Nengajo cards

Here in Japan Christmas is a time for couples - a bit like Valentines Day is in the West. Few people send Christmas cards. However, January 1 is a big day for families, and in the lead-up to this day the whole nation swaps postcard-style greeting cards, called nengajo.

Because of my job as a writer I tend to get bombarded with cards from all of the creative folk and press agencies that I've worked with during the year. This year is the Chinese year of the cow, so interior designer Sinato sent me a really funny card with beef steaks on it; British architect Asif Khan sent a very festive card featuring his Tetra Lights, and architects KDa opted for an excellent 'tear-along-the-dotted-lines' bull with enormous horns.

My favorite card? Well, I'm biased, but it had to be the Nike one. Instead of cows, they went for an old black and white photo. But check it out...
It reads "Don't look back, look ahead" - a quote from Nike co-founder and world-beating coach Bill Bowerman.
But does anyone know who the runner Bowerman is talking to is? Bill Delinger? Jim Bailey?

Good luck to all those running Tokyo marathon!

Ganbatte to all of you who are running 42.195 kilometers this Sunday.

(Note: article on Mara Yamauchi has been removed)

A good way to check your friends' IQ

A very basic and silly hoax is doing the rounds of Facebook at the moment, and I've found it interesting to see who forwards it on to me - a good way of checking who has commonsense and who doesn't. I'm pleased to say only three friends have fallen for it.

So if you get a Facebook mail titled any of the following, please don't hit forward, just stop and think why Facebook would want fewer members, why the message is full of typos, and why it's only circulating via Super Wall (hardly the most effective method to reach every Facebook user - only 19 percent have it).

“Attention all Facebook membeRs”
“Attention all Facebook membeRs.”
facebook hoax overpopulated
hoax facebook overpopulated
facebook is recently becoming very overp
Facebook overpopulated hoax
“attention all facebook members”
facebook funwall hoax

Rant over.

I'm on Twitter now by the way - twitter/kankiknight

Wow, 2,000 page views!

The Cycle Mode pictures (below) saw over 800 people look at this blog. I really should use my blog to promote myself.

So I will.

Here's a very quick CV. I'm a writer. I've written for Cycle Sport, Mountain Bike Rider, Time Out, The Guardian, Wallpaper, Phaidon, Mountain Bike Buyer, Cycling Weekly and more. So if you need something written for your magazine, paper, website, preferably about cycling or Japan - or both - get in touch via this site. Please mention cycling in the email subject line because I get a lot of spam.