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If I could win every game of Paper, scissors, stone I played I would become a very powerful man. I had this thought the other day. Janken - as it is called over here in Japan - is used widely by everybody. Children use it to settle disputes over who gets the final slice of melon and which one starts the game as `it` but adults also use it as well. In a fish auction, if two buyers both bid the same price the janken winner gets the fish.

Using janken in lots of my games teaching English, I have seen some epic battles. If the winner is undecided after one round they will flash out their choice in rapid succession. I have seen the players choose the same move up to fifteen times

My point is that after the first stage it must be possible, using a combination of judgement, luck and making decisions on what they have done previously to become so skilled at Janken that you win nearly every single game you play. If this happened, I would be a very powerful man indeed.

These are the words for a song from a book I had to teach today called “I`m going to rent a video”. Luckily I didn`t have to sing it but it is perhaps the most bizarre song I have ever seen.

Some Japanese graffiti on a bench.

Picture the scene. You are perusing the local library when you spot a topless beauty posing next to a sakura tree in full blossom. You`re temperature rises and you begin to palpitate until your brain kicks into gear. This is a library Simon. Why are they showing topless models in a library? Wait, that`s not a topless model…