General

After opening his own clinic and bagging a wife 10 years his junior, 39-year-old Katsuhiro Takada’s life seemed to be sailing along quite nicely. That is until relations between the acupuncturist and his bride began to sour. The young woman constantly sniping at her always-at-work husband, berating him with numerous not so niceties as “Never come home!” and “You’ll never succeed!”

Confronted with this problem, Takada did the only thing he knew how to — he began reading his large collection of how-to business books. Yet as preposterous as it sounds, this unusual approach actually worked. Yes, business management models it seems are applicable to unhappy partners, as Takada-san’s wife is now the model loving and supportive spouse.

The practical practitioner was so enamoured with this soar away success that he began dispensing advice to an online magazine, his suggestions becoming so popular that he now has his own web space that has a regular readership of around 3,000 people.

So what exactly did Takada glean from his business books? Well, the secret to a happy marriage can apparently be broken down into seven manageable points:

1. Listen to your wife attentively at least once a day without asking her to hurry up or get to the point.
2. Share the housework.
3. Do not forget to say “Thank you” and “You are kind.”
4. Never look down at your wife.
5. Do your work together with your wife if you are self-employed.
6. Do not fight. Listen to your wife patiently at first, even if you think she is completely wrong.
7. If there is something you really need or want to buy, persuade your wife daily so that she will come around to understanding why you want it.

All sound advice, but remarkably the list makes no mention of the perennial lavatory seat up/down conundrum. Although Takada’s final piece of advice may allude to such toilet trouble. “If you want your wife to change, you need to change, too.”

And that’s basically all there is to it.

Recalling phone numbers I find almost impossible; and passwords invariably prove even more troublesome, meaning that losing my mobile would be nothing short of a disaster. Similarly, clearing out the cookies on my browser is simply not an option — regardless of the potential hidden embarrassments — as countless stored passwords would be lost, destined never to see the light of day again.

Such problems however will presumably never be a part of 59-year-old Akira Haraguchi’s life. As over the weekend the volunteer worker smashed his own pi recitation record. Starting around lunchtime on Friday, Haraguchi-san didn’t finish his mathematical marathon until early Saturday morning. Notching up an unbelievable (and surely unbeatable) 83,432 digits.

A feat so unfathomable it begs the question, how?

Plus, I guess, why?

In a move reminiscent of bubble era boldness, Japan’s biggest bullion house Tanaka Kikinzoku has created an 18 karat gold bath. The twinkling tub weighing a whopping 50 kg and worth a staggering 120 million yen (600,000 pound).

It turns out a large hotel chain commissioned the rather tacky tub. The company hoping that it will become something of an attraction and help draw more visitors. However the constant presence of an eagle-eyed guard could well be a bit off-putting for the more bashful bather.

The gaming world may well be bracing itself for an upcoming console war, and the likes of Apple and Sony continue to do battle over hard disk music players. Yet neither of these can compare to the thrilling ball point battles waged by Japan’s pen producers.

In the keenly contested and prestigious we’ve-got-the-smallest-ball-point-pen-on-the-market competition, stationery giant Mitsubishi recently dealt its competitors a hefty blow by releasing a 0.18 mm pen on to a writing implement obsessed market. A product that makes main rival Pilot’s 0.25 mm offering seem ludicrously large. Prompting the company — understandably buoyed by its new creation and ownership of the ‘smallest ball point pen manufacturer in the world’ title — to gloat by imaginatively writing rice on, erm, a piece of rice.

This fiercely competitive market it seems is fuelled by schoolgirls and their penchant for writing miniscule kanji in diaries, letters, and day planners. With pen manufacturers laughing with glee and greedily rubbing their hands together due to the recent trend in using different colours to express various moods and feelings. One company official happily claiming, “Some girls will even use more than ten colours in one letter.”

The introduction of the 0.18 mm pen however could well be the end of a long and fascinating journey, with many pen professionals reluctantly saying that such stationery technology has probably reached its limit. Not that such talk can dampen the spirits of the nation’s ball point buyers; a shop assistant at Shibuya’s Tokyu Hands store claiming, “Avid users of stationery goods are keenly watching for product releases. They buy and try out new stuff out of curiosity.”

A passion that makes my love of gadgetry seem almost healthy. Emphasis very much on almost.