Matthew Bremner
As seen in:
Financial Times,
Medium,
MSN,
Bloomberg News,
Business Insider,
HuffPost,
The Guardian,
Yahoo News,
Aol,
Los Angeles Times,
Rolling Stone
and
I'm a Scottish journalist, writing on Spain, Scotland and Sport
Matthew Bremner’s Journalist Portfolio
View as a gridWhy Tsukiji, Tokyo's Amazing Temple of Fish, Is In Danger
Daily Beast
—
Hiroyuki Hirai has been here for 50 years, each day much the same as the last. He smells strongly of saltwater and cheap soap. His face is friendly and flat as a beaten coin. He chuckles a lot, especially at his own jokes, and his smile animates the deep lines on his face. When he moves about his stall he does so eagerly, with the hunched hustle of a boxer that demands respect from his fellow workers. Hirai-san is the 3rd generation in a family of shrimp merchants at the Tsukiji (pronounced "ski-gee") fish market in Tokyo.
The Lonely End - Roads & Kingdoms
roadsandkingdoms.com
—
With one of the fastest aging populations in the world and traditional family structures breaking down, Japan's phenomenon is becoming harder to ignore-not that the government and the Japanese people don't do their best to sweep it under the carpet. Inaccurate statistics abound, with confusing definitions of what is and isn't considered kodokushi being created in the process. According to the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, there were some 3,700 "unaccompanied deaths" in Japan in 2013. However, other experts estimate the number is nearer 30,000 a year.
In Aging Japan, Dead Bodies Often Go Unnoticed for Weeks
Slate
—
Three months ago in an apartment on the outskirts of Osaka, Japan, Haruki Watanabe died alone. For weeks his body slowly decomposed, slouched in its own fluids and surrounded by fetid, fortnight-old food. He died of self-neglect, solitude, and a suspected heart problem. At 60, Watanabe, wasn't old, nor was he especially poor. He had no friends, no job, no wife, and no concerned children.
The life of a sumo wrestler
bbc.com
—
Haggard and heavy, the sumo wrestlers of the Arashio stable began to stir. A young rikishi (wrestler) stumbled over sprawling camp beds and stray limbs, coaxing his colleagues out of their deep slumbers. Some opened heavy eyes, while others batted away the young novice's attempts and returned mulishly to sleep. It was 5:30 am and cold outside - and what awaited the wrestlers was hours of bone-crunching practice in an abandoned car park in the outskirts of Osaka. The stable - where the rikishi live and train - had temporarily moved to Osaka from its Tokyo home, so the sumos could take part in one of six annual tournaments.
Chasing Orwell's Ghost - Roads & Kingdoms
roadsandkingdoms.com
—
The dining room was empty save for me, a plate of steaming venison pie, and a chubby waiter. As I chomped the chewy deer the waiter fidgeted with cutlery and waddled between tables like a boat bashed between two waves. He hummed to himself as he set places for patrons who would never come and cleaned tables that were already spotless. We didn't speak to each other or pay one another much attention. He cleaned, I chewed-that was our evening. The bar in front of me was untouched-all the liquor bottles were full, the beer taps bone dry, and the cash register flashed a lonely zero.
A tale of two Yorkshire lads
espncricinfo.com
—
I was loitering down by the nets at the Grange cricket ground on a June morning in 2008. I remember I was giving one of our batsmen wayward throwdowns and thinking anxiously about potential failure. I had pre-match nerves; those nerves that make it impossible to engage in an earnest conversation, throw the ball properly in the warm-up, or think about anything bar the first ball sailing down the leg side from a too-cocked wrist and a collapsing action - which "causes that unnaturally slingy action", I could hear my coach saying. We, Scotland U-19s, were to play the Yorkshire academy that day.
Where the Bull Never Dies
narrative.ly
—
On Saturday morning, the second day of the fifty-seventh Goyesca of Pedro Romero, I arrive from Madrid to a packed, muggy train station in Ronda. The main hall, dank and low-ceilinged, is full of young affluent cliques-everyone very handsome and so very intimidating. The high, slippery sibilance of the Andalusian accent rings out over the attractive aesthetic, complemented by the occasional flat vowel of a Londoner or the choking "r" of a Frenchman. Outside, the sun is dulled by thick, sagging rain clouds and a light refreshing breeze blows. It's cool for early September in southern Spain. " Que pasa, tio?