Sally- Part 41. TOKYO 1 ! NOT FOR THE FAINT HEARTED !

SHIRLEY ! ARE YOU SURE THEY'RE BOTH MINE ? JULIAN, LEFT AND JONATHAN AND ME,WORN OUT BUT CARRYING ALL THEIR STUFF......AS USUAL !

After studying law for four years, including a year's exchange to study Italian law but before completing his LPC, Jonathan decided that at the age of twenty two he couldn't bear to study any more and at his friend's suggestion took himself off to Japan to teach English for another four years where he ended up in Tokyo actually running and managing a school.

His first three years were spent in Nagano where the Olympic skiing events took place and he discovered that if he waited at the entrance to the slope at around 10am, wealthy Japanese businessmen who liked an early morning ski would hand over their unused portions of their ski passes for free. So what could be better than a couple of black runs on his snow-board before a bit of teaching? No wonder he stayed there for so long!

I think that he did come home briefly at some point but Shirley thought that I might like to go out on my own and see him and the country and using the CeeFax again found a "Last Minute.Com" deal of a return flight from Heathrow to Tokyo for only £ 230 = ! I repeat £ 230 = ! with Swissair. No wonder they went bankrupt shortly afterwards!

 So I booked it and took Julian as well as he hadn't gone back to university yet.

JULIAN, INSCRUTABLE IN JAPAN, HAVING DRUNK THE WHOLE FLASK OF SAKI! THE BLURRING WAS CAUSED BY MY HAVING DRUNK A SIMILAR SIZED FLASK AT THE OTHER END OF THE TABLE!

Julian was essentially a shy young man and as his father, I was rightly not privy to his innermost thoughts but I think I got a clue when the Russian beauty sitting to his left on the plane took out several pairs of bejewelled, miniscule dancing briefs and spent many hours unashamedly sewing sequins onto their, I would say from my careful study of them from a professional point of view of course, uncomfortably narrow crotches!

I was aware of her tiny little mocking sideways glances at him but I don't think he was aware of them as his eye muscles quickly went into spasm as he attempted to convince me that he had no interest in a beautiful Russian girl's miniscule dancing briefs' uncomfortably narrow crotches by locking his head in a rigidly front-facing position whilst jamming his eyeballs full left.

He didn't answer any of my questions which wasn't unusual as his adolescence had started at three years of age and continued to the present, or any of the air stewardess's either when she asked him if he wanted something to eat or drink because I think he had probably developed lock-jaw-by-proxy as his whole body started to seize up owing to his entire blood supply being diverted to the place that can have no name!

AN ASIDE:

On the subject of the effects of a woman's bits on a man and the commercial use that they are put to, I was virtually hung, drawn and quartered by my wife and her sister Debbie when Debbie and my eighteen year old niece Hannah were visiting from their home in Spain four years ago.

I was tried without a defence counsel and convicted of the heinous crime of downloading pornography onto Shirley's laptop!

My most vehement attempts at denial were tossed aside. Even my Clintonesque, " I DID NOT DOWNLOAD PORNOGRAPHY ONTO THAT LAPTOP!" was to no avail!

 I could have said " our laptop" but as Shirley spent approximately every waking hour watching Josh Groban I never ever got a go except once during the Golf Masters Championship  at 11:53pm,seventeen hours since she had first logged on, I asked if I could briefly check a golfer's score or something and had no sooner typed in the man's name before Shirley started huffing and criticising my finger speed insisting that I hurried up because she had important things to look up and I never did find out whatever I wanted to know as I handed the thing straight back and fled to my room under a torrent of " God! How can anyone be so slow and not know how to spell? And golf ! What sort of moron watches that ? You're obsessed! Kuh ! "

Well, anyway, the following is the truth !

 I was even more useless with internet technology than a baby and asked Hannah to show me how to download music videos for which and for some unnecessary reason I had bought a drum of the wrong discs in a local store called Wilkinsons.

HANNAH IN MORE INNOCENT DAYS CHECKING MY HAIR FOR NITS!

Hannah put in a disc and clicked the "MEDIA PLAYER" symbol and had just started to say, " Now once you have........" when we were overpowered by a man's roar of climactic ardour and a woman's speedy and breathless attempts to complete the rendering of a personal service!

Seventeen seconds of unadulterated, just finishing-off porn leapt out at us in glorious technicolour and stereo surround sound!

Well I didn't know what to do and covered Hannah's eyes, then her ears and shut the lid as quickly as I could whilst turning bright red, sweating profusely and saying " I'm so sorry Hannah! I'm so sorry! But I don't know how that got there! It must have been on the disc already! "

Sweet Hannah simply calmed the situation by assuring me that she had seen much worse in Spain!

 And this reminded me that as a twelve year old she had taught me to swear in Spanish on the understanding that I would never tell her parents how I'd learnt it, thereby revealing that she knew it!  Her foulest expression translated into " SHE wears pink pyjamas! "

That's how sweet she was and of course still is! Eh Hannah? Oh dear! I've revealed your secret now haven't I?

The chattering ladies were disgusted and short of beating me up, called me some pretty awful shameful names!

I pleaded my innocence and blamed an adulterated disc and to prove my point put in another and pressed play again and the same porn  played again!

I was disgusted by the thought that some probably just-sacked worker somewhere back down the production line had done this !

I wrote "PORN - 17 seconds!" on the first disc and to prove even greater innocence tried another and then another and then another.

THERE WERE ACTUALLY SEVEN MORE BEFORE THE TRUTH BEGAN TO DAWN !

Each time the result was the same, though some had sound and others didn't, so I wrote the appropriate remark on each disc, swearing to return them in the morning to demand an explanation!

Well I forgot to shut the drawer on the final disc before pressing "play" and the porn played anyway!

"WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON ?" I thought !

 By the eigth disc, each time I pressed play the two sisters were joining in with the man's groans and by the end we were all howling and crying with laughter; not that my claim of innocence was believed!

Well, I managed to search the 'history' and 'recently viewed' and all I could find was about eight hundred thousand Josh Groban visits and one that said ' Donkey Punch ' so shut down and went to bed still being talked  to like a criminal!

By chance my grandson Dylan's policeman Dad Richard walked in in the morning. Shirley had asked him to have a look at the TV because it was acting oddly and as he knew about computers as well, I asked him to have a look at ours and perhaps show me where the porn was kept! AHAHAHA!

"Well !" He said looking wise, weren't you away last week?"

"Yes we were!" I replied, unable to think where this was going!

"And did either of your sons call in while you were away?"

"Yes they did!"

"Well that explains things!" he chortled ."I noticed that when I turned the TV on " BABE STATION" was playing as it had been the last station viewed before turning off and frankly every man should know that the most vital bit of evidence-destruction-technique is to tune back to BBC1 before turning off so that BBC1 comes on first when your wife turns on for "Richard and Judy" in the morning! ( my patronising choice, not Richard's! ). And" he continued, chortling louder, " If I check the lap top "Media Player" I suspect that I'll find a similar piece of evidence there! AH! There you go. The last site visited was "................." !

Obviously I can't print that here!

This meant that whenever you turned on the 'media player' you would always see what was last watched!

So the question was, which son was responsible?

I do not know as neither will own up though they both laugh heartily and deny everything even years later when challenged!

Does anybody out there want to make me an offer for six discs with either "PORN- 17 SECONDS WITH SOUND! or "PORN- 17 SECONDS WITHOUT SOUND!" written on the labels?

I shudder to think what the management of Wilkinsons would have thought upon receipt of my angry letter and six blank discs!

Oh! And out of interest I looked up 'Donkey Punch' on Wiki and could not believe it's definition or that MY wife would be interested in the practice! I dare not say more and certainly do not recommend that sensitive folk look it up!

When challenged, Shirley, indignant at my disgust, insisted that 'Donkey Punch' was the title of a film! ( Probably starring Josh Groban! ) YEAH! YEAH! YEAH!

I thank the Lord above that it wasn't me making the first enquiry! PLEASE DON'T LOOK IT UP!!!!!!!

END OF ASIDE!

ACTUALLY IT'S NOT!

For about ten years ago, Shirley and I were returning to the car park at Kiloran Bay on Colonsay after Shirley had just escaped being sucked under by quicksand whilst crossing the river that runs across the beach and I had been completely unaware of the crisis as I was crossing higher up and there was a high wind blowing, carrying her cries of help away from my ears!

Apparently, what to an unvertically challenged person would have been a slight downward pull to their ankles in just less than firm sand, turned into a titanic struggle for life for my definitely vertically challenged spouse!

Of course I heard her cries!

Anyway and this really is true, as if anything else wasn't, another couple, very posh and about sixty saw us coming and the wife waited to ask us what we thought of the letter waiting on their rented cottage coffee table upon their arrival and whether we had got one.

It purported to be from Colonsay Council and reported that an increase in 'Dogging' at various sites around the Island was of great concern and requested visitors not to take part as if word got out then the wrong sort of people might be attracted to the place!

I honestly did not know what 'Dogging' was!  Do you ? Then shame on you !

Shirley DID! and said that she would explain it to me later!

There are things that I don't know about my wife and perhaps it's best that it remains that way!

Whilst she and the lady talked, my mobile phone rang ( Again, Shirley's not mine really ! ) and I walked away to be able to hear the caller, who happened to be Gemma, in floods of tears, reporting a split end or something equally devastating and wondering if we could cut our holiday short and return home to console her and asking if her mum was there and if I had handed over would have resulted in Shirley spending an hour and a half talking her through her crisis whilst I sat freezing in the car in a Vodafone-signal-receptive area, which are  scarce on Islands!

At least Gemma's company were paying for the call !

The other husband had followed me and was rather keen to get me on my own to tell me something which turned out to be that they had come with another couple and the men always tried to play a prank on the wives and that this one had proven to be the best ever as he had planted the letter, ready-written before arrival, without the women suspecting a thing !

" But what is 'Dogging'? I asked him. And he told me ! How could I have got through life without ever hearing of it ?

This is something else NOT to look up if you're of a sensitive disposition and if you do then I apologise for introducing you to the prurient side of life!

THAT REALLY IS THE END OF THE ASIDES!

Japan was wonderful. I loved the cleanliness and politeness of everybody and although, when we were lost nobody understood my shouted English, no matter how slowly I shouted it, we eventually managed to get a few trains the thirty miles from the airport to the city suburb where Jonathan lived and worked.

Jonathan was waiting on the platform for us but neither Julian nor I recognised the apparition that stood there!

He was huge! Bearded; dressed in ragged T-shirt and under-knee shorts and soaked in sweat. We, in our air-conditioned carriage didn't realise how hot and humid it was until we stepped out into a blast furnace of tropical weather.

Making no allowance for our jet lag and general exhaustion caused by being too lanky and too interested in a beautiful Russian sewing sequins onto the uncomfortably narrow-looking crotches of her miniscule bejewelled dancing briefs to sleep on a cramped plane and pausing briefly to haul my suitcase onto his shoulder he said, " Hiya!" as if he hadn't seen us since the day before," I've booked lunch for 1pm and so we've only got half an hour to get there after dropping your stuff off; so hurry up, we've got a mile walk first and I'm starving!

If ever he should attain a dukedom then under his heraldic symbol of a mythical creature stuffing itself on a gargantuan meal should be the Latin words for " I'm Starving" ! Probably something like " WOTTONEARTHIUS ISTHERIUS FORTHIUS LUNCHUS? STARVINGIUS ISTUS IUS! " AHA! I just made that up!

He didn't warn us that Japanese taxis have self-opening doors, so Julian and I both got a whack where we could have done without one before being rushed through an enormous shopping complex to Jonathan's 'absolutely favourite' restaurant.

Actually, everything in Jonathan's life is his 'absolutely favourite' thing or place!

So, tired and not particularly ready to eat, we were served noodles to be eaten using chopsticks and suffered the humiliation of being laughed at by customers and staff alike as we slurped our food down our shirt fronts and into our laps!

Jonathan, a fully accomplished native eater naturally wolfed his down before moving onto and eating ninety percent of the prawns-in-tempura batter brought for our main course, extolling their deliciousness between each fistful and saying, " Gorgeous these aren't they Dad? Aren't they Julian? "

I was too busy trying to balance a single noodle on one chopstick before it fell back into the bowl to answer!

I paid something like £20= a portion to starve and Jonathan promised that the 'proper' dinner that we were booked in to eat, at his other 'absolutely favourite' restaurant at six would be even more delicious and costly which gave him just about time to give a lesson and Julian and me time  to have a shower and a cup of tea!

In my exhausted state I didn't think that the quite generous amount of cash I had  brought with me was going to last ten days! And it didn't!

OF COURSE THE ASIDES AREN'T OVER YET!

Because one final tale has crept back into my mind of a weekend away in a Nagano Ski Lodge where, having beaten everyone at 'Pool' Jonathan warned me, rather too often than was necessary I thought that the next day was likely to be a long one and that at my age of forty eight it might be a good idea for me to get an early night, though he and Julian were going to have a few more games and beers.

So I went off to write up my diary about the frightening cost of everything and my lack of understanding of why people wanted to soak themselves in the most disgusting smelling hot-spring baths, called 'Onsens' ! Even as you approached from miles away, the acrid stench of rotting eggs choked your lungs and on arrival you had to strip and carry a 'modesty' towel to cover your embarrassment!

HOT, STINKING AND UNASHAMED IN AN ONSEN !

 It may have been a towel to to a local but to a proud Englishman it was little more than a postage stamp and therefore useless for the intended job. So we threw them away and quickly got used to the cries of envy from the men and the gasps from the women craning their necks around the bamboo screens!

"That's funny!" I thought as I was writing my log, " The boys aren't making much noise drinking and playing!"

So I crept back to the lounge where, unseen, I spied on them watching porn!

I went back to my room silently howling to myself because the stuff that they were watching had had all of the important bits electronically blurred out and the rest, frankly wasn't worth watching! Well the hour's-worth I watched from my hiding place wasn't!

! ALL ASIDES ARE NOW REALLY OVER!