Japan Is Doomed

Wow! Last night at around 11pm myself and 11 other members of Sheffield Japan Society ran on stage at Sheffiend International Culture Evening 2008 and danced like maniacs. I don’t really know what to say, so I’ll post this video for you guys to enjoy.

Let the video load before playing it. Hosted courtesy of Facebook. Bonus points for spotting me.

Dancer Lineup;

Naomi, Kuni, Mo, Kishin, Simon, Masa, Mike, James, Maria, Amelia, Taka & Me

Best dance team ever.

Photographs will be here in a few days (courtesy of Joseph Tame)

From Japan Today;

Thirty-two runners were stung by honey bees while taking part in a marathon event in Saga on Sunday, local fire department officials said. The runners were treated at a hospital, but their injuries are not serious, the officials said.

Well that’s just plain unlucky, to be honest. I’m terrified of bees, but to be honest would you keep running if you saw this ahead of you;

Now as everyone knows, being covered in bees is the third most scary animal to be covered in, after spiders and jellyfish in that order. So in a way, you can look at this news and go “Oh well, at least they weren’t jellyfish”. I hope that’s what the doctors told the injured runners. “Don’t worry, you’ll be fine. We had a bunch of runners yesterday who were attacked by a team of jellyfish.”

Anyway, on with the news story;

The 32 runners participating in the half-marathon race were attacked by a swarm of honey bees at around 10:50 a.m. Sunday when they were around the 11-kilometer point near an apiary, according to event organizers. Many of those who were stung dropped out of the race, but the overall event, featuring races of varying distances, continued as a makeshift route diverted trailing runners from the area where the bees appeared, the organizers said.

What I love about this story is that the event wasn’t cancelled. The organisers just created a new route and everyone went around the swarm. Brilliant. In England the race would have been cancelled, the organisers sued, and the bees deported from the country, or jailed.

So why, Mike, are you posting this story? It’s not very interesting I know, but it allows me to post the very first ever Youtube video on Japan Is Doomed! Woohoo! I really wanted to post one a while ago, and I have a great update lined up with a handful of videos. But I think to kick it off we need a really great performer. So who better than the legend Eddie Izzard?! I know the link is incredibly tenuous, but here he is discussing being covered in bees, just like our poor runners;

So, to conclude, a quick run through of facts;

1. People get stung alot but people keep running anyway. Humanity 1, Animals 0.
2. Jellyfish much more dangerous than bees.
3. Eddie Izzard very entertaining.
4. Mike teases with promise of funny update. Makes a change. (Hohoho).

So was this really just a thinly veiled Youtube test? Yes Of course not.