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When Lil's husband got demobbed, I said -
I didn't mince my words, I said to her myself,
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
Now Albert's coming back, make yourself a bit smart.
He'll want to know what you done with that money he gave you
To get yourself some teeth. He did, I was there.
You have them all out, Lil, and get a nice set
The Waste Land by T S Eliot (from The Game of Chess)
Oh, the shark, babe, has such teeth, dear
And it shows them pearly white
Mack the Knife
Sometimes you lose
Sometimes you win
Kicked in the teeth again
AC/DC
Are those your own teeth?
Yes.
Do you like them?
Yes.
Do you want to keep them?
Yes.
Well brush and floss every day. And never tell me I'm wrong in front of my officers again.
Cracker - DCI Charlie Wise gives Fitz some friendly dental advice
14 March is White Day in Japan. Valentine's Day on 14 February is mostly one-way in Japan. Women and girls give men and boys presents, usually chocolates. And so on White Day the men and boys reciprocate, also usually with chocolates. In South Korea they even have a Black Day on 14 April so that people who didn't get anything on Valentine's Day or White Day can commiserate with each other.
In Japanese a gumshield is called a mouthpiece マウスピース. That's slang for a lawyer in English. Dentists recommend wearing a gumshield to protect your teeth for all dynamic contact sports. That means most martial arts including karate and judo and aikido. But gumshields are still not very common in martial arts practice in Japan.
In the Code of Aikido Training Practice at the Aikikai Hombu Dojo in Tokyo one of the training rules is,
Practice at all times with a feeling of joy.
But that doesn't mean it's OK to joke and fool around. Budo is a serious thing. It can be a matter of life and death. So in Japanese they say don't show your teeth in the dojo.
The Japanese word for serious is shinken 真剣. That means real blade. Practice as if you are being attacked by a real blade. And attack as if you are using a real blade. Live your life as if you are using a real blade.
I looked for Bobby Darin singing Mack the Knife for this article because of the cool shark line in the song. The lyrics were originally written in German by Bertolt Brecht and the music was composed by Kurt Weill for The Threepenny Opera. It turned out that Bobby Darin died of heart problems after getting blood poisoning from a visit to the dentist…