Silly season news

A sudden spate of idiotic news that seems to underline in an anecdotal way the pressure we are all under recently:

On Thursday night in Sapporo, a man is found asleep in his upside-down SUV in the playground of a junior high school, having strayed in there the previous night while drunk and somehow managed to flip it over. On the same evening in Ibaraki, a woman steals a crate of beer from a supermarket and runs over the employee who attempts to stop her. Early on Thursday morning, a high school teacher is arrested for feeling up a man in an Okinawa sauna a little after five in the morning. On Monday a ship runs aground while its captain is on the loo.

On a more serious note, I hope I'm imagining the recent surge in the murder rate, about which more later. A group of lawyers have been pushing for a public holiday in June (it is unusual in having none) on the theory that the current monotonous haul through to late July is contributing to deaths from overwork, but one wonders if there isn't a broader case to be made for breaking things up a bit.

http://www.zakzak.co.jp/top/top0703_2_21.html
http://www.zakzak.co.jp/top/top0703_2_19.html
http://www.nikkansports.com/ns/general/f-so-tp0-030706-0011.html