"Duke of URL" <macbenahATkdsiDOTnet> writes:

>In news:400e7c6c$0$586$44c9b20d@news3.asahi-net.or.jp,
>James Annan <still_the_same_me@hotmail.com> radiated into the
>WorldWideWait:

>> The real reason behind this is that my wife and I are recidivist
>> criminals. Yes, we ride a tandem (we both work at the same lab). It
>> seems that way back in the mists of time, some careless bureaucrat
>> drafted a law that was intended to prevent more than one person
>> riding on a standard bicycle, but which accidentally included
>> tandems in the prohibition. (Despite the law, carrying a passenger
>> is very common, and of course no-one enforces such a petty nonsense
>> anyway.) Some prefectures have actually changed the law to allow
>> tandems, but unfortunately not the one where we live and work.

>He must have a boss and that boss must have a boss and...
>Keep going up with appointments wherein you point out that this is
>abysmal stupidity.

In my limited experience of Japan I would regard it as extremely
important to find out from locals about how to manage this, the danger
being that ordinary Western standards of logic and confrontation would
be regarded as so unforgivably insulting that they would precipitate a
totally negative reaction, one which the proper application of
unbelievably circuitous Japanese euphemisms could easily avoid.


--
Chris Malcolm cam@infirmatics.ed.ac.uk +44 (0)131 651 3445 DoD #205
IPAB,  Informatics,  JCMB, King's Buildings, Edinburgh, EH9 3JZ, UK
[http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/homes/cam/]