Christopher Ross
‘Like Goldman Sachs – With Guns’
I love yakuza movies. Robert Mitchum and Takakura Ken, the man who never smiles, in the 1974 flick The Yakuza; ‘Beat’ Takeshi Kitano’s deadpan outings, from Violent Cop to Hana-bi; anything by Takashi Miike. But before we go any further, let’s get the word right, shall we? Ya-ku-za, not ya-koo-za or any other mis-stressed, vowel-stretched, English version of it. Ya-ku-za, with equal stress on three short syllables, no inflection. Trust me: saying ya-koo-za to a yakuza is not a good idea.
The official term for yakuza is boryokudan, or ‘violent groups’, but Japanese gangsters themselves prefer another term: gokudo, or someone on the Path of Extremes, someone willing to go the whole way. It is a samurai value: ‘when facing a choice between life and death, it’s easy –
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‘Even setting to one side the historically neuralgic relationship with ... Ireland, Britain’s insular periphery has from at least the time of the Romans presented difficulties for authorities wishing to centralise.’
Peter Marshall on Britain's islands.
Peter Marshall - Notes from the Atlantic Archipelago
Peter Marshall: Notes from the Atlantic Archipelago - The Britannias: An Island Quest by Alice Albinia
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