Who Stole Leo's Pants?

Saturday 2nd May 1998

Clubbing | Films | Parrot TV | Adverts | Competition | Japlish

Recipe for a night out

What do you do when you're out on the town with three friends whose self-confessed favourite type of music is "Disney"? Take them to a fairly cutting-edge breakbeat / drum and bass club in the heart of Tokyo? No? Er, well, yes, actually.

It was a good night actually, even if one of the DJs seemed more preoccupied with showing off his record collection than playing anything people might have wanted to dance to. He just stood there half the time, looking distinctly bored, as this.... er..... "fusion" of trumpet and drum and bass wafted out over the bemused, shuffling crowd, with one hand on his hip, as if to say, "It's no good looking at me like that. I've put it on now, you'll just have to lump it." Prat.

We went to the usual place for breakfast; a Mexican restaurant at about 5:30am. The steak was delicious. Anybody reading this in London who wants to make themselves a small fortune should open an all-night burrito bar with a Japanese chef. You'd clean up, I swear.

The Worst Film in the World

5) The Demolitionist (1995)
Nicole Eggert (wasn't she in Baywatch?) plays a woman brought back from the dead to be a bionic, crime-fighting, arse-kicking, motorbike-riding, gun-toting, black skin-tight bodyarmour-wearing bimbo. Her particular style of fighting crime appears to be driving her motorbike directly into the middle of the assembled baddies, and firing both her fully automatic machine pistols at them for a number of minutes, killing them all. The guns never run out of ammunition. Or appear to recoil. They do flash and make a lot of noise, though, which is of course a lot more effective when trying to shoot someone than actually using real bullets.

There is one particular scene where she drops into the middle of a circle of conveniently-positioned bad guys, then proceeds to shoot them all. The scene lasts at least thirty seconds and consists of lots of shots of her firing both guns at once in lots of nice slow arcs all around her, occasionally concentrating for several seconds on one person at a time - with both guns. During this time, not one of the bad guys, all of whom are no more than 3 metres away from her and firing continuously, manages to hit her. This means that the last guy to get shot has been firing at her for some thirty seconds without hitting her. I don't know about you, but I would have given up and gone home by that point. Or tried throwing the gun at her, perhaps.

That's it. Lots of people die. I mean, LOTS of people die. Like, more people than I know die. But they're wearing black leather and some of them even have eyepatches, so that's okay, I guess.

The Gaijin Parrot Programme

I'm not sure what this one's called, but I'd be willing to bet it was something like that. Teams of celebrities take turns to attempt to teach a Japanese phrase to a non-Japanese-speaking person; they choose a gaijin from the panel of six, and then get given a phrase which they have ten seconds to impart to the dumb-ass foreigner. Basically they just repeat it over and over again until the time runs out, and then the gaijin tries to say it. Points are awarded. People clap. The audience laughs. Sometimes the parrot gets it right, sometimes not. It's an interesting idea, but hardly mastermind.

Japan is probably the only country where they could get away with a programme like this, I think; can you imagine the BBC having the Spice Girls chanting "A pint of your finest ale, landlord!" to a confused team of Italians? ("I painta your fiva best snails, Ludlow" etc?) It would be shot down as discriminatory immediately, no matter whether or not the Italians were quite happy to be there, I suspect.

So, I guess I'll try to find out who makes it and offer my paid services; I'd better do it quickly before I actually manage to learn anything halfway conversant...

Adverts

* Current favourite; There is a caption in Japanese, followed by a shot of a locked door being rattled violently from the other side. Another caption. Then the door flies open, and blow me if it isn't Leonardo DiCaprio striding into the room, wearing a dark suit, followed by lots of reporters and cameramen. Zoom to close-up on his face. He is scowling and staring from left right, as if to say, "Right, who stole my pants?" Cut to an "Orico" logo. Who are they? What do they do? Do I care? Not really. But I do hope Leo gets his underwear back.

* Jodie Foster advertises cafe latte ice cream! It's ice cream! But it's like coffee! And latte! And Jodie Foster likes it! I want to buy some! Hurrah!

* An advert for a housing development. The slogan? "Home... homer... sexual!"

Just kidding, sorry, sorry. It's "Home... homer... homest!" Yes, you too can move into a Homest Home. Because it's, like, the most like a home. Home-est. Obvious, really. I think I'll start my own marketing company, selling moles. "Mole... moler... molest!" Or maybe not.

* There's a big brown bear leaping around in a stream, catching fish in his jaws and devouring them. This is, as any seasoned watcher of Japanese television will tell you, clearly an advert for malt whiskey. You know; the bear, the fish - whiskey. Clear as you like. But I dare you to guess the soundtrack. Go on, guess. In fact, we'll make that this week's...

Competition

Please reply-mail me with your guess. Anything you like, you've got no chance. Please try anyway though, as it will force me to devise some kind of judging system in order to establish who is the "closest" to the correct answer. A chance for you to get your own back at last.

Japlish du Jour

Although you might think you've already been spoiled quite enough by the Homest Home quote, I have MORE for you. You'll thank me later. There's a shop near my flat, which has only ever been closed when I've walked past, with the following solitary advertising board outside:

Total Product

So, whatever it is they're selling, I can rest assured in the knowledge that should I buy one, I'll get all of it. Which is sort of a relief, don't you think? No? Oh.

Regards,

Chris

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