Wax on, wax off....

Having my finger firmly on the pulse of yoof culture, and not having a word to say about the important issues in the world today, I'd like to draw your attention to the recent death of Noriyuki "Pat" Morita.

Morita played Kesuke Miyagi in Karate Kid movies and became an almost iconic figure (I exaggerate in the manner standard in these profiles...) as the character who sagely guided the Kid in question, developing the Kid's martial arts skills while getting him to valet his car at the same time.

Mr Miyagi also played an important role in pioneering an environmentally friendly insect repellant. In the photo you see him demonstrating this invention, catching flies with his chopsticks.

Reading his obit, it says he started off as stand-up comic. As someone who was interned in America during WWII, his first big gig was, perhaps, particularly tough. At a 2,000 seat hall in Hawaii he unexpectedly found himself facing a huge crowd of World War II veterans, many of them disabled. They were there to observe the 25th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

He began by telling them that he wanted to apologise, on behalf of his people, for screwing up their harbor. The vets roared at this and he went on to play clubs for another 2o years...