Signs

Don’t you just hate lazy limes. The small minority of the green citrus fruit that think they can be full of flavour for 11 or 12 hours a day and then skive off, their feet up doing nothing while their fellow fruit are hard at work. No one wants a part-time lime, because no one knows when they’ll need a lime the most. It could be in the morning with your cornflakes, at lunchtime on your crab or a five to three when it’s time for the first Margarita of the afternoon. Luckily help is at hand, all across Japan there are signs for 24-hour limes. Full time limes that don’t shirk at the responsibility of being the most versatile fruit in the greengrocers. (Ok, so I know it says times but it took me a while to realise and let’s face it, 24-hour times doesn’t make much sense either.)

When I was a boy of about 8 or 9 I would, along with every other boy and girl of that age, start the adventure story that my teacher asked me to write with the famous line, the clock struck thirteen. I would then no doubt go on to describe, along with the rest of my peers, the town that only appeared at low tide on the 13^thday of the 13^thmonth of the year. Why this particular trope was so popular with 8 or 9 year old children I do not know but little did I know that nearly 40 years later, my story would come true. Except the clock in Japan doesn’t strike thirteen, it strikes 25. 

Those who know me well, who maybe have shared a house with me or even a bedroom, will know that sometimes I like to create my own micro-climate. This usually occurs noisily and violently and often after a load of beer or a particularly spicy dinner. But thankfully help is finally at hand. This massage place near my school specialises in all sorts of rubs for muscular pain but by the looks of things they’ve created a massage that’s a perfect cure for wind too. 

Have you ever bitten into a steak in a restaurant and your tooth has broken. Or realised as you scoop your ice-cream dessert into your mouth that your teeth are far too sensitive. or even lost a filling when you were nibbling your after-dinner mint. Fear not, help is at hand. The world’s first, dining and dentist experience. Leave the restaurant full and flossed, don’t allow a build-up of tartar after your steak tatare, go straight from filling your tum to filling your teeth. I should write their copy. 

I don’t know where to begin with the next one. So, I will just leave it here for you to create your own caption.