Yokozuna Terunofuji  has won the Kyushi Grand Sumo Tournament with a perfect 15-0 score. This was his first zensho-yusho and ordinarily, is never an easy thing to achieve. Considering the fact that the yokozuna has to face the toughest opponents during the meet, to come out without a single defeat is remarkable. Everybody wants to knock off the top dog is they can.

It must be admitted though that, with the retirement of a number of key rikishi over the past few years, the going is not as tough for the current and only yokozuna as of yore. The top two ranks (yokozuna and ozeki) are thinly populated and the talent in lower ranks is not stepping up consistently, at least, not as yet. This is not to take anything away from a man who has fallen to the bottom and risen again against all expectations. He is a champion.

Congratulations Terunofuji.

The revisiting of an MIT report, "The Limits To Growth", created in 1972, makes for sobering reading. The earlier report, generated when computing power was still in its infancy, predicted a number of possible scenarios, one of which posited 'societal collapse' by 2040. While they had numerous environmental inputs go go off (such as pollution), the 1972 report did not include climate change, currently a major focus. A new study by KPMG ( who do dynamic systems analysis) bears out the findings of the 1970 inquiry. 

MIT were stating what a layperson would see as obvious. If you aim at continual growth and your resources are finite, then there will come a time when the roof falls in. I am simplifying a far more complex argument but what applied in 1970 applies doubly now. Our fixation with economic growth will lead to our undoing, unless major technological innovations and breakthroughs come about in a timely fashion. There is some movement on that front, but nothing that changes the game sufficiently to avert a breakdown.

If we love our children and the children who are to come, we need to address not only climate change but also the underlying assumptions of economic growth. It may mean that people are not so rich, may have a lower standard of living or have changes imposed that make things less convenient. But what is that when compared with the alternative?

Getting back into the swing of things with my volunteer work has been very much a stop and start process. Just when it seems that we might be getting closer to something approaching normal service, one or other aspect of the pandemic creates a new setback. With so many fairly elderly volunteers at the station, management is obviously very careful with how prepping and programming run. They have quite reasonably erred on the side of caution. Sydney is one of the most double-vaxxed cities in the world but complacency (which I see every day) might needlessly cost lives.

But yesterday, for my shift presenting a daily newspaper, I was permitted a reader in my studio, rather than next door. It makes a world of difference to the setup and rollout of each session as it gives me more precise editorial control over what is being read. That's important because we run to strict time schedules; we cannot bleed into other programs or allow segments to be unrepresented. I would be happy with readers choosing articles to read but for the fact that there are some people who want to hear their own voice too often and will only too happily dominate the proceedings. So, the buck stops with me.

I received this pic in the mail this morning, taken by one of the staff. I hope that it doesn't find its way into promotional material. From memory, I was just about to do a time call.

I get fairly engrossed in the Grand Sumo Tourneys that come about every two months in Japan. Many might look at the sport and decide that it is odd that two gigantic men would want to crash into each other, the bout being over, generally speaking, in less than a minute. But this would be to gloss over the very real skill and strength of the rikishi. It pays hugely to study the traditions of sumo and the sport itself (as technique and tactics), a study that will most times lead to an enduring if not altogether rational love affair.

We are now in Week 2 of the November Basho in Kyushu. The absence of the mighty champion Hakuho is still being felt, though some the wrestlers may have become emboldened by his retirement. One less certain defeat, perhaps? Watching NHK's broadcast online the other day, the man himself popped up as a guest in the commentary box. I took a screenshot - I couldn't help myself. Elvis may have stopped singing, but he has yet to leave the building.

 

The zabuton shifts gently under me when I cross my legs. Smoothing down the pleats of my dress, I watch the comings and goings of other spectators. A man adjacent me has returned with a colourful box of yakitori and a ochoko cup of sake. The chicken smells delicious but I have already eaten. I have a small box of omochi should I get peckish. The final juryo match has just finished and we are all eager for the top rikishi to enter the dohyo. All the seats around me are now taken.

I have always sat in the ringside seats, ever since my late husband and I began to attend Grand Sumo Tournaments. That was ten years ago. We were lucky indeed that he knew a prominent oyakata. Every two months a plain envelope with a pair of tickets would appear in the post box. We went to the sumo most days and even though I wasn't a big fan of the sport, it was one of the few things we did together. After he passed way, the tickets continued to find their way in the mail. That is why I am here.

Sometimes friends see me on the television because I am so close to the dohyo. They don't say anything directly like, "Oh, we saw you at the sumo last night", because they don't want to give offence or raise old memories. It's just, "You're a TV star", followed by a nervous laugh. They mean well and want to keep up a conversation, so I mention a favourite wrestler or a particular kimono that I liked. I never wear a kimono to the sumo but other women do. Sometimes I imagine what pattern I would wear if I did.

Today the prominent oyakata is sitting ringside on the right of a gyoji. I often see him there in the role of a shimpan, jumping to his feet should the result of a bout be in question. He does not acknowledge me but I know that he sees me. We have an understanding and I do not want to compromise him, for sumo is a sport that is unforgiving of any transgression. Where he gets the tickets from I do not ask, and never shall.

I am quite tall for a Japanese woman. There was a time when I might have become a model, before I married. Sometimes, when I do happen to catch myself on a TV broadcast, I am startled by how rigidly I sit, how high I seem. I am composed, utterly. I don't know what to think of that. When each bout ends, I applaud politely, my hands gently raised, as if in prayer.

The Fukuoka Grand Sumo Tournament starts today and I am keen with anticipation. While the loss of Hakuho to retirement leaves a vast hole that is unlikely to ever be filled in my lifetime, there are a lot of wrestlers who are showing promise and some who may be able to make their way to the top, hard as that is.

If Terunofuji can remained free of injury then he must surely start as a favourite to take the title again. He is, after all, the only yokozuna left standing. Consistent performances by Takakeisho, Mikakeumi and Takayasu could present a challenge, the latter two running hot and cold in recent tourneys. 

But with Asanoyama on suspension until July 2022, the tournaments over coming months are Terunofuji's to lose. Still, he deserves every accolade - he is the greatest of comeback kids.

Get back to regular work at 2RPH has been a much-looked-forward-to pleasure. It isn't just the busy joy of being in a studio with mikes, buttons and computer screens, nor the positive stress of trying to avoid silly errors (since we go live), nor even the material we have to read. Rather, its about getting into the swing of life, jumping on trains and buses, ordering a coffee, thinking of the job ahead.

It's also about the people - mostly retired professionals - with the kind of interesting minds and capacity for conversation that I tend not to meet elsewhere. I guess that I don't get out much since these kinds of folks also live in the Blue Mountains too. I am a little starved of the kinds of interactions that go beyond the mundane or the polite. Yes, I don't get out much.

I would go in to the station more often if it wasn't such a long journey.

Siegfried Sassoon is one of the better known war poets, serving in the British Army on the Western Front. He was somewhat controversial at the time because his poems were angry, showing the brutality of life in the trenches. In this fact he differed markedly from the sentimental and jingoistic tone of other writers who offered an anodyne - and a dishonest one at that - to the reading public back home. He came close to being court-marshalled for his strident views. Today it is clear that his honesty was simply too much for those who wanted to prosecute a pointless conflict no matter what the cost, though largely at no cost to themselves. These folks are still in our midst and we ignore them at our peril.

The Kiss is fairly typical of Sassoon's penchant for biting satire. It is certainly not the kiss you might be expecting. For a contrast, have a look at Brooke's much loved and collected poem, The Soldier, which romanticizes the idea of "Englishness", ennobles war and which might have penned by a propagandist in the War Office in London.

The Kiss

To these I turn, in these I trust-

Brother Lead and Sister Steal.

To his blind power I make appeal,

I guard her beauty clean from rust.

He spins and burns and loves the air,

And splits a skull to win my praise;

But up the nobly marching days

She glitters naked, cold and fair.

Sweet Sister, grant your soldier this:

That in good fury he may feel

The body where he sets his heal

Quail from your darting downward kiss.

'At the going down of the sun and in the morning,

We will remember them.'

Lest We Forget.

In recent months, in response to what appears to be a more aggressive Chinese stance, there has been much loose and foolish talk about the possibility of war. Dunderhead politicians and no-nothings of all stripes have weighed in with as many ignorant comment as I can remember in a long while. Not since the end of the Cold War has there been serious contemplation of a great power conflict the like of which is mooted.

I bring this up because Armistice Day will soon be upon us and it appears that every lesson of that ghastly bloodbath has been lost on the many. I recently re-watched the excellent Apocalypse: WW1, a five-part series that I can highly recommend. The makers have colourised and slowed the frame-rate of original footage to create something like a true experience of the soldiers, civilians and battles that occurred in that lamentable four year period. 

Those who want to beat the drums had best take earnest stock of that conflict and the one that followed hard upon it. Study the causes and consequences. The next, should it occur ( and I pray that it doesn't) will be a pure descent into hell.