Imagine this. You’re Japan’s finance minister. You’ve been dragged to Rome to attend a G7 meeting even though all you want to do is eighteen double Tequila slammers before bed. So just before the meeting you prepare by having just a little drink. There’s nothing wrong with that, right?

But then all of a sudden hilarious videos of you trashed at the meeting appear on the net. It also turns out you climbed over the security bar at a museum and sat on a world famous statue. No biggie, right?

On the plus side the Prime Minister hasn’t asked you to resign but he sure sounded angry, so you retire. So where do you go next? That’s right, Mike from JapanIsDoomed.com writes an article pretending you wrote a book that tells readers how to get utterly smashed at international meetings and get away with it, whilst in reality you just slowly fade into obscurity.

That’s right! This summer be one of the first to own the g7 summit: last one drunk is a big loser! The book follows professional drinker and part-time Japanese finance minister Shoichi Nakagawa’s rise to drinking fame, culminating in his amazing performance at the g7 Rome summit in early 2009!

But that’s not all! In this amazing book Nakagawa will provide top tips on not one, not two but three different disciplines;

1. Becoming the Japanese finance minister whilst drunk
   This amazing section teaches you how to forsake your sobriety and liver in favour of a high ranking government role! Essential reading for adults and children alike! Start them young!
2. What to do at a g7 meeting
   Something that everyone has to deal with at one time in their life is sitting on an international council. Nakagawa provides his own insights into what to do in this time. Suggestions include ’sweating an obscene amount’, ’slurring your words uncontrollably’ and ‘long, overdrawn and embarrassing silences’.
3. How to get closer to the exhibits at museums in Rome
   This super bonus sections teaches you how to hop over security barriers and get comfy on statues worth several billion dollars!

You’ll wonder how you survived without these amazing steps! But don’t take our word for it, here direct from the man himself is a choice tip, free of charge;

It’s really hard to get on a flight drunk. So what I like to do is wear a really heavy jumper, and before I set off for the airport I have a bath, wearing the jumper, in Vodka. Although it makes me reek and makes my clothing incredibly heavy, it means I can suck delicious Vodka out of my sleeves for a good eight hours! Fantastic!
- Shoichi Nakagawa, 2009

Genius. Order now and get a free stern talking to by the prime minister of Japan.

Buy now!

This year, Sheffield University is putting on Japan Day 2009, a whole day dedicated to people learning about and enjoying Japanese dance, food, culture and so on. If you cast your mind back a year ago you may remember I was part of the Soran Bushi dance team (video here) that performed at the 2008 event.

Well I’m involved this year too, and one of my jobs was to produce some promotional posters for the event. Since this year is (apparently) 150 years of Japan & the UK being linked and working together, we decided to go for a ‘Japan meets England’ theme. So these photos are exactly that; see if you can spot where Japan comes in to each one! (Hint: If you can’t, seek medical attention).

I’ll post the posters when they have been done, so you can all fly over to the UK to join us! Click on any of the images for huge versions!

So as you can see (hopefully) we decided to get one of our exchange students to dress up in a Yukata to take some photos around the university. About half of them are ones of her standing and waving or smiling, and half of them are her doing ’studenty things’ like waiting at a bus stop.

Here’s one outside the Arts Tower, our biggest building!

I hope these photos are making you think ‘Wow, I really want to go to Sheffield Japan Day 2009!’ They should be. I’m going to be posting some promotional info all over the place, including this blog, in the near future, so please look out for that!