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A four year old kid came into my lesson the other day wearing a t-shirt that said, “My mother smoke, drank and dropped acid during my pregnancy.” which caused me to splutter my coffee around the room in shock.

Whilst not quite beating the I hate N*****s t-shirt I think it comes a close second.

We read stories to the kids at school in English. They are from four years old and up. There is one story called What a bad dog about a dog called Floppy who causes endless problems for his family by running in the mud, pulling the washing down and barking during the night.

Only the reason he`s barking during the night is because the family left the oven on and there`s a fire in the kitchen. Grateful that disaster has been averted they proclaim him a good dog. And everyone lives happily ever after.

Unfortunately the kids don`t get it. They see a dog that runs in the mud, pulls the washing down and starts fires in kitchens. They`re mystified that the bad dog with newly found pyromanical tendencies is proclaimed good and it takes a lot of explaining.

I like these books as they use British English and have typical female English names like Biff. I lived next door to a girl named Biff when I was younger. Yes I did. In my head.

We`re having a halloween party in a large park for our work and the kids at the schools we teach at on Sunday. We`re supposed to do Halloween themed games and events.

Although we don`t really go full out in England celebrating Halloween, I`ve taken the plunge and shelled out a whopping 600 yen for a scream mask. The holes for the eyes are a bit too large so through the distorted screaming face there are my kind eyes which instead of inspiring fear in people has so far reduced Reiko to helpless laughter which doesn`t bode well.

For the Japanese staff, it seems to be more of a cosplay event than a Halloween. Two of them are going as Mario and Luigi and another is going as Minnie Mouse.

This doesn`t make much sense to me. What`s scary about Minnie Mouse? If she wore a screaming distorted grimace on her face, was holding a knife in one hand and the freshly severed head of her husband Micky in the other, that would be more appropriate would it not?

I get a lot of spam comments that are picked up by the spam filter on this blogged and quarantined in a place where hopefully their souls rest and I can hear them being tortured incessantly.

Just like you can check your incoming links to see what kind of people are coming to your site and what they are searching for, you can check the spam you get to see the scum that walk the surface of this planet.

For example a popular one the filter catches is, “Hi friends! Sorry for it, but I very need money!” followed by a long list of links to porn sites, pharmaceutical drugs and naked celebrities by a man who is evidently a bastard but a remorseful one. Will this save his mortal soul? I hope not.

Then there are others such as, “The site’s very professional! Keep up the good work! Oh yes, one extra comment - Home Insurance” followed by long links.

I also get ones written in near Engrish such as, “What a great site! Please visit my pages too”

OR

well hello. I want that you were a healthy man. And did a few sites about the health of people. Here some of them.

OR

Nice speech. I�m curious how it went over. (Over what?)

OR

I love to ride on scooter then read this, and you?

One baffling spam comment that got picked up reads, “HyE8wby5EoqN5 j7v0B63be2G LkBZs8HcGZyn” and doesn`t even have a link out in it. Anyone know what that`s all about? And how I can cause them all a protracted and painful death?

Something`s afoot at the Bikkuri Donkey beefburger chain restaurant where the mantra, “Employees are your number one asset” seems to have passed this company by.

The bottom right hand corner of my daily newspaper The Japan Times informs me that there will be no newspaper tomorrow as today is a news holiday designed to give newspaper delivery personnel a day off.

Who are these delivery personnel that they are so powerful, they can halt the spread of news for a day? I ask this as North Korea detonated a nuclear bomb today and I won`t be able to read about it in my newspaper of choice because the workers who deliver it are unable to arrange a schedule which enables people to fill in when others are unable to work.

Do they have no extra people or are their schedules so busy the only days they can have free is when the rest of the population (who seem to have no problem organizing a balanced and fair schedule that doesn`t compromise other workers) are sacrificed?

In England, the only day there is no paper is Christmas Day and that`s okay because nothing ever happens on Christmas Day.

And so a nuclear bomb is detonated around 615 miles from my house and the selfish Japanese newspaper deliverers are lying in bed laughing at the Japanese population.

This is not on.

Number of children ejected from my classroom kicking and screaming - 2

Number of children I attempted to eject from the room kicking and screaming before I caved in - 1

Number of children I attempted to eject from the room kicking and screaming who should have been ejected before I caved in - 1

Number of children I made cry this week - 2

A slow week.