Please laugh, we’re risking our lives

The Tokyo Shock Boys are a group of four Japanese entertainment stunt men who gained worldwide notoriety performing self-abusive and self-mutilating stunts. In Japan they are known as Dengeki Network (電撃ネットワーク ).

The group formed in Tokyo in 1990 when the four members put together some funny stunts for Japanese TV while working as roadies on Paul McCartney’s 1990 tour of Japan. They are the forefathers of dangerous, crude and self-injuring stunts coming well before groups such as Jackass and Dirty Sanchez. This year is their 20th anniversary.

The Tokyo Shock Boys are (in left to right order of the above photo):

• Nambu Torota: Lights firecrackers in his pants and also staples money to his head
• Danna Koyanagi: Breaks objects with butt muscles, expresses milk through eyes
• Sango Jugo: Puts out cigarettes with his tongue
• Gyuzo: Plunges his head into hot wax and plays with scorpions

Read more »

Back in 2007 we did a fairly intense tour of France. The last major leg of the trip was a visit to the Champagne region in north-eastern France. From Normandy we drove across the north of France bound for Reims, a city of the Champagne-Ardenne region.

Moët et Chandon marker stone

Toyota’s reputation has been tarnished by a series of quality problems that prompted the car maker to recall an unprecedented number of cars to fix a defect that causes random acceleration.

In November 2009, after a succession of “runaway car” incidents that resulted in fatalities, Toyota initiated a recall of 3.8 million vehicles.

The recall was known as “Floor Mat Entrapment” and Toyota blamed the unintended acceleration on the incursion of an incorrect or out-of-place front driver’s side floor mat into the foot pedal well, which can cause pedal entrapment.

Motorists began removing the floor mats yet problems persisted. Tragically four people died in Southlake, Texas late last year when a runaway Toyota sped through a fence and landed upside down in a pond. The car’s floor mats were found in the trunk of the car, where owners had been advised to put them as part of the recall.

This urged a second recall in January 2010 of over 4 million vehicles worldwide, known as “Sticking Accelerator Pedal”, that was based on mechanical sticking of the accelerator pedal that caused unintended acceleration. There is a view that the first recall was simply a cover-up by Toyota.

Further magnifying Toyota’s woes, in February 2010 Toyota announced the “Anti-lock Brake Software” recall of its current generation Prius vehicles with reports of braking problems. The recall entails a software fix for the ABS system, to improve brake response.

Read more »

« Previous Page — Next Page »