Wagyu and the Ox

One thing has always intrigued me: calling something my its name twice (or more?). It is something most commonly noticed during inter-linguistic uses.

Since it is now the year of the cow/ox (and a golden one at that), one which comes directly to the front of my mind is wagyu beef. Which more or less translates to 'our (Japanese) beef beef'. Umm. Alright. There's no need for the double beef, folks!

So why don't we just order it as wag beef (which the dear British press would probably love to jump on due to the similar acronym W.A.G., or we can say its called wag beef because the cows are so happy with their pampered lives that they wag their tails like dogs do, although I would be concerned because cows flick their tails around to chase away flies)

Or maybe we can all start ordering as follows: 'I would like a 10 ounce wagyu steak done rare please (anything more than rare, please go shoot yourself)', or 'I would like to have the wagyu sukiyaki' (note the absence of beef in both cases).

So anyway, do enjoy your Year of the Golden Ox and hopefully times are still good enough (or will turn around soon enough, depending) for you to have your share of the wagyu!

Astounded

Its frightening what's happening in the UK. I checked the last monthly interest payment with much incredulity. I promptly searched the old payment statements, and whipped out my calculator. Plugging in a simple percentage calculation, the interest payment between October last year and January this year has reduced by more than a staggering 90% (94% to be precise). Dammit. And it is going to be even worse...