日本首相夫人点评菅直人

He lacks dress sense, can't cook to save his life and badly flunked¹ delivering his first policy speech. Meet Japan's new Prime Minister Naoto Kan - as seen by his wife.

他缺乏衣着品味，不会给自己做饭，首次施政演说也一塌糊涂。来看看日本新任首相夫人眼中的丈夫菅直人吧。

These and other domestic insights are revealed in a new book by the woman Kan has called his "opposition² in the home", entitled What on Earth will change in Japan after you become prime minister?

Japan's unconventional first lady, Nobuko, pulls few punches（一拳） in the book about her husband of four decades, who took over in early June as prime minister of the world's No 2 economy.

"I wonder - 'Is it okay that this man is prime minister?' - because I know him well," the 64-year-old muses³ in the book released this week but written before Kan's party's recent upper house election drubbing（殴打，彻底击败） .

"Many people in the current political world are lightweights. Things may turn out like this if you choose from among them."

Happy to break with the stereotype⁴（陈词滥调，老套） of the demure⁵（端庄的，严肃的） wife, sharp-tongued Nobuko relishes⁶ the role of Kan's toughest critic and famously spars（帆桅杆） with him over everything from household chores to tax reform.

She said that her image of a Japanese prime minister was closer to that of an elder statesman like Yasuhiro Nakasone, now 92, who served as a contemporary of then-US president Ronald Reagan for five years in the 1980s.

"Kan likes to be in the field ... I believe he is best suited to giving directions on the spot in support of somebody else," she said of her husband, a former civil rights activist⁷ and most recently Japan's deputy premier⁸.

Kan is a good speaker in the street, she said, but "worse at reading prepared scripts（原稿，手稿） ".

"Even as a family member, I could not give him even a passing grade for his delivery of a policy speech, or for the question-and-answer sessions after he became prime minister."

She also revealed Kan has "no interest in fashion at all" and cannot cook even simple meals "because of the bad education by me and his mother".