Happy Bird-thday, You Pterror!

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1. Survived I was hospitalized. My brother and sister dropped everything to come and help. They took me to meetings. I have stopped. I will be all right. I can’t give up....
2. Not Everything About Winter is Cruddy Winter sucks….for the most part. Winter is cold, dark and seemingly endless and colorless. For someone whose daily routine involves rising early and cycling, winter is not exactly the pleasantest time of year. And the cold mornings start from November and linger on until deeply into April at least, and...
3. Cold, Wet and Dark Doesn’t get any more archetypically Monday than today….cold, wet, dark and bleak. Kangaeroo wasn’t too keen on getting out on the bike with a huge day ahead. But it was precisely because the day promises to be demanding that dragged him out in the end. Rain had been forecast, but...
4. Holmes, Sweet Holmes With Valentine’s Day focusing a spotlight on love (or at least a love of chocolate in Japan) and having gone to a movie theater to see a film for the first time in decades over the weekend, I got to thinking, which can often be a dangerous thing. Growing up...
5. The Strewth, the Whole Strewth and Nothing But the Strewth… Strewth, work and life are bloody busy at the moment, but I can’t let that stop me from looking after things, which resulted this week in a renovation to the Fountain of Strewth. It was nothing major, but I found wooden letters on sale in the local 100 yen shop...
6. Of Banksia and Birdies It’s the most glorious day of the year so far in terms of weather and I am sitting in my back office, stuffing myself full of chocolate and lollies and preoccupied with bloody banksia and birds. I’m stuck here because I’m waiting on delivery of the newest member of Kangaeroo...
7. 典型的なオージー英語mateが「役所使用禁止」発令 　Mateは、恐らくG’dayに次いで典型的なオーストラリア英語に使われている言葉であり、よく挨拶としてコンビでも使用されているが今週、ニューサウスウェールズ州北部地方健康局が同局職員宛に「mate」という言葉を同僚内交わすことが禁止する発令が出たことをnews.com.auが報道している。 　同局はmateが「失礼、無力にさせる手段としての話し方と仕事している職人としてのあるまじきな言葉遣いではない」ことを理由にして、使用禁止にした。 　そのほかに職場内に使用禁止として狩れた言葉はdarling（ダーリン）、sweetheart（愛する人）とhoney（かわいい人）だった。 　同局にとると、言葉使用禁止命令は同州行動規範に沿っているという。 　表現の自由を主張する人などを同局に対してもう反発している。 　同州最高裁元裁判長ジェームズ・スピーグルマン氏がこの頃オーストラリアでの表現の自由の抑制に対して批判したばかりだ。 Mate (オージー英語定義） Mate (豪キャブラリー） Mate (やばいリンガル） Strine（オージー英語）辞書 Health workers on NSW north coast told they cannot use word ‘mate’ Mateがオーストラリアが舞台としているハリウッド映画「ファインディング・ニーモ」。「Mine」と思っている人が多いようだが、以下の動画に登場するカモメたちがオーストラリア若者の「mate」の言い方をバカにしている。...
8. Wattle Happen Next? It’s becoming increasingly clear that spring is not too far away, and the wattle tree in Kangaeroo Corner is giving hints of something about to spring into action. March, which starts tomorrow (der!), is traditionally a coldish month, with a warm day every few days here and there. This winter...
9. Lady of the Lake and More Lucky Rides Not much has happened, certainly nothing to really write about, but I have been very fortunate to get some amazing skies that make tremendous backdrops for bicycle photos, including these shots of La Cangura beside a little pond near the Tama River, which evoked an image of the Lady of...
10. Gentle Soul During a brief visit to Australia last year, after a separation of about 40 years I got to meet a schoolmate who I had greatly admired as a teen-ager, and he referred to me as someone “who always was a gentle soul.” It was one of the, if not the,...
11. Get Off Of My Cloud! Riding today was like floating through the heavens at times, reminding me of one of my favorite songs by the world’s greatest rock band: The Rolling Stones‘ Get off My Cloud. I’d have loved to have been able to keep the scene for myself as I rode through the mists...
12. Saving Things For a Rainy Day It’s drizzling and miserable weather today, which provides a wonderful opportunity for an update as my customary lunchtime ride can be substituted. Lots has happened since my last post, but there’s little time to write about it, so this is a bit of a summary of the past couple of...
13. Love The Way You Lie Kangaeroo got a much better day than expected today, Japan’s National Foundation Day but not a holiday because it fell on a Saturday. Waking, Your Humble Narrator (to borrow a turn of phrase from Anthony Burgess) was greeted by a winter wonderland from the previous day’s snowfall. There would be...
14. オーストラリア最大恐竜がエロマンガに 　オーストラリアの最大恐竜がエロマンガにあった。 　本当。 　下品なことを考えってんじゃねぇよ！エロマンガはオーストラリア先住民の言葉で「風がよく吹く平野」という意味だそう。 　エロマンガは、北部クイーンズランド州にある小さな村です。石油とオパール鉱業が中心となっている人口約40人の村である。 　1990年代までエロマンガ有名なことはオーストラリア内で海から最も遠く離れている町ということだった。（今でもそうと主張しているが、そうじゃないという人もいます。） 　いずれにせよ、クイーンズランド州都ブリスベーンから約1,000キロ西の方に置かれている。 　1994年にチャリ乗りの少年が化石を見つけて、以降次から次へ恐竜の化石が発見された。 　2007年にみつかった化石が今までオーストラリアで最も大きいな恐竜のものだった。 　その恐竜がティタノザウルス類の一種であり、エロマンんがの恐竜がクーパーと名付けられた。 　しかし、名前は名前なので、当然にエロマンガという村が日本に注目を浴びた。 　数多くの日本のエロ漫画や普通の漫画もエロマンガの話が出ています。 　その中は「ニニンがシノブ伝」、「サムライフラメンコ」というまでもなくオーストラリアで児童ポルノとして禁じられている「エロマンガ先生」がある。 　今、エロマンガに恐竜研究が励んでいる。 　2017年に開館したエロマンガ自然博物館が運営しているが、コロナ禍で苦しんでいるだろう。 　それでも、間違いなくエロマンガがオーストラリア恐竜研究・跡地の最前線にひとつということはまちがいない。 　これからもエロマンガにますます期待できるだろう。 　 　 　...
15. Bromocalypse, Now! As fate would have it, I got to ride my Brompton in a post-apocalyptic landscape over the weekend, making for some eerie-looking pics. It’s not the first time I have been able to ride through the area, but it was Brommie’s first chance to do so. Although the scenes appear...
16. No Paws for Thought Kangaroo paws, the big success story of my Aussie seeds saga, and the one that most mattered to me, reached a new stage in their progress from propagation. Mrs. Kangaeroo noticed that they were crowding the large pot that I had planted them in, and if they weren’t moved they...
17. Be Careful What You Wish For… One of the highlights of Kangaeroo Corner is the Fountain of Strewth, which I placed with the hope of attracting birds to the garden, but the role has been served so well, I’m now drawn to the idiom used in the headline (which stems from a passage of Aesop’s fables...
18. Enough of the Rain, Already! Kangaeroo is on holiday. Has been for 37 hours now. And it has rained almost that entire time. And due to continue falling for almost the next 24 hours, too. Ah, well…not much that can be done about it....
19. Sunflowers in the Rain Fortune smiled favorably on me this morning, too, as I got to ride out to a nearby sunflower field and get some awesome photos. There’s not much I can elaborate on, other than to say the field was a spectacular sight. There were lots of people around, even though the...
20. (Aussie) Black Swans Give (Japanese) Koi Fish a Decent Feed Black swans are endemic to Australia and symbolic to the country, particularly Western Australia, where the avian beauty is almost synonymous for anything Sandgroper. 　黒鳥は、オーストラリア国有鳥であり、州の象徴である西オーストラリア州では特に称えられている。 Koi fish, meanwhile, play a similar role for Japan, immediately evoking an image of the Land of the Rising Sun. 　鯉は、言うまでもなく、超日本的であり、日本のシンボル一つと言っても過言ではないはずだ。 This clip could be...
21. Get it Over and Done With! Though I had no legs, I was gifted with a glorious morning today. Nearly every day this week has been tough going in the pre-dawn hours. Wind was the main scourge, and there were a couple of days when I had to take irregular routes because the wind was so...
22. So It Goes… Today marks farewell to Premiership Palace. Kangaeroo is no longer a Kanagawa kenmin (resident of Kanagawa Prefecture) from Kurokawa. Well, at least not after today. If nothing else, at least the pandemic allowed Kangaeroo to explore the neighborhood, getting to know what a delightful place it was. Time in Kanagawa...
23. Wistful Wisteria There’ve been better times than the past week, and hopefully the climbing hardenbergia comptoniana planted today augurs a rise out of the doldrums. I couldn’t sleep, so as soon as it was light, I got out into the garden, moving the lawn, weeding and my efforts culminating in re-potting the hardenbergia...
24. Tour de Kagoshima-Kyoto Day 7: Matsuyama to Wakayama A moving day allowed the tour riders to freshen legs ahead of the trip’s biggest climb, but that didn’t mean it was an easy day. Riders had a free morning in Matsuyama before assembling around midday to catch a bus to Tokushima. Activities engaged in during the morning included watching...
25. May It Always Be May May is gorgeous in Japan, even this year when the world is confronting the bleak tragedy of the covid-19 outbreak. The warm, dry, mostly sunny month brings some much-needed delight....
26. Satoyama For the past few years, I’ve been very fortunate to live adjacent to (and, more recently, nearby) a satoyama, a little strip of near-wilderness amid the hustle and bustle of suburban and metropolitan areas. Tokyo is the world’s largest city and it is densely populated. Much of the city is...
27. Everlastings Love! Everlasting daisies have become the first plants I’ve potted after starting to grow them from seed. I planted the seeds in humidity pods on February 19. They germinated in a flash, with buds clearly visible within a week. They were starting to grow too big for the pods, so I...
28. Grass is Greener….Here, And Not On the Other Side! Kangaeroo Corner’s garden is about to enter its second spring, and is currently going through its first winter. And its grass is greener than could ever be imagined…literally! Although Kangaeroo comes from a family of avid gardeners, he had never really had a chance to do much gardening. Only an...
29. Heading Toward New Horizons We’re off to a new home, thanks to the miraculous passage of a housing loan, and I’m getting a new job as the company looks for ways to deal with the pandemic. We’re moving back over the hill from Kawasaki into Tama and into a delightful place now undergoing renovations....
30. 豪の不思議な巨大人物「Marree Man」が消滅恐れ オーストラリアのアウトバックにある身長約4キロメートルで世界最大な地上絵である原因不明なMarree Manが消滅する可能性が高く、助かるために公的資金が求められている。 　Marree Manの存在が謎の中の謎だ。 　1998年ある日、南オーストラリア州マリーという町にあるパブが「巨大地上絵が君たちの町の近くにあるよ」などと不思議なファックスを届いた。ジョークがいたずらかと思って無視したが偶然にその時期近くに飛行機が飛び、やっぱり本当の話だった。 　地上絵がブーメランを持って狩りをしているオーストラリア先住民であるアボリジニーの姿をし、書かれている線が約18キロメートルもあり、発見した当時約20～30センチの深さがあって所によって幅が約20メートルもあった。 　どのようにMarree Manがその辺に出来たかが未だに不明。ファックスの送り主が分からないし、発見当時米国星条旗が入った瓶とブランチ・ダビディアンというカルトに関する手紙があってファックス内容がメートル法より「マイルなど」旧式な言い方をしたからアメリカ人が関係すると思われているが燻製ニシンの虚偽とされている。現地の人々が2002年に亡くなったオーストラリア人アーティストが作ったではないかという人が多い。いずれにすよ、本当の話が分からない。 さらに問題化しているのが同地域が先住民が所有権を持ち、近くの一般立ち入り禁止ウーメラ試験場もあるので簡単に地域を変化などをすることができないけど、上空観察などによって発見からの15年間にちょっとした観光業が成り立っていた。 　だが、整備の難しさの上に時間経過によってMarree Manが構成する線が段々薄くなっている。マリー関係者が州政府に維持費などの助成金を申請して陳情しているが、今の所行動をとっていない。 　ある日いきなり現れてきたMarree Manが急速に砂漠の土の中に戻る恐れが非常に高くなっているので、ますますオーストラリアの不思議な事件一つが深い謎に囲まれそうだ。 Race on to Save Marree Man （英語） www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKEJgQeAdiQ Marree Man by David Batty, National Film Board of Canada...
31. 豪キャブラリー： Shoot through Shoot through （打って通れば）を聞くと何となく「銃の引き金を引く」ような感覚を起こすかもしれないが、実際にオージー英語でこの表現を使えば一切そういうような意味がない。実は、「打つ」(shoot)と一切関係ない（だったら、なんで使うかと言いたくなるよね、、、）。「出ていく」とか「場を去る」などの意味。Shoot offも同様の意味として使う場合もある、「急いでいく」ような感覚があるが、shoot offのほとんどの使う時がshoot off your mouth（口を打つ！）になり、「しゃべり過ぎ」という意味のだ！...
32. Another One Bites the Dust… It’s no longer possible for me to trust my own mind because I know how utterly unreliable it is, but I got greater affirmation of why I’m so uneasy in my workplace when I learned last night that we have lost yet another very decent person from our working team....
33. Tigers Trump Tenderfoots Richmond Football Club will contest the 2017 AFL Grand Final! The mighty Tigers triumphed over the Australian Football League’s newest team, the Western Sydney Giants, a talent-packed outfit created to boost revenue from TV broadcasts. Now, Richmond will play the rampaging Adelaide Crows to determine the Aussie Rules champion of...
34. Goings On It’s been a strange old start to the year, really, mainly because Kangaeroo is strange and old. Tokyo has been experiencing a mild winter. So far there has been no snow and daytime temperatures have been closer to what you’d expect in March than the opening month of the year....
35. 豪キャブラリー： Strine 　オージー英語はStrine（ストライン）とも言う。オーストラリア鉛の特徴の一つがしゃべる時に母音を極端に伸ばしてほかの表現を短くすることだ。つきましては、「オーストラリアン」をいう時に鉛に慣れていない人は、「ストライン」や「ストラヤン」に聞こえるらしい。そこで、パロディとして1960年代Afferbeck Lauder氏がストラインという言葉を造語し、今広く使われているようになった。（ちなみに、同氏の名前がalphabetical order < ＡＢＣ順＞のストラインらしい発音でかけているジョークネームである。）...
36. Koala-ified for Anything Tokyo is a city full of surprises. And that is the least surprising aspect of the world’s largest city. Kangaeroo got a pleasant surprise yesterday while pottering through the backstreets of Shinjuku, one of the Japanese capital’s many sub-capitals. For some reason, Lord alone knows why, there was a statue...
37. Bringing a Western Beat to Japan For some reason, Japanese artists covering Western songs has also held something of a fascination for me. I’m not really attuned to hit charts, nor really have been. And music isn’t one of my great loves, though I have an appreciation for pretty much any type of tune. Perhaps my...
38. Rounding Biwa, Japan’s Largest Lake Blessed with a long weekend and loads of motivation, Kangaeroo and Mrs. Kangaeroo got out the foldups and built up the resolve to circumnavigate Biwa, Japan’s largest lake. The 235-km shore length is not for the faint-hearted, though plenty make the trip in a single day, courtesy of the almost...
39. Sunrises Over Far North Queensland Wet season sunrises over Cairns in Australia’s Far North Queensland. オーストラリア北部にあるクィーンズランド州の北部都市であるケアンズにおける雨期日の出。...
40. Wonder Undies! Kanageroo hasn’t really won a great deal in lotteries or the like over the years (despite hitting the jackpot in so many other ways), so it was a pleasant surprise last week to win a great prize! That prize was a gift coupon for undies! Kangaeroo won the undies through...
41. What a Gift! At the risk of sounding like a broken record, May is, in Kangaeroo’s opinion, the nicest time of the year in Japan. Having said that, 2021 has been a little out of the ordinary. Where we are normally blessed with dry, warm, sunny weather at this time of year, but...
42. Mount Fuji And Lovely Leaves Bless with time, fitness and fine weather, the highlight of another month of stupendous cycling was heading up the Doshimura road to Lake Yamanaka and its wonderous views of Mount Fuji and the autumnal leaves in the area. This is the path the Olympic cyclists will take if they ever...
43. Forget Tiptoeing thru Tulips and Plod thru Paddies Normally, we’d be smack-bang in the middle of the rainy season by now (and we are, officially), but the skies have held off for the past few days, providing great cycling weather which has made for some wonderful rides, including this morning’s through the rice paddies of outer suburban Tokyo....
44. Every Cloud Has a Sliver of Whining An unseasonably warm and dry late winter and early spring has given way to more customary wet, with really lousy weather since rain began early yesterday morning. Wet weather makes me whine, but I really shouldn’t because it was supposed to pour all day today, but I woke to warm...
45. No Time to Paws Work is dominating my life at the moment and I have little time for anything else, yet we are fortunate that our kangaroo paws are leading the way in a thriving summer garden. I’ve detailed my attempts at growing Australian plants from seed. While most failed, the kangaroo paw, the...
46. Oops, I Did It Again! After having repeatedly vowed to myself that I would post content with substance that may be interesting for anybody who ever stumbled across it, I’ve gone ahead and posted more sunrise cycling pics because Mother Nature just keeps turning on the stunning starts to the day. After another near-sleepless night...
47. Strine（オージー英語）を生んだ親 Afferbeck Lauder氏はストライン（オージー英語）の父と言っても過言ではない。 　1950年代から1960年代にかけてまでほとんどのオーストラリア人が自国が英国帝国の一部として見て、イギリスと親密感があった。オージー英語の特殊さ及び独特な味を誇りに思うより、恥ずかしがる人が多かった（これは別の話し後日にお話しするが、この現象がcultural cringe< 文化的従属的姿勢＞という）。...
48. シドニーが年中で最も輝く一日 　世界有数なお大晦日行事がオーストラリア最大・最古都市シドニーで行う。 One of the world’s most renowned New Year’s Eve parties takes place annually in Sydney, Australia’s oldest and largest city. 　日本で紅白歌合戦が行うと同じようにシドニーでは同市の有名なハーバー・ブリッジとオペラ・ハウスを背景に豪華な花火大会を開催する伝統がある。 Just as Japan has a New Year’s Eve tradition of the Red-White Singing Contest, Sydney’s custom to mark the end of one year and herald the start of...
49. Cranking Out the Clicks For Kangaeroo, 2019 was a year in which cycling played an influential role. This was the first year for Kangaeroo to commute daily by bike. Apart from a week overseas and a couple of weeks recovering from an injury incurred while slipping off the bike, the yearlong commuting mission was...
50. Spring-Heeled Spring is such a delight in Japan. One reason for that is the blooming of cherry blossoms. For a week or so, much of the company is given a glorious pink carpet as the national flower blooms, transforming often bleak landscapes into spectacular vistas. Kangaeroo spent the weekend cycling Tokyo’s...
51. A Breakout Performance Focusing on Australia’s Cowra Kaura no Hancho Kaigi (Honchos’ Meeting in Cowra) superbly dramatizes events surrounding a definitive incident in Australia-Japan relations. The play being performed by the Rinkogun theater group daily until March 24 (with two shows on March 19 and 21) centers on the Cowra Breakout, an attempted escape by about 550...
52. Golden Girl La Cangura is the name of my bike, a beautiful gunmetal and gold-trimmed machine from Orbea, a manufacturer from Spain, hence the name (which means The Kangaroo in English). She looks delightful in among the canola, the yellow hues of the bike and the flowers a wonderful match. Just wish...
53. Brommies More Than Just a Mere Bike Several years ago now, I was very fortunate to stumble into buying a Brompton folding bicycle that has fundamentally changed my life and continues to have countless unimaginable effects. I’d already shown signs of developing into an avid cyclist and was using a Dahon foldup bike to slice my then...
54. Wahoo for Wahoo, and Thanks Y’s Road Lads Further to the weekend’s bike device calamities, Saturday’s mess turned into a much better Sunday. Saturday was supposed to be a day for getting the Wahoo Elemnt Bolt repaired. But an untimely drop in front of a couple of passing cars resulted in the device being utterly destroyed. Already worrying...
55. An Aussie Touch to a Landmark Japanese TV Show Australia provided an (admittedly unacknowledged) touch to Monster Prince (怪獣王子), one of Japan’s most popular TV shows in the late 1960s. Monster Prince told the story of Takeru Ibuki, a boy left stranded on a tropical island while a baby when his family is caught in a volcanic eruption and...
56. Tour de Kagoshima-Kyoto Day 4: Kurokawa to Beppu Glorious weather greeted the tour today, paving the way for some amazing riding. The group set out from the gloriously quaint hot spring resort town of Kurokawa. Slowly but surely, the riders wound their way through forested areas, driving ever upward until reaching the Kuju ski ground, the highest point...
57. 「Naughty」と「Nice」コリアの五輪メダル表で北朝鮮が豪フリーペーパーに激怒 　オーストラリア東海岸３都市に無料で配れるフリーペーパーｍXが2012年ロンドン五輪メダル表に「Naughty Korea」と「Nice Korea」と北朝鮮と韓国をそれぞれ表示したことに対して北朝鮮の国営通信社である朝鮮中央通信社（KCNA)が猛烈に怒りを示した。 　KCNAはｍXのメダル表が「イジメ」「オリンピック精神違反」「浅ましい」など、同紙を強く批判した。 　「Naughty」は「悪い」という意味が「Nice」の反意語としてよく使われ入るし、その場合「やんちゃ」というニュアンスもある。 　批判に対してｍXが配布されているシドニー、メルボルン、ブリスベーンの各編集長が共同声明を発表した。 　「ｍXはニュースに対しての非礼な解釈がよく知られている。表は、世界が二つのコリアがどのように見られていることをユーモアを込めて示そうとしただけで、北朝鮮でも韓国でも選手や国民に対して軽蔑する意図が全く無かった」といった。...
58. MAMILシーズンがやってくる！ 　約7年目の2011年に、ツール・ド・フランスで初めてオーストラリア人として総合優勝者となったことを機にオーストラリアで中年の危機の一種の現れなどで小ばかにされることが多いが、心理学者などが多くの中年男性がMAMILになったことによって運動ができ、他人と社会的に接するので極めて肯定的な現象として見ている。 　そこで、オーストラリア人の映画監督が世界中のMAMILについて米国で絶賛上映中。そのサイクリング・スラングや専門用語が豊富であり、面白いかもしれない。奥が深い世界。言われてみれば、日本語のサイクリング・スラングもたくさんあり、日本の自転車関連世界も興味深いと言える。それがまた今度にしよう。 　とりあえず、冬の終わりが見え始まって、春が来るとMAMILが続々と近所に表れてくるだろう。見苦しいところではあるが、肉体的にも精神的にも健康的であることを考えて寛容的に見てみよう。 MAMIL – Official Trailer from Demand Film on Vimeo....
59. Sweltering! It’s boiling hot and the heat and humidity are energy sapping, but I still love summer in Tokyo. The heat means I can eat to my heart’s content and won’t gain too much weight, especially if I can continue cycling. I’m still able to ride at least twice a day...
60. Like Sand Through An Hourglass Pandemic life is not too harsh in a lot of ways, as I’m getting to do lots of cycling and not much of anything else, which is pretty much as good as it gets. As long as I don’t get sick....
61. Where’s the Whist Amid the Wisteria? Being greeted by the sublimely serene sight of fully blooming wisteria in the outer suburban wonderland of Yakushiike Park only to have the calmness crushed by the piercing squeal of a little prick abusing and haranguing me for riding a bicycle in the park wasn’t really what I had been...
62. Feel That Groove….Or, Don’t I’ve struggled to adjust to the realities of life over the past few weeks, but waking on this holiday morning and seeing tiny spots of green sprouting up where my lawn used to be has raised my spirits infinitely, even if not leaving me quite as chilled out as a...
63. My Goodness, Guinness…It’s a Kangaroo! For much of the 20th century, Irish brewery Guinness used kangaroos for its advertising. There was apparently no particular reason that advertiser John Gilroy selected kangaroos for a famous series of ads featuring exotic animals that the brewer used from the 1920s through to the 1960s and still common today....
64. A Second Bite of Biwaichi Fatigue, muscle soreness and endurance were going to be the order of the day on the Kangaeroo crew’s second leg of Biwaichi, the circumnavigation of Biwa, Japan’s largest lake. Mrs. Kangaeroo had completed the 70-plus kilometer first leg with barely a hint of trouble, but not being used to cycling, it...
65. ピーナツの気配も無ピーナツ・バター味Tim Tamが豪最低製品Shonky賞を受賞 　日本のコンビニや駅売店などで販売されて親しみ馴染んでいるオーストラリアの大人気クッキーであるTim Tamが「ピーナツ・バター味にも関わらずピーナツ及びピーナツ成分のものでも入ってない」として最低製品を表彰するShonky賞を受賞した。 　Shonkyは、独特なオージー英語スラング言葉一つであり、「怪しい」という意味だ。 　このShonkyは、一般消費者向け製品やサービスなどを信頼度調査・評価などを行なっている雑誌である「Choice」誌が2006年以降毎年全豪で最も信頼できない商品を選別し「Shonky賞」を与える。 大ヒット中のTimTamって「豪菓なビスケット」と言っていい？ 豪キャブラリー： Shonky 豪最低製品が2013年Shonky賞で選ばれる 主催者サイト：Arnott’s Tim Tams Peanut Butter Flavour（英語）...
66. Blowout! Even Fartilizer Couldn’t Help Well, strong winds have put paid to a lot of my experiment in growing seeds from Australian native plants, and even fartilizer couldn’t help. Gale-force winds daily for pretty much the past week made life tough for the little seedlings on the patio at Kangaeroo Corner. Watering, care, and even...
67. オズのアホ使い 　考えRooの母国であるオーストラリアでは、国名を省略して「オズ」と呼ぶことがある。 　偶然に、考えるRooの生き方は馬鹿な言動が中心となっていた。 　つきましては、「オズのアホ使い」と呼ばれても全然問題ないと思う。 　具体的なことを言えないが、分かる人は分かる。いくらでも成功する機会が与えられ、裕福になれてもおかしくない過去があった。 　しかし、貧乏で終わって、キャリアも何もならなかったというかキャリア事態はなかったというほど達成感がない。しょうがない。 　それはそれでも変えられない。このもんだ。それでも十分。というか、これで満足しています。「オズのアホ使い」らしい生き方をして、最後までもそうだろう。 　結局、考えRooはもう少し考えるべきだったかもしれない。...
68. Nature’s Double Delight and Not a Skerrick of Proof Nature turned on a absolutely glorious morning – albeit a freezing one. There was a huge moonset in one direction and a delightful sunrise simultaneously in the opposite direction. Unfortunately, the only camera Kangaeroo was carrying was on a smartphone. This rarely takes decent pics at the best of times,...
69. Fatal Attraction Following slovenly Saturday where I did basically nothing for the whole day, today has become a bit of sprightly Sunday, being busy from the get-go, with the Death Machine taking a prime position. The Death Machine is, of course, the nickname I give to my Performer recumbent bicyle. It gets...
70. Hello Cocky! Spring is drawing closer by the day, if not actually here already in Tokyo, but that doesn’t mean the warmth has arrived yet, though the cockatoo in Kangaeroo Corner couldn’t care less. Every morning is getting lighter and the flowers are blooming. Kangaeroo Corner’s wattle is resplendent! We were originally...
71. Fantastic Flowers! Blessed with great company, brilliant sunshine and time, Kangaeroo got to enjoy the unexpected pleasure of HANA BIYORI. HANA BIYORI is a new type of botanical garden that forms part of the sprawling entertainment complex centered around Yomiuriland in the Tokyo suburb of Inagi. HANA BIYORI was a delight simply...
72. Sanpo Snapshots Sanpo (散歩), the Japanese word for a stroll, makes for a wonderful opportunity to get a snapshot of life…and snapshots in general. Here’s some of the things Kangaeroo spotted during a recent constitutional....
73. 豪砂漠の恐怖な「火の竜巻」 　オーストラリア、ノーザンテリトリー州のアリス・スプリングズ近くに同町テレビ局が17日に起きた「火の竜巻」の劇的な映像を撮られた。 　「火の竜巻」という現象は滅多に起きなく、起きるときでも長くて数分間と言われているが、撮影したクリス・タンギー氏が約40分続けたという。 　同氏がテレビ用のイメージ映像のロケハンティング中だったが、いきなり「火の竜巻」が上がったきた。 　「人生一度のチャンスではなく、人生10回生きても１回あるかどうかようなことだった」という。 Caught on camera: The 30 metre high tornado of FIRE that whirled around Australian outback for terrifying 40 minutes...
74. 先住民視野を中心としたCommonwealth of Australia 考えRooがオーストラリアについてプレゼンをしましたので、その内容が以下の通りとなりました。コメントなどをぜひ送ってください。 今のオーストラリアの概要 * オーストラリアはラテン語で「南大陸」という意味 * 本土に加えてタスマニア島を含め数多くの島々で構成、面積はおよそ770万㎢であり、日本の約25倍ある * GDPが世界19位、一人当たりのGDPは世界9位 * 人口が2500万人弱、日本の約5分の1 * 住民の80%以上がヨーロッパ系の白人であり、その他にアジア人が約12%、先住民などが約2% * ヨーロッパ人在住が1788年から始まり、イギリスの刑務植民地として開拓された * 当時、イギリス法はオーストラリアを「無人」扱いだったが、先住民がそこですでに数万年間住んでいた オーストラリア先住民 * 昔、「アボリジニ 」として呼ばれた * まだ使われているが、「土人」という意味なので「先住民」、「原住民」、「ファースト・ネーションズ」や特定部族名を使うことが主流 * 先住民の定義は、植民地化以前にトレス海峡諸島民を含めてオーストラリア大陸及び周辺諸島に移住した人の子孫 * 現在、援助対象の場合を除き「先住民」認可は基本的に自己申告 * 植民地化当時人口が約３０0万人とされているが、今の先住民人口は約65万人であり、全体のおよそ２．８％ ドリーミング * 先住民の宗教にあたるのは「ドリーミング、夢の時」 * 個人のすべての過去と現在と未来がつながっていると信じる * 各個人のドリーミングが違い、独特なものである * 部族の象徴でも、習慣でもドリーミングになる * 全ての知識が先祖から集まると信じる * 死後、名前を使用することが禁じられている * 死後、再び土と一緒になると信じる　 * 宗教同様、多くの神話が部族によって異なった * 共通神話が「虹蛇」 * 虹蛇が創造神話の中心となっている、世界を創ったとされている *...
75. Australian translation software wins award Australia’s Cybre Software recently won the Leading Innovation Award at the 6th Taipei International Invention Show and Technomart. Read the story here....
76. Not Just Lucky, Australia Also a Happy Country Australia has been ranked as the world’s happiest industrialized country by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). 経済協力開発機構（OECD）によるとオーストラリアが世界で最も幸せな先進国である。 It’s the third consecutive year the Lucky Country has topped the OECD’s Better Life Index. オーストラリアが3年連続OECDの「より良い暮らし指標」一位となった。 Experts suggested Australia’s robust economy was behind the perceived happiness. There has not been...
77. Amazing Alex’s Aussie Oasis in Tokyo’s Tama Sometimes, little miracles come into your life in unexpected ways. Alex Endo has done that for Kangaeroo.com by transforming a little plot of land in Tokyo’s Tama region into a tiny slice of Australia. たまに思わず小さな奇跡が寄ってくる。東京多摩地区の小さな庭を「考えRooコーナー」に変革し、まるでオーストラリアの1画に変えることによって遠藤”アレックス”昭さんがそのような奇跡を起こした。 With a well-laid plan going back a few months and a few hours of hard...
78. Autumn in Aoyama Winter is coming to the Kanto Plain, but 2019 still has a final flourish of beauty before the bleakness. A stroll around the Aoyama/Omotesando areas produced some late-autumn gems. Autumn 2019 has been a mixed bag in terms of weather. Terrible typhoons wreaked havoc on many areas in the Kanto...
79. In Order To Twinkle You More Beautifully….. March 1, 2011 What a nightmare! My roommates’ snoring was like roaring thunder and wailing harpies. They kept me awake nearly all night. I feel tired, angry and irritated. And I’m also miserable and filled with self-pity. I have to pick myself up and keep fighting. I’m kicking myself for...
80. Keep On Riding Whatever Happens Life has become really uncertain. Anyone who I have loose ends with I have contacted and tried to make sure that everything is in place just in case the worst may happen. In the meantime, I will otherwise just keep on riding, especially as there is almost no work to...
81. Winds Of Change Are Blowing Mrs. Kangaeroo and I are pretty close to finding a new place to live; a move driven by the unreliability of company support in the wake of a disastrous fall in the status of the company. Mrs. Kangaeroo has been looking for a new place for a while now and...
82. Having Faith And Hoping For The Best Our new home is a delight and the neighbors seem nice, though it’s hard to meet many of them as we’re still in a state of emergency, but I am having growing concerns about our company operator. Our president clearly has no idea of what she’s doing and the reason...
83. Marching Onward March draws to a close today, ending the first quarter of the calendar year for 2023 in what seems a stunningly speedy period. Time is, of course, relative. Each year, the relative amount of time each period occupies in our whole lives is shorter. So. it’s only natural that time...
84. Japan’s Crucial Role in Turning “Mad Max” into a Global Aussie Icon Turning the clock back 40 years, Japan played a crucial role in giving Australia a leg-up toward becoming a player in the global movie industry. In late 1977, a couple of fledgling Australian filmmakers pooled their meager funds and shot a movie starring mostly unknown young actors and actual motorcycle...
85. Paws and Reflect Possibly the most meaningful part of my Australian seeds experiment arose today when I transplanted my kangaroo paw seedlings. The great experiment, which I expected would result in me proving to have a green thumb and presenting all my gardening mates with exotic plants has proven only that I am...
86. ベロ👅にヴェロ🚴 (A Taste for Cycling) Cycling is one of Kangaeroo’s great loves. And so is chocolate. It’s rare when the two meet, though it’s not unfair to claim that the prospect of guilt-free gluttony of chocolate is a motivating factor for Kangaeroo’s cycling. But in this week when chocolate assumes center stage in Japan, it...
87. オーストラリア特有の恐竜、カンタス、、、サウラス The Spirit of Australia, the flying…dinosaur? 　オーストラリアの魂が以前から言われている「飛んでるカンガルー」ではなく「飛んでる恐竜」って？ええ？飛んでるのは考えRooじゃないの？ Australia’s fauna is unique, and that trend may even extend back hundreds of millions of years to the Cretaceous period, at least in terms of naming patterns. 　皆が分かるようにオーストラリアの動物が特有だ。そして、その独特さが1億年以上前の白亜紀に及ぶかもしれない、、、少なくともネーミングの面では。 One of the few known endemic Australian dinosaurs was discovered only recently; 1996, to be...
88. 日豪味深い映画「ウルヴァリン: SAMURAI」の和風ポスター盗難問題 　ヒュー・ジャックマンが主人公、日本が舞台など日豪味深い映画「ウルヴァリン: SAMURAI」の墨絵風PRポスターが米国では盗まれっぱなしだ、とメルボルンエイジ紙が２３日報道した。 The Wolverine, a movie with strong Australia-Japan connections with Hugh Jackman as its star and much of the action taking place in Japan, is being plagued by people stealing its Japanese-influence sumi-e posters, according to the Melbourne Age on April 23. 　約２０年前日本でもSMAPの木村拓哉の公な場にあったポスターが盗まれた現象と同じように同映画主人公であるヒュー・ジャックマンがイケメンの上に和風人気が恐らく原因であるポスター盗難が人気ぶりの証しとして配給会社20世紀フォックスにとって矛盾でありながら嬉しい悩みだ。 In a phenomenon similar to that...
89. Cheating Death! Kangaeroo recently added a recumbent bike to his collection. A recumbent has long been part of the Kangaeroo dream. When Kangaeroo started cycling, he often shared his commute through suburban Tokyo with a seasoned Kiwi cyclist called John. Kangaeroo was a rookie (and still is, really), but John had been...
90. 離婚ベント同士！ Fate smiled broadly on me today as I finally dragged myself out on the recumbent (or the rikonbento as we’ve come to call it), and was rewarded by getting a meeting I had yearned for years. Following yesterday’s glorious weather and my most recent viewing of a weather forecast showing...
91. 豪カンガルー島で動物園が激安販売中 　南オーストラリア州カンガルー島にカンガルーかコアラやエミューなどオーストラリア独特な動物を中心に飼っているhttp://www.parndanawildlifepark.com/パーンダーナ・ワイルドライフ・パークが只今販売中、とnews.com.auが４日付報道した。 　パークは、１００種類以上の動物が住み、面積が約20ヘクタールで僅か豪ドル595,000（約4779万円）で発売されている。 　販売しているエルダーズ・リアル・エステートによる、販売価格が動物の他住宅、お土産屋、バーベーキュー・ゾーン、倉庫や車庫などを含める。 Want to buy a zoo? There’s one for sale on Kangaroo Island, South Australia...
92. Dripping… Now THAT was unexpected. One minute, I was as happy as Larry, the next being rushed off in a meat wagon and now hospitalized indefinitely....
93. Farting Proudly! Despite the best intentions, the weekend was a bit of a write-off, and apart from a brief interlude with an old mate to tell each other bawdy tales about breaking wind, the rest of the time was more about flat than flatulence. My mate, an 83-year-old American, and I have...
94. 南天は難点…Or, Farewell Heavenly Bamboo! Kangaeroo Corner, our garden, is basically filled with Aussie native plants, but there were a few trees and plants there when we came to live here, and they have largely remained, including the nandina, also known as heavenly bamboo. Unfortunately, her presence in the garden proved far from heavenly. The...
95. Calamity Free Ride! After several days featuring a series of stumbles, fumbles, bumps and bruises, it was fantastic to finally have an early morning ride that went without a calamity. Sort of. Riding La Cangura much slower and more cautiously than usual, the morning ride went without a hitch. There were many fears...
96. The Rising Sun Just Stole My Heart Away With only mildly sincere apologies to perhaps the ultimate bogan band, Cold Chisel, this morning’s rising sun just stole my heart away. Although Jimmy Barnes and the Chisels had their girl stolen, I had mistakenly believed it was their heart. But the title was too good to throw away, so...
97. Fat-Arsed Friend! Fortune blessed me with lots of wonderful reminders of how lucky I am yesterday, including through a fat-arsed addition to Kangaeroo Corner. We held a garden party for close friends and family, hoping to show off Kangaeroo Corner. A harsh summer, untimely rains and, I think, excessive intervention on my...
98. Full Seed Ahead! Buoyed by the emergence of buds from everlasting daisies on Saturday and given the gift of desperation on late Sunday afternoon following a weekend of sloth, I planted the last of my seeds from Australia. With “budding” success from the humidity pods I have been using, I got enough confidence...
99. 豪男が素手で浜に乗り上げたサメを海に戻す この頃、オーストラリアの西オーストラリア州とある海辺で男が浜に乗りあがったホホジロザメを素手で海に戻した映像がYouTubeでひそかなヒットとなっている。 Footage of an Aussie bloke returning a beached great white shark to ocean waters off the coast of Western Australia has become a recent hit on YouTube....
100. Craving Procrastination, But Will Procrastinate Tomorrow Well, what a bloody awful rabbit hole to fall into. Today was supposed to involved delivering choccies to some cycling associates in Kawasaki. But getting up and about with half an hour or so free before Mrs. Kangaeroo was due to head off to work and hanging out with the...

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