Plastic Mama

Technology and the market are coming to the aid of affection-starved Japanese men. A Japanese company has started producing fake, plastic laps in which men can rest their stressed heads.

The lap is made of foam and shaped like a woman's thighs and hips and sells for ¥9,429. So far the company has shifted 3,000 units of
this product, known as the Hizamakura, or 'lap pillow'.

A spokesman for manufacturer Trane KK, Mitsuo Takahashi, said "Single men find this soothing," and went on to claim that the laps fulfilled a primal need. "From the time people were kids, people have laid their heads on their mothers' laps to get their ears cleaned. This is made to be quite close to the real thing."

Women are not to be left out. Since last December they have been able to buy a product known as the Boyfriend's Arm Pillow marketed by another company, Kameo.

Before labelling the story as irretrievably sad, it must be noted that the largest group of customers for the Hizamakura have been workers buying them as joke presents for co-workers or for laughs at office parties.

Police place bombs on planes

In separate incidents, French police at Charles de Gaulle airport and US police at Newark, NJ, both lost bombs they were using in training exercises. The bombs were loaded on commercial flights and whisked away before they could be recovered. The US bomb was a fake, but the French one consisted of 150g of real explosives.

In Newark, a fake bomb consisting of a clock, wires and imitation explosive was placed in a bag to test security procedures. The device apparently triggered an alarm, but nevertheless slipped through security and on to a flight. Extensive searches at Newark failed to locate the 'bomb', which later turned up in Amsterdam.

The incident in France involving real explosive material has caused profound embarrassment. The explosives were placed in a suitcase without the knowledge or permission of the passenger as part of an exercise to train sniffer dogs and their handlers.

There are two differing reports about how the police lost the bag. In one version the first dog successfully detected the material but a second dog failed. In another account, the police dog handlers left the bag unattended while fetching the second animal and the bag was whisked away. To compound their embarrassment, the police had no idea which flight the case went on to.

The French authorities moved quickly to ban this kind of training and suspended the two dog handlers involved. At the time of going to press, it is not clear that the French authorities have recovered the explosives. Charles de Gaulle, is the airport at which shoe bomber Richard Reid boarded his flight for the US.

A spokeswoman for the Transportation Security Administration, the agency responsible for screening baggage and passengers, said the incident at Newark showed the importance of training exercises.

Sightseeing with Charisma

Visitors are assured of a warm welcome in Japan, where local people will often go out of their way to help.
Kyoto tourist board has upped the hospitality ante by lending GPS-enabled mobile phones to tourists. The system is known as Charisma Navigation Kyoto and helps visitors find their way about. The phone uses its built-in GPS technology to tell the user exactly where he or she is at any given moment. In this way, satellites orbiting Earth will guide tourists around the ancient city of Kyoto. More than just displaying a map, the unit will offer advice on where to catch buses and trains.
The phones can be set to either English or Korean and are availa-ble at Kansai International Airport, Kyoto travel agents and hotels.

First step to a smoke-free Japan?

Cough! Gasp! The Japanese government has appointed a smoking czar to oversee health and other smoking-related issues. The decision was made ahead of a world anti-smoking treaty coming into effect in February. The aim of the tobacco overlord will be to reduce smoking amongst young people, and reduce smoking related disease generally.

The World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control requires signatories to print effective health warnings on cigarette packs and ban all tobacco advertising. There will be a requirement that cigarette vending machines have some kind of safeguard to prevent minors buying smokes.

Currently 43 percent of Japanese men smoke, and 10 percent of women, with the proportion of men falling and the proportion of women rising. Among men in their 30s, the rate of smoking is 57 percent.

Should Japan get tougher on smokers, we can expect a proliferation of no-smoking signs for people to ignore.

News compiled by Chris Page