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"Angry White Pyjamas" is the true story of an extremely funny and unlikely
urban quest. Leading a directionless and unfulfilling existence drifting
from job to job in Japan, thirty year-old would-be writer Robert Twigger is
forced to accept that his life is slipping away from him. Inspired by
Tesshu, a 19th century Samurai and poet, and encouraged by his two flat
mates Chris and Fat Frank (an ex-tax guru and polymath, and an unemployable
Iranian with a predilection for belly-dancing and enormous underpants), he
dons his dogi - the "white pyjamas" worn for training - and begins learning
the Japanese martial art of Aikido. Quickly becoming obsessed with the
appeal of physical fitness and technical perfection, he later enrols on the
brutal, year-long intensive course that the Tokyo Riot Police are required
to undergo. The author soon has to rethink some of his old ideas about pain,
endurance and humiliation, and for five hours a day, five days a week, he is
punched, thrown and beaten by the unrelenting instructors whose method of
teaching has changed little since the days of the Imperial Japanese Army.