession with tissues is a funny thing. They are ubiquitously used as marketing devices, handed out in small packets with advertisements attached to them to passing pedestrians, and I've also seen their price used as some barometer of the cost of living in various places. IIRC, Thatcher once famously had no idea about the price of a pint of milk. I wonder if Koizumi knows what a box of tissues costs? Will the tissue issue be mentioned in Parliament?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

James, this is all nice and such, but really, why should anyone give a damn whether the Japanese nations survives to year 2100 or not? Personally I couldn't give a toss. We all have our problems, and things change. Things change. That includes Japan. There are more than enough people in the world to take their place.

James Annan said...

Um...assuming you meant to refer to this post, of course I realise that a significant number of people don't care about anyone outside of their borders (or racial type, or village, or whatever clan they identify with most closely). But there are probably others who do care, and there are also issues to address in Japan that may well be repeated elsewhere in the world (even in your country, perhaps) in the future.

James Annan said...

Anon,

I'd also like to take this opportunity to apologise to you for the unforgiveable failing of not writing about your particular interests. I'm still at the learning stage in my blogging career, and clearly haven't yet mastered the art of reading the minds of anonymous and unknown readers. If you would be so gracious as to actually tell me what you do "give a toss" about, I'll do my best. After all, this is all written explicitly for your benefit. It's not as if I've got anything else to do with my life.

:-)