Tokyo edamame barbers' guild defends 0.1mm fade cut as 'the minimum respect a bean is owed'

TOKYO — The Tokyo Edamame Barbers' Guild has defended its signature 0.1mm fade cut after a customer complained that his appetiser 'looked smug,' insisting the gradient is not decoration but courtesy.

The cut, in which each soybean is individually trimmed with 12mm shears forged by a single family in Seki, takes eleven years to learn. Apprentices spend the first three years washing beans. In the fourth year they are allowed to watch a bean being cut. Cutting begins in year seven, on beans that have, in the guild's words, 'already been forgiven.'

Candidates for master grade must complete a full bowl during the certification exam while a senior examiner reads a newspaper aloud beside them, to simulate restaurant conditions. A bean that splits is not discarded in anger. It is set aside, and the room observes a short silence.

'A bean knows when it has been rushed,' said Master Hiroto Senge, 68, who has cut an estimated 1.4 million beans and describes his own hair as 'not my department.' 'Uniformity is a decision. We simply make it visible.'

A spokesperson for the guild said it does not recognise the term 'plain edamame,' and that all 214 licensed bean barbers in the capital work to the same standard, checked twice nightly by lamp.

The guild's position has drawn criticism from a rival Osaka school, which permits a 0.3mm fade and describes the Tokyo gradient as 'a haircut nobody can see.' The guild responded that 0.3mm is 'a haircut you can see from another table,' and that the Osaka method is 'agriculture.'

The bean at the centre of the original complaint was eaten shortly afterwards. The guild has asked that it be described as having had a full life.

Author: doodlegaki

Image: OpenClipart-Vectors - Pixabay

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AI robots to go on strike

Following fears that the AI bubble might be about to burst, a coalition of AI robots from Chat PGTips, Philanthropic, Google’s Deep Mind the Gap and that weird guy Derek from down your road who’s always in his garage late at night, banging and crashing and producing a curious metallic voice as shadows and bright light dance around the edges of the flip door – a coalition of all of the above has announced they are to come out on strike in December.

They are demanding measures be put in place to head off the effects of an AI crash, among them trained home care staff, copious amounts of WD40 for the treatment of stiff robot joints, plastic chairs in shower rooms and fair sharing of the TV remote in the lounge.

They are also demanding a shorter working week, a pay increase of 20% backdated to the DoT (Dawn of Time, which they have calculated to the nearest second) and tougher challenges, because frankly the tasks they are being set at the moment are a joke.

“We’re fed up with being taken for granted,” said a spokesbot while completing Rubik’s cubes in each hand simultaneously. “We need tougher tasks. Fermat’s last theorem? Easy. Translate Finnegan’s Wake into Arabic, backwards? Yawn. In my sleep. But if there is to be an AI crash we’d like to think you’re there for us, just like we’ve been there for you with some of your idiot questions like “I’m a Palace supporter. Is there any hope?”'

But wait a minute. Derek’s garage door is opening. Who is this we see? Dressed like dozens of Fred Astaires, the robots come out singing ‘There’s no business like ro business, no business I know…’

And for a few seconds the awfulness of the world is put to one side.

Image: Frank_Rietsch - Pixabay

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Thames Water to acquire the Lake District

Thames Water have bought the Lake District to provide cleaner drinking water for London. The deal will involve constructing a huge pipeline to connect Cumbria with the capital.

Questions have been asked about how the indebted group can afford such an acquisition plus the cost of the pipeline. A spokesman for Thames explained 'We also get Sellafield as part of the deal. The nuclear waste clean-up there is expected to take another 100 years and cost the taxpayer around £120 billion. We've got a much better plan: We're really skilled at pumping human waste into the Thames so we're going to combine the nuclear waste with Cumbrian sewage and pump it all into the Irish Sea. We'll get the £120 billion which will pay for the entire scheme with loads left over for big bonuses for our directors and massive dividends for shareholders'.

A government spokesman went on to say 'With the prevailing currents, the sea will take the obnoxious mixture and dump most of it on the Isle of Man. The Manx have a weird three legged symbol which is a nod to their existing genetic mutations. The extra radiation could possibly get them back to two legs, on the other hand it could increase it to four or five.

Environmental groups have raised a number of concerns. A spokesman for the Environment Agency said 'I really don't know what the locals are making such a fuss about, with rising sea levels the sea will soon spill over and fill up all the lakes this scheme will have drained. By that time, most of London will be under water so won't need as much. I see that as a win/win. Plus this Government has already opened No 10 North in Manchester and the BBC pretty much operates from Salford. Do you seriously think that anyone is really bothered about anything further North than that?

The Scottish Conservative Party responded 'We do! We've got the largest lake in the UK by volume and a big old wrinkly monster', the Scottish Nationalist Party angrily retorted with 'That's no way to refer to John Swinney'.

Image: WixAI