24hr Hot Meal Vending Machine

24hr Meal Machine
With thanks to mejh for the photo

Coming to a service station near you soon (possibly), it’s the 24hr Hot Menu (from frozen) vending machine. These are popping up all over Japan, so it may not be long before you spot one in the UK. You might see two machines alongside each other – this one for “casual frozen foods” and another one for formal chilled foods – a cornish pasty dressed in a tuxedo, for example.

So, who would use this sort of service?

Picture the scene… you’ve just crawled out of the local night club at 2am and are desperately craving some meat (as are the two hookers leaning on the lamppost across the street). The local kebab shop was fire-bombed last week and the only place open to you is the local service station. However, because you live in the roughest location in the entire world, they are not allowing people into the shop area; choosing instead to serve customers petrol and small snacks whilst cowering behind a screen of 12-inch-thick bullet-proof glass. If only there was a quick and simple way of getting some hot, fast food…

Your luck is in, as they’ve just installed a new vending machine on the forecourt that allows you to buy a hot meal. You approach the machine and stand there, swaying, whilst trying to focus on what each meal photograph is supposed to represent. One is shaped a bit like a fish and another looks like a pair of battered testicles. One thing is for certain – they all seem to come with chips. So, you opt for the cheapest one (sparrow and fries). Now then, where’s the vending machine for the condiments…?


Would you eat anything from one of these machines?

The Sperm Keyring

Sperm Keyring Photo 1

I felt compelled to write a blog post about this as it stirred up feelings of both hilarity and shock in quick succession. The green item pictured to the left is a plastic sperm with a nose piercing (keyring). Where did I get hold of it? Go on, have a guess… (any of you who have teenage children may already know the answer to this question). My friend’s 15-year-old son was given this green ‘funky spunk’ at school. It’s part of a government initiative, which means that these sperms are coming out of our pockets… so to speak.

So, why was he given the pea-coloured, artificial semen? Well, the children at his school undertook a chlamydia test. In exchange, they were presented with a free ‘shot of plastic man juice’ (available in a variety of sizes and colours… I’m not sure how they decided who was given which) and a £5 gift voucher. I still haven’t worked out what they are expected to do with the keyring. Perhaps they take it home at the end of the day and present it to their parents, proudly announcing “look Mum, I don’t have chlamydia!! Oh, and, as a celebration, I’ve bought myself some pornography with my gift voucher…”

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Japanese Spinach Doughnuts

Well folks, I can excitedly reveal that I have finally tried the spinach doughnuts… *applause*… They were very nice and didn’t really taste of spinach at all; a fact that I actually felt a bit disappointed about. Popeye won’t be doing much heavy lifting after eating this snack pack.

What I’m wondering now is whether a pack of spinach doughnuts constitutes my 5-a-day!?

Spinach Doughnuts

Spinach Doughnuts

Driving My Japanese Train

Here are a few photographs of me driving a model train (taken in Hikone). There was a massive train track laid out at the top of one of the department stores in Hikone – what I would describe as a train fan’s ultimate dream (I’m not a train fan, by the way). It cost about 300 yen (two pounds) to have a go at driving. So, I had a go for my 3 year old son and his love of trains. I was able to control my train around the track using two leavers – one for the speed and one for the brake. The lady told me to brake when going around the bends, but in actual fact it didn’t make any difference. No matter how badly I got it wrong, I couldn’t de-rail my train (damn it!). It was great fun though. As you can see, the view from the front of the train is beamed back to my monitor screen by a small camera. Clever stuff.