Before I get into the main subject of this post, I am very happy to say that our state of Victoria has now passed 19 days without a single case of coronavirus. We expect another announcement on Sunday from our Premier and we hope that it will contain more good news about further releases from our lockdown and the wearing of masks. Over the last three weeks we have gone from the pariah state of Australia to the one with the least numbers of new cases of the virus and the lowest numbers of active cases.
Not ones to wait, Monday, last week. was the first day that we could travel for more than 25 km. so Jill and I drove down to the Merrick’s General Wine Store for lunch. We have been there many times in the past and it is a delightful restaurant / wine bar with a very relaxed environment. We had a pleasant drive down to the town of Merricks and a nice drive back again and a wonderful lunch. It was the first time we have had waiter service for four or five months.
We drove toward home back across Arthurs Seat. The chairlift was not operating because of Covid but we had a beautiful view across the Mornington Peninsula towards the entrance to Port Phillip Bay.
Another part of this busy week, as it turned out, was for me to attend our local RSL for the Remembrance Day service on November 11. Doncaster RSL used to be a well run organisation but I’m afraid to say that the current people who run the club are much less than effective. Every time that I have been there for an Anzac Day service or a Remembrance Day service in the last couple of years it has been a complete shemozzle. This service was no different. The sound system didn’t work and the organising group were more concerned about broadcasting the service to those on Zoom rather than catering for those who are actually in physical attendance. The whole service
lost most of its meaning. Next year I will go somewhere else to commemorate Remembrance Day.
I made a fascinating discovery when I walked with Dr John along one of the local ‘lineal parks’ that follow the Eastern Freeway. The park was beautifully kept, the walking track was in great condition as it followed some interesting scenery along Koornung Creek and some of its ‘wetland’ areas.. All all in all, we walked over 6 km and thoroughly enjoyed being out in the sunshine.
Now that we are more comfortable with fewer coronavirus restrictions, Jill has packed up all of the stuff that she had on the dining room table and our house is back to its normal neat and tidy state. Apart from her crosswords and jigsaw puzzles, she has completed a number of craft projects. All of these have been labelled as ‘Done by Jill in the 2020 Covid Lockdown’. All of the cushions and her knitted knee-rug were made from scraps of fabric and left over lengths of wool that have been sitting in the cupboard for some time. I must say that they are very nice pieces of work indeed.
Now to ‘Japlish!’
Over all the trips that we have made to Japan, we have always been amused by the way that the Japanese have corrupted the English language in their signage and slogans. It seems that they have used literal translations of English or computer translation’s to end up with silly messages that just don’t make sense. They have a longstanding practice of using English words and phrases to give a product, service or campaign a cosmopolitan feel. It has produced several classics. Some of my favourites were a girl’s T-shirt that had a message emblazoned on the front saying ‘Seven Days Lips’. Another in our hotel room had a notice above the bath saying ‘Guests are kindly invited to take advantage of the chambermaid’.
Japan is full of these funny English translations. They are used in an attempt to show sophistication when English is not their second language. These are some of the funny ones:
Now that we are allowed to go shopping again, we visited our local shopping mall during the week to buy a new Christmas tree. Lo and behold, there in one of Australia’s biggest department stores, we see this message
displayed as the store’s Christmas slogan.
Perhaps their marketing department is full of Asians people who have graduated from Australian universities but I hardly see ‘Happy Congratulations’ as making much grammatical sense.
Even Australia Post has a Christmas slogan of the same ilk – ’Spread the Merry’. 
Surely large commercial organisations in a developed western country like Australia can put together a message that makes grammatical sense rather than phrases like these that we would expect to see in a country where English was the second language.
As inappropriate as these may be, at least I don’t have to travel all the way to Japan for a laugh any more!
On our trip to Japan, my wife Barbara spied a sign saying “milk tea”. Since she had not had a decent cup of tea with milk for a long time we went in and ordered “milk tea” . The results tasted very strange and when she opened the teapot it was indeed full of milk with teabags hanging therein! It was “milk tea”, but undrinkable!