Kaput!
Was the last thing the NEC laptop said last week, and then...silence. This is going to make posting pretty tricky for a while, at least until we can rustle up enough of the folding stuff to persuade Dell or some other such cheapo desktop manufacturer to part with their wares.
So, watch this space...
Thursday, 14 September 2006
Thursday, 31 August 2006
We’re going the zoo, zoo, zoo...
So, been away for a while, but am back now. First things first, should get the ‘gazette’ stuff over and done with first, so congratulations and felicitations to my father, who celebrated his sixty-something birthday by visiting the village of Goosnargh in Scotland, a town with great family connections (and, indeed, connections with anyone who has read The Meaning of Liff), so well done you. Also, not six days later, the Guru celebrated her something-something birthday, we celebrated that by eating curry in Nishi Kawaguchi, well known for its large, non-Japanese population, most of whom work in the ‘pink’ trade, as it is sometimes affectionately known. In fact walking back through the town after eating the aforementioned curry we wandered across a sort of cross roads that seemed to have about half a dozen slightly disreputable persons standing in the corners, almost as if they were about the re-enact the climatic scene from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, where Clint, Tuco and Angel Eyes face off in the cemetery. Actually, with a toddler in a pushchair it could have been the Odessa Steps scene from Battleship Potemkin, but I could be heading towards pseud’s corner quite quickly, so had better stop. Anyway happy birthday to parental and guru.
Last week was off and, for the most part, was devoted to studying. This was a good thing as I am now nearing the end of this damned course. About 11,500 words have been written and rewritten, so only about 8,500 to go, but I’m quite happy with most of those 11,500 done so far, though I must admit to being a bit worried about the rest. But what the hell, it will all be over by Christmas! (now where have we heard that before…?) although really it will all be over by the end of November, which is even better. However what we also did was spend a long weekend with the in-laws who live down Chiba way, as I may have mentioned. Their place is very much more ‘in the countryside’ than us here in Kawaguchi, so the air was clear and the heat and humidity milder, which was pleasant indeed. They also live quite close to Chiba Zoo, so we went there for the day.
Now I must admit that I am not a great fan of zoos at the best of times and I’m afraid that Chiba Zoo isn’t very close to ‘the best of times’ at all. Quite far from it really. But they do have what they called a ‘Kids Zoo’, which I suppose is what you would more likely know as a petting zoo, or somewhere where the kids can get closer to some animals, touch and stroke them if they wish and watch them doing lots of poos. So that was where we headed so the little ‘un could commune with nature a little more than he has. But of course he wasn’t reallt that interested. This might have had something to do with the fact that the animals weren’t really interested in him, who knows. But we went into the sheep and goats enclosure at feeding time and he looked about warily as I held onto him, I thought about letting him go, but figured that he would grab and twist handfuls of fur/ear/leg/anything, so discretion meant I kept a reasonably firm hold on the young chap. And so the animals sort of swarmed around our legs and he watched them go by, and they ate leaves and then he tried to wander off. I think he enjoyed it as he point at a few things and make noises, but then again he does that for most things. In the kids zoo bit we also got to look at pigs, horses, ducks and cows, so all very domesticated, but also parrots, prairie dogs and penguins, which makes me think the zoo couldn’t quite decide what to do with animals that start with the letter ‘p’, so put them in there. The most fun thing in the kids zoo, for some reason, was the big washing sink and taps, which the little ‘un thought was the best thing he had seen in ages and so kept wanting to go back and wash his hands, something he never does at home – odd that.
The rest of the animals in the zoo seemed pretty sad and listless, sitting around and not doing too much. We saw an old elephant, camels, giraffes (who did seem quite animated), kangaroos, a water buffalo, monkeys and baboons and a stately emu. But the best thing was actually when we got home. We had taken some wooden toy animals with us and when we saw an animal for which we also had a toy, we made great play of showing them together, making the noises and generally trying to get the youngster to realise that the toys were representations etc. So, when we got home he got the bag of animals and started to show them to his grandparentals, but only picking out the ones we had seen earlier that day. This impressed us no end and, whilst it may appear a little dull, was fascinating to watch him and the development of his cognitive reasoning, or something.
Other news is that we are now mobile with the youngster. Being a big urban megalopolis (remembering my GCSE geography – the others being Boswash, Chipitts and Sansan, if you’re interested (well, they were in 1989, could all have changed now)) there isn’t too much piint having a car, but you’ve got to have a bicycle. In Japan these are often known as mamachari’s, or mama chariot’s, as they are used for carting kids about to and from shops, clinics and the like. Anyway we purchased a brand new Bridgestone contraption with a built baby/toddler seat over the front handlebars (specially designed by NASA scientists to be in the optimum load bearing/centre of gravity position, or something), and a mighty fine ride it is. When you try and manhandle the thing it feels like it weighs a quarter of a ton, but once you get one, that passenger is on too, it is surprisingly easy to manoeuvre, and with three gears one can fairly race along as well. So taken with it was I that I took the little ‘un out for a spin and we ended up at the water park about 40 minutes away – on our first trip! He seemed to enjoy it, which is the important thing, and not object too strongly to wearing a baby skid-lid (which, it comes as no surprise, are mystifyingly scarce in Japan, even though mothers everywhere take their kids, everywhere, by bike. I don’t wear a helmet, but I’m buggered if I’m going to let my son on a bike without one. But then again, this is a country where kids routinely stand on their father’s laps, or on the passenger side seat, when being driven in cars, so there you go, I suppose).
And now I’m back to work – and what a joy that is...
So, been away for a while, but am back now. First things first, should get the ‘gazette’ stuff over and done with first, so congratulations and felicitations to my father, who celebrated his sixty-something birthday by visiting the village of Goosnargh in Scotland, a town with great family connections (and, indeed, connections with anyone who has read The Meaning of Liff), so well done you. Also, not six days later, the Guru celebrated her something-something birthday, we celebrated that by eating curry in Nishi Kawaguchi, well known for its large, non-Japanese population, most of whom work in the ‘pink’ trade, as it is sometimes affectionately known. In fact walking back through the town after eating the aforementioned curry we wandered across a sort of cross roads that seemed to have about half a dozen slightly disreputable persons standing in the corners, almost as if they were about the re-enact the climatic scene from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, where Clint, Tuco and Angel Eyes face off in the cemetery. Actually, with a toddler in a pushchair it could have been the Odessa Steps scene from Battleship Potemkin, but I could be heading towards pseud’s corner quite quickly, so had better stop. Anyway happy birthday to parental and guru.
Last week was off and, for the most part, was devoted to studying. This was a good thing as I am now nearing the end of this damned course. About 11,500 words have been written and rewritten, so only about 8,500 to go, but I’m quite happy with most of those 11,500 done so far, though I must admit to being a bit worried about the rest. But what the hell, it will all be over by Christmas! (now where have we heard that before…?) although really it will all be over by the end of November, which is even better. However what we also did was spend a long weekend with the in-laws who live down Chiba way, as I may have mentioned. Their place is very much more ‘in the countryside’ than us here in Kawaguchi, so the air was clear and the heat and humidity milder, which was pleasant indeed. They also live quite close to Chiba Zoo, so we went there for the day.
Now I must admit that I am not a great fan of zoos at the best of times and I’m afraid that Chiba Zoo isn’t very close to ‘the best of times’ at all. Quite far from it really. But they do have what they called a ‘Kids Zoo’, which I suppose is what you would more likely know as a petting zoo, or somewhere where the kids can get closer to some animals, touch and stroke them if they wish and watch them doing lots of poos. So that was where we headed so the little ‘un could commune with nature a little more than he has. But of course he wasn’t reallt that interested. This might have had something to do with the fact that the animals weren’t really interested in him, who knows. But we went into the sheep and goats enclosure at feeding time and he looked about warily as I held onto him, I thought about letting him go, but figured that he would grab and twist handfuls of fur/ear/leg/anything, so discretion meant I kept a reasonably firm hold on the young chap. And so the animals sort of swarmed around our legs and he watched them go by, and they ate leaves and then he tried to wander off. I think he enjoyed it as he point at a few things and make noises, but then again he does that for most things. In the kids zoo bit we also got to look at pigs, horses, ducks and cows, so all very domesticated, but also parrots, prairie dogs and penguins, which makes me think the zoo couldn’t quite decide what to do with animals that start with the letter ‘p’, so put them in there. The most fun thing in the kids zoo, for some reason, was the big washing sink and taps, which the little ‘un thought was the best thing he had seen in ages and so kept wanting to go back and wash his hands, something he never does at home – odd that.
The rest of the animals in the zoo seemed pretty sad and listless, sitting around and not doing too much. We saw an old elephant, camels, giraffes (who did seem quite animated), kangaroos, a water buffalo, monkeys and baboons and a stately emu. But the best thing was actually when we got home. We had taken some wooden toy animals with us and when we saw an animal for which we also had a toy, we made great play of showing them together, making the noises and generally trying to get the youngster to realise that the toys were representations etc. So, when we got home he got the bag of animals and started to show them to his grandparentals, but only picking out the ones we had seen earlier that day. This impressed us no end and, whilst it may appear a little dull, was fascinating to watch him and the development of his cognitive reasoning, or something.
Other news is that we are now mobile with the youngster. Being a big urban megalopolis (remembering my GCSE geography – the others being Boswash, Chipitts and Sansan, if you’re interested (well, they were in 1989, could all have changed now)) there isn’t too much piint having a car, but you’ve got to have a bicycle. In Japan these are often known as mamachari’s, or mama chariot’s, as they are used for carting kids about to and from shops, clinics and the like. Anyway we purchased a brand new Bridgestone contraption with a built baby/toddler seat over the front handlebars (specially designed by NASA scientists to be in the optimum load bearing/centre of gravity position, or something), and a mighty fine ride it is. When you try and manhandle the thing it feels like it weighs a quarter of a ton, but once you get one, that passenger is on too, it is surprisingly easy to manoeuvre, and with three gears one can fairly race along as well. So taken with it was I that I took the little ‘un out for a spin and we ended up at the water park about 40 minutes away – on our first trip! He seemed to enjoy it, which is the important thing, and not object too strongly to wearing a baby skid-lid (which, it comes as no surprise, are mystifyingly scarce in Japan, even though mothers everywhere take their kids, everywhere, by bike. I don’t wear a helmet, but I’m buggered if I’m going to let my son on a bike without one. But then again, this is a country where kids routinely stand on their father’s laps, or on the passenger side seat, when being driven in cars, so there you go, I suppose).
And now I’m back to work – and what a joy that is...
Wednesday, 16 August 2006
Just because you'll all dying to know
I finally reached the end of my aural odyssey this morning; track #1799, Ziggy Stardust, was played around Kudanshita station on the Tozai line at about 855am. It has been a long, hard journey but certainly a worthwhile one.
I might even provide some analysis next time I post...
I finally reached the end of my aural odyssey this morning; track #1799, Ziggy Stardust, was played around Kudanshita station on the Tozai line at about 855am. It has been a long, hard journey but certainly a worthwhile one.
I might even provide some analysis next time I post...
Monday, 14 August 2006
Top-right-back
So no post for a while, but I reckon you spotted that already.
The reason behind this is two fold, or possibly three- or four-fold, it depends on how many I can think of whilst typing between here and when I get there, or something. Anyway the main reason was work (and, totally unrelated, here’s a point about ms word – when you misspell a word, for example leave a letter out, it tells you, but why, when you add a number into a word by accident, such as behi9nd, it doesn’t? (and that happens a lot when I type the letter ‘i’ as this keyboard is a little small)). Anyway work was shitty because everyone went on holiday. This is usually a sign to kick back and surf the net, but not for me as it left me ‘in charge’. I don’t mean in a nominal sense, I unfortunately mean in a ‘questions from the CE and MD’ kind of in charge. What made it worse was not only did my boss disappear on July 31st, but so did the recruitment manager (my old job, for those paying attention to such things), so not only did I have my job to do, but I had not one but two others as well. Even better was this was in the eight or so working days up to the Obon holiday, not traditionally a time for the faeces to hit the fan (much, if at all. Any way I can make that more ironic?). And now, just to add insult to injury, their returns may well be delayed due to all the nonsense going on the UK with the airports and the terror and whatnot, so my ‘one day back in the office to handover’ on the 16th, before my holiday starts, may well also be delayed (like f*ck will it, even though I have nothing more planned than a trip to the outlaws, if the MD tries to stop me by as much as a day then an invoice for an extremely expensive flight to the UK for the 17th for the whole family will mysteriously appear (I didn’t work closely with all those airlines for nothing)).
The second thing was that on the final day of term, before the Obon holiday started, I had to go and get drunk, as is traditional at these times. So chalk off the middle of last week as it now takes me a day and a half to recover from these things.
Then, on Friday, I had an appointment with death.
But that was after I had my annual health check up. This went quite smoothly though again, as I wrote about last year (or maybe the year before that) I think the scales they use are slightly dodgy. Or they’re just plain wrong. But this year I fear they are even wronger as they seemed to indicate that my lithe and svelte look was nothing of the sort and 3 kilos (or 6 pounds in old money) had appeared upon my person from somewhere. I know what you’re thinking but no, it was either the wrong scales or the nurse had her foot on the back of the scales as well as yours truly. However being a realist I realised that diet or amputation is the only real way forward from here, I will let you know which it is in due course.
That was Friday morning and then, in the afternoon, I had the aforementioned appointment with death. Now you may think I am over-dramatising here, but I can think of them in no other way. I mean, they take pleasure in the pain and torment of others (just like death). They smile far too much (just like death). The first two letters of their profession are d-e- (just like death). And they are evil (ok, not like death, but I’ve got to try and keep the analogy going). So, if you haven’t already guessed from my obtuse prose, I had to go to the dentist.
I have not had a particularly relationship with dentists. The first one, when we lived in Somerset, was fine as I was too young to know any different and he didn’t inflict years of unwavering pain upon me. Unlike the right bastard who ‘looked after’ me when we lived in Hampshire. His name was Dr Yoong (de Sade), a gentleman of (possibly) Singaporean descent who tortured me for about three or four years whilst at secondary school by fitting me with a brace – the split level ‘train tracks’ variety, which meant monthly visits to his chamber (the inaptly named ‘Health House’) whereby he would tighten the ****ing thing with pliers, electric screwdrivers, crowbars and anything else he could lay his hands on. But that, actually, wasn’t the worst of it. Because my jaw and/or mouth is too small (ironic, for those who’ve met me) I had to have four teeth taken out. Four healthy, living, well attached to my jaw teeth. It was the anaesthetic that really got me. On the chair, oriental gentleman say ‘relax, this may hurt a little’ (as if you can relax when someone tells you, a 13 yr old, it is going to hurt!) and then watching a needle about 8 feet long and 2 feet wide (the joys of perspective) being lowered slowly and then the excruciating agony of this needle being poked directly into my gums and the roof of my mouth. Of course his knee on my chest as he tried to prise the healthy teeth from the living bone of my jaw didn’t help much either. I’m wincing as I write this now – time does not heal all wounds, not by a long ****ing chalk.
Once I had the thing off my teeth that was it for me and dentists. I was lucky in that my teeth never actually hurt so I had no reason to go back. Well, except when a bit fell off one of my teeth whilst we were living in Brixton a few years back. At that moment I thought it prudent to go and see another one, all of about 15 years since I had last set foot in a surgery. This time it wasn’t a Singaporean gentleman but one from central Europe, Czechoslovakia perhaps. Anyway he looked at my back tooth, from whence the bit had fallen off, and said ‘hmm, yes, it vill haff to come out, but maybe today, maybe tomorrow, who knows? But it vill be tricky as it is right at za back, you know…’ Which of course I did know as I could feel it. But, happy that he was so non-committal, I figured that maybe later was good enough for me and never went back to him (or his surgery which, I swear, had a Dickensian air about it – dimly lit, musty smell, peeling wallpaper...ok, it had a Rising Damp air about it).
Into the present and I suspect you are wondering why I eventually gathered up the courage to go. Well, mainly it was because I discovered that dental was actually included on our insurance policy so I wouldn’t have to pay for it, and secondly the Guru had been going and the bloke didn’t sound like a complete, evil bastard (as dentists go). Indeed he seemed something of a gaijin-ophile and was always asking the Guru about her foreign husband. But of course I was wary, not only for the reasons stated above, but also because the Japanese, as a nation, seem to have bloody awful teeth (better, I suppose, than awfully bloody teeth). Mouths full of gold and/or other substances or, more commonly mouths half full of black teeth, or, not uncommonly, mouths full of nothing at all. Doesn’t fill you with confidence, that. Theories are put forward like lack of calcium in the diet from an early age (also blamed for higher levels of osteoporosis) or a lack of fluoride in the water system, but I personally blame dentists as I figure it is a plot by them to stay in business (like garage mechanics, they’re never going to completely fix everything, now are they, as then you might not need to come back).
So I knew I had to go, even though I still had no pain from my teeth, and so last Friday was deemed D-day. So we go in and the place is jolly swish, no Dickensian/Rising Damp here. Importantly everything looked new, shiny and professional. And, far more importantly, the nurses looked pretty – a far more important consideration if you are about to have pain inflicted upon you. First up was a quick sit in the chair, which had a pleasantly space-age feel about it, including a computer monitor attached showing scuba diving pictures (‘probably feed my remains to his fish’ was my thought). Then it was an x-ray. At the Health house this had taken weeks to do and probably involved pain, but this was just ‘stand here; chin here; bite this; don’t move; whirr; done’. Cool, then, as I sat back down in the space chair my x-ray came up on the screen! (Apologies if this isn’t hi-tech at all and is now common across dentists world wide – it has been 20 years, after all).
And yes, he confirmed that top-right-back was indeed rotten and would need to be pulled out, the sooner the better (I could have told him that... I did tell him that on the beloved Japanese pre-action questionnaire!). But top-left-back, which I thought in a similar condition, actually wasn’t too bad. But the worst bit was back-right-bottom; I’ve always though this one was a bit odd, but the x-ray showed that whilst healthy, it is at completely the wrong angle. Teeth should all be in a nice neat line with the roots pointing down and crown pointing up. This tooth, whilst in a neat line, has its root pointing out the back of my head and the crown at ninety degrees growing into the next tooth. Bugger.
So the doc said that top-right-back needed to come out right away and would be a cinch, 5 minutes at most (what was in Czech dentist said again?), but bottom-right-back needed to come out as well but this would be hard because of the angle and the fact that it is still healthy – he even sucked in his breath through his teeth when he said it...
And then we did the rotten top-right-back. Now if you remember it was the anaesthetic that caused me most issue when I was a kid and I was expecting more of the same. Indeed the new style syringe looked a bit like a hot glue gun you used to get, so I wasn’t holding out much hope, but when he did the business I didn’t feel a thing. I didn’t, for want of a better expression, feel even a slight prick. Wow. And the old style used to make the whole side of my face go numb, but this one was pretty localised around the tooth in question – in fact I began to worry that the anaesthesia had worn off as I could feel the outside of my cheek, but when I gave the gum a surreptitious poke with my finger, no feeling was to be had. Wow again.
Then, in order for the numbness to take full effect, I was put into the hands of a nurse with very pretty eyes who had the undoubted pleasure of cleaning 20 years of tartar of the backs of my teeth, lucky her. So caked on was it that she only had time to do the bottom row before the Doc called me back. With trepidation I settled back into the space chair and let him do his thing. And true to his word, in less than 5 minutes and with barely a sustained tug, the offending peg was in his hand and I didn’t feel a thing. Wow for a third time. And that, rather anti-climactically, was it.
He was relived as he could tell I was sooo stressed about the whole thing, whilst I was full of admiration for his technique – or whoever invented to the new anaesthetic thing. I still have to go back for a bit or remedial work, and the tricky bottom-right-back, which could, literally, be a pain. But overall a little bit of faith has been restored in the dentisting profession, and by a Japanese dentist to boot.
A little was then lost when I found out I was banned from alcohol for the evening to prevent infection, or something. Nice of him to tell me that after the procedure.
So no post for a while, but I reckon you spotted that already.
The reason behind this is two fold, or possibly three- or four-fold, it depends on how many I can think of whilst typing between here and when I get there, or something. Anyway the main reason was work (and, totally unrelated, here’s a point about ms word – when you misspell a word, for example leave a letter out, it tells you, but why, when you add a number into a word by accident, such as behi9nd, it doesn’t? (and that happens a lot when I type the letter ‘i’ as this keyboard is a little small)). Anyway work was shitty because everyone went on holiday. This is usually a sign to kick back and surf the net, but not for me as it left me ‘in charge’. I don’t mean in a nominal sense, I unfortunately mean in a ‘questions from the CE and MD’ kind of in charge. What made it worse was not only did my boss disappear on July 31st, but so did the recruitment manager (my old job, for those paying attention to such things), so not only did I have my job to do, but I had not one but two others as well. Even better was this was in the eight or so working days up to the Obon holiday, not traditionally a time for the faeces to hit the fan (much, if at all. Any way I can make that more ironic?). And now, just to add insult to injury, their returns may well be delayed due to all the nonsense going on the UK with the airports and the terror and whatnot, so my ‘one day back in the office to handover’ on the 16th, before my holiday starts, may well also be delayed (like f*ck will it, even though I have nothing more planned than a trip to the outlaws, if the MD tries to stop me by as much as a day then an invoice for an extremely expensive flight to the UK for the 17th for the whole family will mysteriously appear (I didn’t work closely with all those airlines for nothing)).
The second thing was that on the final day of term, before the Obon holiday started, I had to go and get drunk, as is traditional at these times. So chalk off the middle of last week as it now takes me a day and a half to recover from these things.
Then, on Friday, I had an appointment with death.
But that was after I had my annual health check up. This went quite smoothly though again, as I wrote about last year (or maybe the year before that) I think the scales they use are slightly dodgy. Or they’re just plain wrong. But this year I fear they are even wronger as they seemed to indicate that my lithe and svelte look was nothing of the sort and 3 kilos (or 6 pounds in old money) had appeared upon my person from somewhere. I know what you’re thinking but no, it was either the wrong scales or the nurse had her foot on the back of the scales as well as yours truly. However being a realist I realised that diet or amputation is the only real way forward from here, I will let you know which it is in due course.
That was Friday morning and then, in the afternoon, I had the aforementioned appointment with death. Now you may think I am over-dramatising here, but I can think of them in no other way. I mean, they take pleasure in the pain and torment of others (just like death). They smile far too much (just like death). The first two letters of their profession are d-e- (just like death). And they are evil (ok, not like death, but I’ve got to try and keep the analogy going). So, if you haven’t already guessed from my obtuse prose, I had to go to the dentist.
I have not had a particularly relationship with dentists. The first one, when we lived in Somerset, was fine as I was too young to know any different and he didn’t inflict years of unwavering pain upon me. Unlike the right bastard who ‘looked after’ me when we lived in Hampshire. His name was Dr Yoong (de Sade), a gentleman of (possibly) Singaporean descent who tortured me for about three or four years whilst at secondary school by fitting me with a brace – the split level ‘train tracks’ variety, which meant monthly visits to his chamber (the inaptly named ‘Health House’) whereby he would tighten the ****ing thing with pliers, electric screwdrivers, crowbars and anything else he could lay his hands on. But that, actually, wasn’t the worst of it. Because my jaw and/or mouth is too small (ironic, for those who’ve met me) I had to have four teeth taken out. Four healthy, living, well attached to my jaw teeth. It was the anaesthetic that really got me. On the chair, oriental gentleman say ‘relax, this may hurt a little’ (as if you can relax when someone tells you, a 13 yr old, it is going to hurt!) and then watching a needle about 8 feet long and 2 feet wide (the joys of perspective) being lowered slowly and then the excruciating agony of this needle being poked directly into my gums and the roof of my mouth. Of course his knee on my chest as he tried to prise the healthy teeth from the living bone of my jaw didn’t help much either. I’m wincing as I write this now – time does not heal all wounds, not by a long ****ing chalk.
Once I had the thing off my teeth that was it for me and dentists. I was lucky in that my teeth never actually hurt so I had no reason to go back. Well, except when a bit fell off one of my teeth whilst we were living in Brixton a few years back. At that moment I thought it prudent to go and see another one, all of about 15 years since I had last set foot in a surgery. This time it wasn’t a Singaporean gentleman but one from central Europe, Czechoslovakia perhaps. Anyway he looked at my back tooth, from whence the bit had fallen off, and said ‘hmm, yes, it vill haff to come out, but maybe today, maybe tomorrow, who knows? But it vill be tricky as it is right at za back, you know…’ Which of course I did know as I could feel it. But, happy that he was so non-committal, I figured that maybe later was good enough for me and never went back to him (or his surgery which, I swear, had a Dickensian air about it – dimly lit, musty smell, peeling wallpaper...ok, it had a Rising Damp air about it).
Into the present and I suspect you are wondering why I eventually gathered up the courage to go. Well, mainly it was because I discovered that dental was actually included on our insurance policy so I wouldn’t have to pay for it, and secondly the Guru had been going and the bloke didn’t sound like a complete, evil bastard (as dentists go). Indeed he seemed something of a gaijin-ophile and was always asking the Guru about her foreign husband. But of course I was wary, not only for the reasons stated above, but also because the Japanese, as a nation, seem to have bloody awful teeth (better, I suppose, than awfully bloody teeth). Mouths full of gold and/or other substances or, more commonly mouths half full of black teeth, or, not uncommonly, mouths full of nothing at all. Doesn’t fill you with confidence, that. Theories are put forward like lack of calcium in the diet from an early age (also blamed for higher levels of osteoporosis) or a lack of fluoride in the water system, but I personally blame dentists as I figure it is a plot by them to stay in business (like garage mechanics, they’re never going to completely fix everything, now are they, as then you might not need to come back).
So I knew I had to go, even though I still had no pain from my teeth, and so last Friday was deemed D-day. So we go in and the place is jolly swish, no Dickensian/Rising Damp here. Importantly everything looked new, shiny and professional. And, far more importantly, the nurses looked pretty – a far more important consideration if you are about to have pain inflicted upon you. First up was a quick sit in the chair, which had a pleasantly space-age feel about it, including a computer monitor attached showing scuba diving pictures (‘probably feed my remains to his fish’ was my thought). Then it was an x-ray. At the Health house this had taken weeks to do and probably involved pain, but this was just ‘stand here; chin here; bite this; don’t move; whirr; done’. Cool, then, as I sat back down in the space chair my x-ray came up on the screen! (Apologies if this isn’t hi-tech at all and is now common across dentists world wide – it has been 20 years, after all).
And yes, he confirmed that top-right-back was indeed rotten and would need to be pulled out, the sooner the better (I could have told him that... I did tell him that on the beloved Japanese pre-action questionnaire!). But top-left-back, which I thought in a similar condition, actually wasn’t too bad. But the worst bit was back-right-bottom; I’ve always though this one was a bit odd, but the x-ray showed that whilst healthy, it is at completely the wrong angle. Teeth should all be in a nice neat line with the roots pointing down and crown pointing up. This tooth, whilst in a neat line, has its root pointing out the back of my head and the crown at ninety degrees growing into the next tooth. Bugger.
So the doc said that top-right-back needed to come out right away and would be a cinch, 5 minutes at most (what was in Czech dentist said again?), but bottom-right-back needed to come out as well but this would be hard because of the angle and the fact that it is still healthy – he even sucked in his breath through his teeth when he said it...
And then we did the rotten top-right-back. Now if you remember it was the anaesthetic that caused me most issue when I was a kid and I was expecting more of the same. Indeed the new style syringe looked a bit like a hot glue gun you used to get, so I wasn’t holding out much hope, but when he did the business I didn’t feel a thing. I didn’t, for want of a better expression, feel even a slight prick. Wow. And the old style used to make the whole side of my face go numb, but this one was pretty localised around the tooth in question – in fact I began to worry that the anaesthesia had worn off as I could feel the outside of my cheek, but when I gave the gum a surreptitious poke with my finger, no feeling was to be had. Wow again.
Then, in order for the numbness to take full effect, I was put into the hands of a nurse with very pretty eyes who had the undoubted pleasure of cleaning 20 years of tartar of the backs of my teeth, lucky her. So caked on was it that she only had time to do the bottom row before the Doc called me back. With trepidation I settled back into the space chair and let him do his thing. And true to his word, in less than 5 minutes and with barely a sustained tug, the offending peg was in his hand and I didn’t feel a thing. Wow for a third time. And that, rather anti-climactically, was it.
He was relived as he could tell I was sooo stressed about the whole thing, whilst I was full of admiration for his technique – or whoever invented to the new anaesthetic thing. I still have to go back for a bit or remedial work, and the tricky bottom-right-back, which could, literally, be a pain. But overall a little bit of faith has been restored in the dentisting profession, and by a Japanese dentist to boot.
A little was then lost when I found out I was banned from alcohol for the evening to prevent infection, or something. Nice of him to tell me that after the procedure.
Wednesday, 26 July 2006
Caterpillars
Been thinking a lot about The Very Hungary Caterpillar recently, mainly as I seem to have to read it at least 4 times an evening to the young chap (and no, I’m not talking about George Dubya here) as it is one of his favourite reads. So ok, the caterpillar is born and is hungry, good premise so far. His diet over the first week, if you have forgotten, is thus:
Monday – one apple
Tuesday – two pears
Wednesday – three plums
Thursday – four strawberries
Friday – five oranges
So far so good, but then, as we know, he goes for the blow out smorgasbord on Saturday:
One piece of chocolate cake, one ice cream cone, one pickle, one slice of Swiss cheese, one slice of salami, one lollipop, one piece of cherry pie, one sausage, one cupcake, and one slice of watermelon.
And that night, as the story goes, he had a stomachache.
But what is this story trying to tell us, really?
Is the book trying to say that eating a lot of food isn’t a good idea? This seems to be the case as the caterpillar goes from eating five bits of fruit to eating a whole load of stuff. So the underlying message to the young mind might be ‘only eat as much as you need and don’t stuff your face else you’ll end up a fat wheezy kid no one picks for their team’.
But wait; if we look at it from a nutritionist’s point of view might the problem be with the choice of food? I mean the caterpillar, for the first 5 days of his life is following a strictly fruitarian diet – on raw fruit dropped from the bough. But then on Saturday he suddenly gets into complex sugars and starches, diary products, processed and cured meats and strong acidic vinegars. Wow, that would be a shock to anyone’s system, surely? So perhaps what the book is really trying to say is ‘keep as far away from man-made, processed foods and unnecessary fats and sugars as they are not good for you and will mean you have to detox your body else you’ll end up a fat wheezy kid no one picks for their team’. (Ok, similar sort of message but from a very different perspective)
However it might not be as simple as either of those possibilities. What if the book, and its author Eric Carle, is actually trying to suggest to young minds that there is a radical and destructive dichotomy in the world between the haves and the have-nots? In the first 5 days of his life the caterpillar eats as if he is in a pastoral/agricultural economy, what might be construed as the third world, where food is raw and unprocessed and what is eaten is whatever can be grown. But on the Saturday the caterpillar, Gulliver-like, is transported to the ‘first’ world, where he gets to eat all he rubbish that is regularly consumed by overweight westerners who have lost touch with what it means to nurture and grow food and who are at a loss if faced by something raw and unpackaged. No wonder the caterpillar gets sick, we think, but not sick on the food but on the consumerist over consumption of junk whilst half the world starves. So the message might be ‘don’t eat and eat and eat all this rubbish food but realise there is a whole world of starvation out there and anything you can do to help them is a good thing’. (Perhaps the one nice green leaf the caterpillar eats the next day to make himself feel better could be a metaphor for overseas aid and the good work of bodies like Oxfam and the UNHCR).
But of course the nutritionist would be asking “where are the vegetables in this caterpillar’s diet?” And, perhaps more to the point, what does he drink?
I never realised that picture books for young children could be radicalised in quite such a way. But do the kids get it, that’s the important question? I mean, I have been reading the book for a few months now but it has taken me quite a long time to realise that there are far deeper layers than at first you might assume (a bit like Rousseau comparing society to the layers of an onion, in whichever book it was that he wrote that (but I wouldn’t want you to think that I am comparing TVHC to Rousseau, I think the caterpillar is way beyond anything that tiresome French windbag could come up with, though they are both obviously very into their pastoral)). Naturally now I am trying to read all Marcus’ books first, but now with an open mind to see if hidden ideas can be discerned. My worry is, of course, that that in some innocent looking story about a train taking animals to the beach there will be a subliminal message exhorting the youngster to become an accountant, or something equally devastating.
Of course I might be reading too much into it, but don’t get me started on Curious George...
And congratulations...
...to my cousin Matthew who was married to Beáta on a boat in Budapest on Saturday. We couldn’t be there, I am very sad to say, but as soon as someone sends me some photos of the actual wedding I will glad put them up in their honour.
Been thinking a lot about The Very Hungary Caterpillar recently, mainly as I seem to have to read it at least 4 times an evening to the young chap (and no, I’m not talking about George Dubya here) as it is one of his favourite reads. So ok, the caterpillar is born and is hungry, good premise so far. His diet over the first week, if you have forgotten, is thus:
Monday – one apple
Tuesday – two pears
Wednesday – three plums
Thursday – four strawberries
Friday – five oranges
So far so good, but then, as we know, he goes for the blow out smorgasbord on Saturday:
One piece of chocolate cake, one ice cream cone, one pickle, one slice of Swiss cheese, one slice of salami, one lollipop, one piece of cherry pie, one sausage, one cupcake, and one slice of watermelon.
And that night, as the story goes, he had a stomachache.
But what is this story trying to tell us, really?
Is the book trying to say that eating a lot of food isn’t a good idea? This seems to be the case as the caterpillar goes from eating five bits of fruit to eating a whole load of stuff. So the underlying message to the young mind might be ‘only eat as much as you need and don’t stuff your face else you’ll end up a fat wheezy kid no one picks for their team’.
But wait; if we look at it from a nutritionist’s point of view might the problem be with the choice of food? I mean the caterpillar, for the first 5 days of his life is following a strictly fruitarian diet – on raw fruit dropped from the bough. But then on Saturday he suddenly gets into complex sugars and starches, diary products, processed and cured meats and strong acidic vinegars. Wow, that would be a shock to anyone’s system, surely? So perhaps what the book is really trying to say is ‘keep as far away from man-made, processed foods and unnecessary fats and sugars as they are not good for you and will mean you have to detox your body else you’ll end up a fat wheezy kid no one picks for their team’. (Ok, similar sort of message but from a very different perspective)
However it might not be as simple as either of those possibilities. What if the book, and its author Eric Carle, is actually trying to suggest to young minds that there is a radical and destructive dichotomy in the world between the haves and the have-nots? In the first 5 days of his life the caterpillar eats as if he is in a pastoral/agricultural economy, what might be construed as the third world, where food is raw and unprocessed and what is eaten is whatever can be grown. But on the Saturday the caterpillar, Gulliver-like, is transported to the ‘first’ world, where he gets to eat all he rubbish that is regularly consumed by overweight westerners who have lost touch with what it means to nurture and grow food and who are at a loss if faced by something raw and unpackaged. No wonder the caterpillar gets sick, we think, but not sick on the food but on the consumerist over consumption of junk whilst half the world starves. So the message might be ‘don’t eat and eat and eat all this rubbish food but realise there is a whole world of starvation out there and anything you can do to help them is a good thing’. (Perhaps the one nice green leaf the caterpillar eats the next day to make himself feel better could be a metaphor for overseas aid and the good work of bodies like Oxfam and the UNHCR).
But of course the nutritionist would be asking “where are the vegetables in this caterpillar’s diet?” And, perhaps more to the point, what does he drink?
I never realised that picture books for young children could be radicalised in quite such a way. But do the kids get it, that’s the important question? I mean, I have been reading the book for a few months now but it has taken me quite a long time to realise that there are far deeper layers than at first you might assume (a bit like Rousseau comparing society to the layers of an onion, in whichever book it was that he wrote that (but I wouldn’t want you to think that I am comparing TVHC to Rousseau, I think the caterpillar is way beyond anything that tiresome French windbag could come up with, though they are both obviously very into their pastoral)). Naturally now I am trying to read all Marcus’ books first, but now with an open mind to see if hidden ideas can be discerned. My worry is, of course, that that in some innocent looking story about a train taking animals to the beach there will be a subliminal message exhorting the youngster to become an accountant, or something equally devastating.
Of course I might be reading too much into it, but don’t get me started on Curious George...
And congratulations...
...to my cousin Matthew who was married to Beáta on a boat in Budapest on Saturday. We couldn’t be there, I am very sad to say, but as soon as someone sends me some photos of the actual wedding I will glad put them up in their honour.
Tuesday, 18 July 2006
Reverse angle
Ok, I know this is a bit late as the association football world kickabout finished over a week ago, but the computer decided to do something funny on Monday evening (not yesterday but the week before) which is only just righting itself. No idea what happened, but seemed to coincide with the date that those wonderful people at microsoft decided to stop supporting windows 98 – now I know we should get a new computer, one a bit more up to date and that has a larger memory than my ipod, but to hell with it, the good ole’ NEC has only caused me hours of frustration so far, and what makes you think a new one would be any better? Anyway I asked the Japanbloggers webring if anyone had any ideas and they were all very helpful (thank you all), suggesting solutions that had lots of acronyms in them. It tried to do what was suggested, but got bogged down and in the end the laptop seems to have righted itself, after a fashion, anyway. IE is still pretty tetchy, which was where the problem was, it wouldn’t load any pages, and suffice it to say that when we do eventually get a new computer I will certainly be downloading netscape, which I use at work and prefer – if I tried that with the NEC it would explode, or rather implode, I feel sure.
Anyway, a few things to mention this week. As it says above, the reverse angle. Now I watched quite a lot of the world kickabout and cannot quite fathom the reverse angle. I mean take Zindane’s header towards the end of extra time in the final. First of all we get the normal, as-it-happens shot in real time. Fine, great header, great save. Then, as there are about a zillion cameras in the stadium, we start to get the replays, from about a zillion different angles. But then, for some reason, the producer decides that one particular angle is the ‘reverse angle’ and the legend duly pops up on screen. Now from watching all these games I still cannot understand what constitutes the ‘reverse’ angle. Sometimes it is 90 degrees from the original live footage, other times it was 180 degrees, so where was the consistency and, more importantly how did the producer know? Is it important for the match, be judged by the TMO or something? Also, what was the point? As I said each incident was filmed from a zillion different angles so why should one be singled out as the ‘reverse angle’ – ok, it’s one of a zillion angles that isn’t particularly better than any other, so what? I just didn’t get it, and still don’t. I watched the tri-nations Australia versus South Africa game on Saturday night to see of they indulged in the ‘reverse angle’ conspiracy, but I don’t think they bothered – though the data from this piece of investigative rugby watching must be tempered by the fact that I was a bit pissed and actually fell asleep for the last 10 minutes (they were showing it late after all), so it might just be that I missed the sign coming up on the screen. Anyway I shall continue to investigate with any major sporting event that I happen to come across on the telly.
Cute
Cute, for those of you who don’t live here or have never visited, is big in Japan. I don’t mean big in the sense that little kids like cute stuff (though they do, like kids everywhere), or that the people of these fair isles are particularly cute in a good looking way (though again some, most of them undoubtedly are). No, cute is big in Japan in the sense that not only do little kids like cute, furry, cuddly things, the entire population does. Unlike say the UK, where girls grow out of the cute phase by about the age of, I don’t know, ten (I haven’t lived there for a while), in Japan this carries on well into adulthood. There are lots of books written about this and from the outside I am sure it is a psychoanalyst’s wet dream. Perhaps it is the glorification of the young that does it, or maybe it’s just great branding and marketing, who knows? But it seems to permeate every level of society – where else do apparently sophisticated 20-something urbanites of both sexes have Hello! Kitty straps on their mobile phones?
Anyway this was brought home to me the other day whilst I was with the youngster down on the riverbank. There has been quite a bit of construction going on recently, widening and paving the footpaths, that sort of thing. Now as in most countries warning signs are put up to, well, warn people that construction work is going on. here is one I spotted...
and just to zoom in to close up on the bottom of that signboard...
Quite what a couple of cute pussies have in common with repaving footpaths, I don’t know. Also in this series was the ubiquitous floppy-eared dog and, strangely, an image of some penguins (?). seems to me that if you want small kids to be attracted to something, the best bet is to put cute pictures on it, but surely the point of warning signs is to keep people, especially little kids, away from potentially dangerous situations. A contradistinction, methinks...
Krazy Kim
Is at it again. As I am sure you know Krazy Kim fired off some rockets from his People Mart a couple of weeks ago. He did this around 5am on the day of the Italy v Germany kickabout semi-final, which caused panic in the massed ranks of mass media in Japan. now as I have written before, somewhere, Japan has some pretty odd ideas when it comes to screening sports fixtures, and this was no exception. So, Italy Germany went to full time all square. During the second half Krazy Kim looses his rockets. As extra time starts NHK channel 1, showing the footy but nominally a news and current affairs channel, says “thanks for watching the footy so far, but as this news is so massively important we are going to switch the rest of the footy to NHK channel 3. We are sorry that this will completely ruin anyone’s day who is recording the footy on this channel, but, well, fuck you, we don’t care.” Or words to that effect. But it was ok as the two periods of extra time weren’t that interesting, where they? Oh! Ah...
Anyway whilst Krazy Kim has been firing his arsenal at Japan, Russia and anyone else who he deems fit, the Kool Kid has been away on the government sponsored world junket. Now this would, it would appear, be all right and proper, but actually with parliament now closed until September, when the Kid is going to stand down, what this tour really amounts to is a glorious goof off. I mean, he’s been pretended to be Elvis in Graceland, pretended to be Indiana Jones outside Petra and, most recently, pretended to be Japanese prime minister in Saint Petersburg. Nice work!
Ok, I know this is a bit late as the association football world kickabout finished over a week ago, but the computer decided to do something funny on Monday evening (not yesterday but the week before) which is only just righting itself. No idea what happened, but seemed to coincide with the date that those wonderful people at microsoft decided to stop supporting windows 98 – now I know we should get a new computer, one a bit more up to date and that has a larger memory than my ipod, but to hell with it, the good ole’ NEC has only caused me hours of frustration so far, and what makes you think a new one would be any better? Anyway I asked the Japanbloggers webring if anyone had any ideas and they were all very helpful (thank you all), suggesting solutions that had lots of acronyms in them. It tried to do what was suggested, but got bogged down and in the end the laptop seems to have righted itself, after a fashion, anyway. IE is still pretty tetchy, which was where the problem was, it wouldn’t load any pages, and suffice it to say that when we do eventually get a new computer I will certainly be downloading netscape, which I use at work and prefer – if I tried that with the NEC it would explode, or rather implode, I feel sure.
Anyway, a few things to mention this week. As it says above, the reverse angle. Now I watched quite a lot of the world kickabout and cannot quite fathom the reverse angle. I mean take Zindane’s header towards the end of extra time in the final. First of all we get the normal, as-it-happens shot in real time. Fine, great header, great save. Then, as there are about a zillion cameras in the stadium, we start to get the replays, from about a zillion different angles. But then, for some reason, the producer decides that one particular angle is the ‘reverse angle’ and the legend duly pops up on screen. Now from watching all these games I still cannot understand what constitutes the ‘reverse’ angle. Sometimes it is 90 degrees from the original live footage, other times it was 180 degrees, so where was the consistency and, more importantly how did the producer know? Is it important for the match, be judged by the TMO or something? Also, what was the point? As I said each incident was filmed from a zillion different angles so why should one be singled out as the ‘reverse angle’ – ok, it’s one of a zillion angles that isn’t particularly better than any other, so what? I just didn’t get it, and still don’t. I watched the tri-nations Australia versus South Africa game on Saturday night to see of they indulged in the ‘reverse angle’ conspiracy, but I don’t think they bothered – though the data from this piece of investigative rugby watching must be tempered by the fact that I was a bit pissed and actually fell asleep for the last 10 minutes (they were showing it late after all), so it might just be that I missed the sign coming up on the screen. Anyway I shall continue to investigate with any major sporting event that I happen to come across on the telly.
Cute
Cute, for those of you who don’t live here or have never visited, is big in Japan. I don’t mean big in the sense that little kids like cute stuff (though they do, like kids everywhere), or that the people of these fair isles are particularly cute in a good looking way (though again some, most of them undoubtedly are). No, cute is big in Japan in the sense that not only do little kids like cute, furry, cuddly things, the entire population does. Unlike say the UK, where girls grow out of the cute phase by about the age of, I don’t know, ten (I haven’t lived there for a while), in Japan this carries on well into adulthood. There are lots of books written about this and from the outside I am sure it is a psychoanalyst’s wet dream. Perhaps it is the glorification of the young that does it, or maybe it’s just great branding and marketing, who knows? But it seems to permeate every level of society – where else do apparently sophisticated 20-something urbanites of both sexes have Hello! Kitty straps on their mobile phones?
Anyway this was brought home to me the other day whilst I was with the youngster down on the riverbank. There has been quite a bit of construction going on recently, widening and paving the footpaths, that sort of thing. Now as in most countries warning signs are put up to, well, warn people that construction work is going on. here is one I spotted...
and just to zoom in to close up on the bottom of that signboard...
Quite what a couple of cute pussies have in common with repaving footpaths, I don’t know. Also in this series was the ubiquitous floppy-eared dog and, strangely, an image of some penguins (?). seems to me that if you want small kids to be attracted to something, the best bet is to put cute pictures on it, but surely the point of warning signs is to keep people, especially little kids, away from potentially dangerous situations. A contradistinction, methinks...
Krazy Kim
Is at it again. As I am sure you know Krazy Kim fired off some rockets from his People Mart a couple of weeks ago. He did this around 5am on the day of the Italy v Germany kickabout semi-final, which caused panic in the massed ranks of mass media in Japan. now as I have written before, somewhere, Japan has some pretty odd ideas when it comes to screening sports fixtures, and this was no exception. So, Italy Germany went to full time all square. During the second half Krazy Kim looses his rockets. As extra time starts NHK channel 1, showing the footy but nominally a news and current affairs channel, says “thanks for watching the footy so far, but as this news is so massively important we are going to switch the rest of the footy to NHK channel 3. We are sorry that this will completely ruin anyone’s day who is recording the footy on this channel, but, well, fuck you, we don’t care.” Or words to that effect. But it was ok as the two periods of extra time weren’t that interesting, where they? Oh! Ah...
Anyway whilst Krazy Kim has been firing his arsenal at Japan, Russia and anyone else who he deems fit, the Kool Kid has been away on the government sponsored world junket. Now this would, it would appear, be all right and proper, but actually with parliament now closed until September, when the Kid is going to stand down, what this tour really amounts to is a glorious goof off. I mean, he’s been pretended to be Elvis in Graceland, pretended to be Indiana Jones outside Petra and, most recently, pretended to be Japanese prime minister in Saint Petersburg. Nice work!
Thursday, 13 July 2006
Monday, 3 July 2006
Well thank goodness that’s over and done with.
So, once again England fail to show the necessary class against handy but, let’s face it, not exactly superior opposition. Was it the mind games that didn’t work? Are the team just mentally not strong enough? Who knows... Can we take any positives from it all? Well, some of the news members of the squad did well, and some of the senior pros played well in places, but once again it was the old England failing of not all playing well for the whole game, or series of games, really. To be without you captain obviously doesn’t help, but then again there should have been enough quality on display to overcome that and put the game away. But again we failed when the pressure got too much. Have we learnt anything from it all? Well, play your strongest team in the positions they play day-in, day-out would be a start. Have a plan B would be another. But, at the end of the day, I don’t think we’re going to have too many international teams quaking in their boots right now, especially the Australians, who we visit this winter, or indeed the Pakistanis, who are next up. So, on the whole a bit of a debacle for the tour, but well done Sri Lanka and their 5-0 drubbing of the England cricket team.
Oh, and apparently something similar happened in the football, but that wasn’t exactly unexpected, now was it?
And it comes to a pretty pass when I have to rely on a Scottish tennis player for a bit of sporting relief (though as I type Mr Murray may well have been knocked out of Wimbledon already).
Life in Japan carries on apace, as it is wont to do. Nice to see the Kool Kid over in the US of A, making a bit of a fool of himself by pretending to be Elvis. Now personally I have nothing against trying to be Elvis, indeed I have be known to do the odd song by the ‘king’ during a karaoke evening, mainly as these are the types of songs that just about anyone (i.e. me) can sing without sounding totally off-key/rhythm/timing/tone/pitch/etc as I normally do when attempting to sing. But to do it on national news tv and, at the same time, making GWBush look less of a prat than normal, well, it doesn’t really project the image of a senior politico figurehead. But then again, why not, I suppose? The Kid is off later this year, retiring with grace to do who knows what, so why not enjoy his last few months in the job, organise a few foreign trips at the taxpayer’s expense, he won’t get them any more, after all. I feel sure that the Kid went to the land of the free to discuss something along political lines, but I’m buggered if I can remember seeing anything in the papers about new accords being signed. I remember seeing GW saying “buy our beef, it’s great”, but if his level of senility is anything to go by, I would not be buying any slightly dangerous foodstuff that he recommends.
The real issue is that the whole country is waiting for him to go so they can get on with the life. It is a bit like the whole Blair-Brown sage going on the UK, though at least we know when the Kid is off (well, when I say ‘we know’ I mean we know in a general sense of ‘later this year’, but truth be told I can’t recollect right now when this might be). Anyway as I wrote about once before a number of bigwigs are doing their bouffant best to position themselves in their ‘what me, take over from the Kid? The thought never crossed my mind…but now that you mention it’ pose. Still no one wants to come out and say that yes, they want to do it, but I suppose that isn’t the way its done in this neck of the woods – a bit more back room back scratching to do just now, then, just as someone shouts ‘look over there’, we’ll find we have a new PM whilst no one was looking.
But talking of PMs, as we were, it was sad to see Ryutaro Hashimoto pop his clogs at the weekend. Hashimoto was the PM when I first came to Japan in 1996 so I’ve always had a certain affinity for him. If the Kid is the Elvis of the Japanese politic world, the Hashimoto was the Bryan Ferry. If you’re wondering quite what I mean by that, it wasn’t that he was a brilliantly avant-garde muso or a stylish and contemporary dresser in white dinner jackets. No, he just had really greasy looking hair. But still, it meant that he stood out from most politicos as most only have quite greasy hair, and not a great deal of it, but old Hashimoto had a startling head of hair slicked back with a day’s worth of OPEC production. He did two years as PM, which wasn’t bad in the post war years, but again a reason to like him was that he was the chap accused of taking bungs from the political division of the Japan Dentist’s Association, which again I wrote about here I mean, if you’re going to take bribes, sorry donation, from a service industry, dentists are as good as any, and they’re rich, and you might get some decent dental care out of it.
And what with ‘Fiery’ F.S. Trueman shuffling off this mortal coil, it was a bit of a weekend, all told.
So, once again England fail to show the necessary class against handy but, let’s face it, not exactly superior opposition. Was it the mind games that didn’t work? Are the team just mentally not strong enough? Who knows... Can we take any positives from it all? Well, some of the news members of the squad did well, and some of the senior pros played well in places, but once again it was the old England failing of not all playing well for the whole game, or series of games, really. To be without you captain obviously doesn’t help, but then again there should have been enough quality on display to overcome that and put the game away. But again we failed when the pressure got too much. Have we learnt anything from it all? Well, play your strongest team in the positions they play day-in, day-out would be a start. Have a plan B would be another. But, at the end of the day, I don’t think we’re going to have too many international teams quaking in their boots right now, especially the Australians, who we visit this winter, or indeed the Pakistanis, who are next up. So, on the whole a bit of a debacle for the tour, but well done Sri Lanka and their 5-0 drubbing of the England cricket team.
Oh, and apparently something similar happened in the football, but that wasn’t exactly unexpected, now was it?
And it comes to a pretty pass when I have to rely on a Scottish tennis player for a bit of sporting relief (though as I type Mr Murray may well have been knocked out of Wimbledon already).
Life in Japan carries on apace, as it is wont to do. Nice to see the Kool Kid over in the US of A, making a bit of a fool of himself by pretending to be Elvis. Now personally I have nothing against trying to be Elvis, indeed I have be known to do the odd song by the ‘king’ during a karaoke evening, mainly as these are the types of songs that just about anyone (i.e. me) can sing without sounding totally off-key/rhythm/timing/tone/pitch/etc as I normally do when attempting to sing. But to do it on national news tv and, at the same time, making GWBush look less of a prat than normal, well, it doesn’t really project the image of a senior politico figurehead. But then again, why not, I suppose? The Kid is off later this year, retiring with grace to do who knows what, so why not enjoy his last few months in the job, organise a few foreign trips at the taxpayer’s expense, he won’t get them any more, after all. I feel sure that the Kid went to the land of the free to discuss something along political lines, but I’m buggered if I can remember seeing anything in the papers about new accords being signed. I remember seeing GW saying “buy our beef, it’s great”, but if his level of senility is anything to go by, I would not be buying any slightly dangerous foodstuff that he recommends.
The real issue is that the whole country is waiting for him to go so they can get on with the life. It is a bit like the whole Blair-Brown sage going on the UK, though at least we know when the Kid is off (well, when I say ‘we know’ I mean we know in a general sense of ‘later this year’, but truth be told I can’t recollect right now when this might be). Anyway as I wrote about once before a number of bigwigs are doing their bouffant best to position themselves in their ‘what me, take over from the Kid? The thought never crossed my mind…but now that you mention it’ pose. Still no one wants to come out and say that yes, they want to do it, but I suppose that isn’t the way its done in this neck of the woods – a bit more back room back scratching to do just now, then, just as someone shouts ‘look over there’, we’ll find we have a new PM whilst no one was looking.
But talking of PMs, as we were, it was sad to see Ryutaro Hashimoto pop his clogs at the weekend. Hashimoto was the PM when I first came to Japan in 1996 so I’ve always had a certain affinity for him. If the Kid is the Elvis of the Japanese politic world, the Hashimoto was the Bryan Ferry. If you’re wondering quite what I mean by that, it wasn’t that he was a brilliantly avant-garde muso or a stylish and contemporary dresser in white dinner jackets. No, he just had really greasy looking hair. But still, it meant that he stood out from most politicos as most only have quite greasy hair, and not a great deal of it, but old Hashimoto had a startling head of hair slicked back with a day’s worth of OPEC production. He did two years as PM, which wasn’t bad in the post war years, but again a reason to like him was that he was the chap accused of taking bungs from the political division of the Japan Dentist’s Association, which again I wrote about here I mean, if you’re going to take bribes, sorry donation, from a service industry, dentists are as good as any, and they’re rich, and you might get some decent dental care out of it.
And what with ‘Fiery’ F.S. Trueman shuffling off this mortal coil, it was a bit of a weekend, all told.
Wednesday, 21 June 2006
Of technology and trims
OK haven’t posted for a while, as I am sure you have noticed, but this can be blamed fairly and squarely on the Association Football World Cup, currently being played in Germany. It’s their fault as the early afternoon kick off in Europe is a TV friendly 10pm here in Japan, i.e. exactly when I would normally be musing on things to write in this here blog. So today I have taken the bold but necessary step of trying to write something during my lunch hour – and 86 words so far is a good start.
Now I don’t normally post about work as I don’t want to think about work whilst I am at home as it is bad enough having to go to work, let alone think about it at home. But sitting here in the office I still don’t want to think about work, so whilst some of you might want a post about work, you’re not going to get one from this wage slave today.
But what I’m sure you do want to read about is more brushes with technology that I have unfortunately had to make (and no, I am not going to talk about my iPod even though it is my blog and I can write what I want.. but I will say that I am sitting here listening to Beethoven on my iTunes as I type, how civilised). So, around the time the world cup started the grand old Yomiuri printed a schedule with all the games, what time they were on and which channels would be showing them. As I read I became a tad disheartened – Japan has 7 domestic TV channels that everyone can watch in the Kanto area, plus 2 satellite channels run by NHK, the Japan equivalent of the Beeb (and who no one pays the subscription for after some scandal a year or two ago that I cannot now remember – and of course no foreigner ever pays for because as soon as the collection person comes around you put on your best ‘dumb gaijin’ persona (not that difficult), refuse to answer even the simplest question if it’s in Japanese and then try to mime, at great length, that as a foreigner you only watch videos as you can’t understand the local lingo – apparently, so I’ve heard m’lud). Anyway the world cup was to be spread over most channels but predominantly on NHK’s domestic and satellite channels, with certain, high value games only on satellite.
So this is OK as we have satellite so no problem there. But the video is. It is about 400 years old and was given to us when we arrived. It has provided sterling service, no doubt, but its limitations were cruelly exposed by the world cup schedule as it cannot record the satellite channels (and no, before anyone starts on about it, especially those who have never been to Japan and know nothing about the broadcasting and/or home electronics systems (you know who you are), it can’t). this then means that we are going to have to spend some cash on getting something new that can record these programs and so, on a rainy Sunday after the Paraguay game, the Guru, youngster and I troop off to our local Yamada denki to purchase new consumer electronics.
Of course it is not that simple. One, no one buys a simple video deck anymore, not even sure if they make them. Second, there are an awful lot of acronyms out there. And third, in 2011 Japan will go wholly digital so unless you want to spend money now and again in 5 years time, you had better buy something that is savvy with all types of inputs. The choice was, of course, bewildering and the Guru and I (the youngster sensibly fell asleep), did not have much of a clue what we wanted. Well, I say that but we figured we needed something that could record DVDs, something, if it wasn’t too expensive, that had a recordable hard drive and something that, most importantly, could record the analogue satellite broadcasts from NHK that show the footy.
So we looked at all these sleek, expensive boxes in Yamada denki, prodded them, poked them, wondered what the difference between a DVDR, DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD+/-R and DVD-RAM was and generally became confused. Then we saw the most popular, biggest selling model. ‘Absolutely great’ the sales chap assured us. ‘Does everything including make your dinner’ he intoned. ‘All ready for the digital age, in fact the only one that is’ he claimed. ‘Even have big baseball star Hideki Matsui advertising it on the telly’ he added. “Does it record DVDs, have a hard disk and can record the existing NHK satellite channels?” we asked with serious faces. ‘Oh yes, all of the above, sir, just you wait ‘til you get it home’.
So we bought it and a bunch of DVD-RAMs (that I subsequently looked up on wikipedia so now know at least what they are) that set us back the best part of three hundred quid. Got it home and low and behold it could do all of the above – with the one exception of actually being able to record the NHK satellite channels that we expressly bought it for. Bugger. It can record the NHK Hi-vision channels, the new digital ones that will take over fully in 2011 and on which many games are being shown, but that’s not much good if you aren’t hooked up to those channels, which we aren’t, or the building you are in doesn’t want to get the cables put in, which they don’t.
So now we have a jolly complex DVD/HDD recorder thing, which is very cool and does have great features, like being able to start watching the program you are recording whilst you are still recording it, but it still doesn’t do what I really wanted it to do, so this morning I had to get up at 4am to watch England vs. Sweden, as I couldn’t record it, and what a pain that turned out to be and now I am flagging as lack of sleep kicks in. oh well.
Otherwise the other big news this week was a haircut. Not mine, though I did have one last night, but the youngster’s. Yes, at the tender age of 1 year and nearly 2 months he has had his first trim. We, the Guru and I, have been going on about this for a while and...
[finishing this off back home now]
...well, basically neither of us could pluck up the courage to go anywhere near the little fella with a pair of scissors. So off we trotted to a local hairdressers, which is a bit of a grand sounding word for a cheapie in-and-out-in-10-minutes kind of place, where to our surprise one of the chaps there said he’d have a crack at a one year-old’s hair. On we plonked the little ‘un on to the booster seat and then, much to our surprise again, he stayed absolutely stock still, probably paralysed in fear and wonderment, as the chap did his stuff. He snipped, judged, snipped again with a flourish , as artistes do and after about 3 of our allotted 10 minutes, the youngster was done.
And it worked as the hair cut has taken years off him, which at 14 months is a pretty impressive thing to do.
OK haven’t posted for a while, as I am sure you have noticed, but this can be blamed fairly and squarely on the Association Football World Cup, currently being played in Germany. It’s their fault as the early afternoon kick off in Europe is a TV friendly 10pm here in Japan, i.e. exactly when I would normally be musing on things to write in this here blog. So today I have taken the bold but necessary step of trying to write something during my lunch hour – and 86 words so far is a good start.
Now I don’t normally post about work as I don’t want to think about work whilst I am at home as it is bad enough having to go to work, let alone think about it at home. But sitting here in the office I still don’t want to think about work, so whilst some of you might want a post about work, you’re not going to get one from this wage slave today.
But what I’m sure you do want to read about is more brushes with technology that I have unfortunately had to make (and no, I am not going to talk about my iPod even though it is my blog and I can write what I want.. but I will say that I am sitting here listening to Beethoven on my iTunes as I type, how civilised). So, around the time the world cup started the grand old Yomiuri printed a schedule with all the games, what time they were on and which channels would be showing them. As I read I became a tad disheartened – Japan has 7 domestic TV channels that everyone can watch in the Kanto area, plus 2 satellite channels run by NHK, the Japan equivalent of the Beeb (and who no one pays the subscription for after some scandal a year or two ago that I cannot now remember – and of course no foreigner ever pays for because as soon as the collection person comes around you put on your best ‘dumb gaijin’ persona (not that difficult), refuse to answer even the simplest question if it’s in Japanese and then try to mime, at great length, that as a foreigner you only watch videos as you can’t understand the local lingo – apparently, so I’ve heard m’lud). Anyway the world cup was to be spread over most channels but predominantly on NHK’s domestic and satellite channels, with certain, high value games only on satellite.
So this is OK as we have satellite so no problem there. But the video is. It is about 400 years old and was given to us when we arrived. It has provided sterling service, no doubt, but its limitations were cruelly exposed by the world cup schedule as it cannot record the satellite channels (and no, before anyone starts on about it, especially those who have never been to Japan and know nothing about the broadcasting and/or home electronics systems (you know who you are), it can’t). this then means that we are going to have to spend some cash on getting something new that can record these programs and so, on a rainy Sunday after the Paraguay game, the Guru, youngster and I troop off to our local Yamada denki to purchase new consumer electronics.
Of course it is not that simple. One, no one buys a simple video deck anymore, not even sure if they make them. Second, there are an awful lot of acronyms out there. And third, in 2011 Japan will go wholly digital so unless you want to spend money now and again in 5 years time, you had better buy something that is savvy with all types of inputs. The choice was, of course, bewildering and the Guru and I (the youngster sensibly fell asleep), did not have much of a clue what we wanted. Well, I say that but we figured we needed something that could record DVDs, something, if it wasn’t too expensive, that had a recordable hard drive and something that, most importantly, could record the analogue satellite broadcasts from NHK that show the footy.
So we looked at all these sleek, expensive boxes in Yamada denki, prodded them, poked them, wondered what the difference between a DVDR, DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD+/-R and DVD-RAM was and generally became confused. Then we saw the most popular, biggest selling model. ‘Absolutely great’ the sales chap assured us. ‘Does everything including make your dinner’ he intoned. ‘All ready for the digital age, in fact the only one that is’ he claimed. ‘Even have big baseball star Hideki Matsui advertising it on the telly’ he added. “Does it record DVDs, have a hard disk and can record the existing NHK satellite channels?” we asked with serious faces. ‘Oh yes, all of the above, sir, just you wait ‘til you get it home’.
So we bought it and a bunch of DVD-RAMs (that I subsequently looked up on wikipedia so now know at least what they are) that set us back the best part of three hundred quid. Got it home and low and behold it could do all of the above – with the one exception of actually being able to record the NHK satellite channels that we expressly bought it for. Bugger. It can record the NHK Hi-vision channels, the new digital ones that will take over fully in 2011 and on which many games are being shown, but that’s not much good if you aren’t hooked up to those channels, which we aren’t, or the building you are in doesn’t want to get the cables put in, which they don’t.
So now we have a jolly complex DVD/HDD recorder thing, which is very cool and does have great features, like being able to start watching the program you are recording whilst you are still recording it, but it still doesn’t do what I really wanted it to do, so this morning I had to get up at 4am to watch England vs. Sweden, as I couldn’t record it, and what a pain that turned out to be and now I am flagging as lack of sleep kicks in. oh well.
Otherwise the other big news this week was a haircut. Not mine, though I did have one last night, but the youngster’s. Yes, at the tender age of 1 year and nearly 2 months he has had his first trim. We, the Guru and I, have been going on about this for a while and...
[finishing this off back home now]
...well, basically neither of us could pluck up the courage to go anywhere near the little fella with a pair of scissors. So off we trotted to a local hairdressers, which is a bit of a grand sounding word for a cheapie in-and-out-in-10-minutes kind of place, where to our surprise one of the chaps there said he’d have a crack at a one year-old’s hair. On we plonked the little ‘un on to the booster seat and then, much to our surprise again, he stayed absolutely stock still, probably paralysed in fear and wonderment, as the chap did his stuff. He snipped, judged, snipped again with a flourish , as artistes do and after about 3 of our allotted 10 minutes, the youngster was done.
And it worked as the hair cut has taken years off him, which at 14 months is a pretty impressive thing to do.
Tuesday, 6 June 2006
One step closer
Now if you remember back to here, I started an aural exploration of my ipod recently with a view to listening to each and every song on there, just to say that I had. So recently I was walking along when the U2 track “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For”, track #643, came along. Just to digress for a moment, there are 30 song titles in my ipod that start with the pronoun (that, for all you grammarians out there, is a noun that has lost its amateur status) ‘I’ – this is more than the 17 ‘alls’ that I remarked upon earlier, but in my opinion is not as remarkable as all the alls as I just seems like a more song-y kind of word to start wit. I will spare you the list of 30 songs as I can’t be bothered to note them all down. (NB. I will also not be counting the hundred or whatever songs that start with the definite article as that would just be silly).
Anyway the U2 song with the long title came on and it got me a-musing, as these things are wont to do. The muse went along the line of ‘hmm, I remember this...haven’t heard it for a while...[interlude of half humming half singing long forgotten words]...biggest seller on the planet once...read about it in Q magazine ages ago...hmmm,1987 it was released........1987! Holy Shit that’s 20 years ago...TWENTY YEARS AGO!! (I don’t often do double exclamation marks, but this moment was a definite double).
Normally this would have been an issue, but in that week my dear Ma had written to me with contact details of a bloke who I’d known at school and college, we’d played rugby together for about 8 years, but with whom I’d lost contact with around the start of university. Anyway my mum met his mum, she passed on his email address and we got in touch. It had been 15 years, or something very near that. He didn’t know I live in Japan even though I’ve been here for the best part of a decade. It blew me away.
So it all got me thinking about that fact that I’m getting older. It had to happen sometime, I know, especially after the youngster was born, but I didn’t think I would sneak up on me this way – I bet everyone says that. So ‘I Still...’ was off the Joshua Tree album that was released in 1987 which is about 20 years ago, and as my mind did strange things with mental arithmetic it said to me “wow, so, the Joshua tree was released 20years ago and, like, if you go back twenty years from that you’re in, like 1967, which is like another planet”. That’s when I began to lose it a little. It only seems (sort of) like yesterday that I got a copy of the Joshua tree and played it for the first time, but twenty years before that is like soooooo long ago – but if course it’s not, it just seems that way to me.
So anyway, as I was mulling all this over, my disappeared youth and the fact that policemen and doctors are looking younger everyday, fate in her fickle way decided to make me feel really bad.
In our office at the moment is a guy named Joe. He is from New York and is an intern. He came to Japan a few months ago and is studying at a university in Chiba but on a Wednesday he comes to our office to gain valuable experience in business and to use his rapidly expanding Japanese vocabulary (the fact they put him on the only set of desks containing foreigners who are all English speakers seems to have escaped his handlers, but there you go (and he’ll learn an awful lot about how companies operate from that piece of planning...)). So I was talking to Dave about this whole ‘getting older’ thing and we were both looking in wonder back at the nineties and eighties, wondering where they had gone, and so, knowing it would hurt, asked Joe how old he is. “Twenty” wss the reply. We both do some mental arithmetic, but get confused so ask his date of birth. “October 1985” he answered.
It then dawns on us both, Dave and I that is, that pleasant Joe from New York was not even born when the original Live Aid concerts were on in the summer of 1985... OMG. And to make it worse is that he looks at us, as our jaws (and jowls and waistlines) sag, with a kind of ‘yeah, I’ve heard about it but it was, like, so long ago man, ancient history, it had those kind of drug dudes from like the seventies in there, the hippy stuff, yeah, whatever...’ expression. He probably looks at the original Live Aid the way I look at Woodstock – yeah, I know it happened but like get over it, it was ages ago and no one cares about it anymore, live in the now, man – or something like that. (God knows what Joe thinks of Woodstock, probably reads about it in history class).
All the markers of my formative youth, things like the Falkland’s war, Bhopal and Chernobyl, the first shuttle launch and then the Challenger disaster, Gazza, the Mary Rose etc – this kid has no first hand knowledge of them whatsoever. Completely freaked me out, I can tell you – but what is it going to feel like when the youngster grows up...?
PS up to track #730 now, Kashmir by Plant & Page off their MTV (sort of) unplugged album No Quarter.
Now if you remember back to here, I started an aural exploration of my ipod recently with a view to listening to each and every song on there, just to say that I had. So recently I was walking along when the U2 track “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For”, track #643, came along. Just to digress for a moment, there are 30 song titles in my ipod that start with the pronoun (that, for all you grammarians out there, is a noun that has lost its amateur status) ‘I’ – this is more than the 17 ‘alls’ that I remarked upon earlier, but in my opinion is not as remarkable as all the alls as I just seems like a more song-y kind of word to start wit. I will spare you the list of 30 songs as I can’t be bothered to note them all down. (NB. I will also not be counting the hundred or whatever songs that start with the definite article as that would just be silly).
Anyway the U2 song with the long title came on and it got me a-musing, as these things are wont to do. The muse went along the line of ‘hmm, I remember this...haven’t heard it for a while...[interlude of half humming half singing long forgotten words]...biggest seller on the planet once...read about it in Q magazine ages ago...hmmm,1987 it was released........1987! Holy Shit that’s 20 years ago...TWENTY YEARS AGO!! (I don’t often do double exclamation marks, but this moment was a definite double).
Normally this would have been an issue, but in that week my dear Ma had written to me with contact details of a bloke who I’d known at school and college, we’d played rugby together for about 8 years, but with whom I’d lost contact with around the start of university. Anyway my mum met his mum, she passed on his email address and we got in touch. It had been 15 years, or something very near that. He didn’t know I live in Japan even though I’ve been here for the best part of a decade. It blew me away.
So it all got me thinking about that fact that I’m getting older. It had to happen sometime, I know, especially after the youngster was born, but I didn’t think I would sneak up on me this way – I bet everyone says that. So ‘I Still...’ was off the Joshua Tree album that was released in 1987 which is about 20 years ago, and as my mind did strange things with mental arithmetic it said to me “wow, so, the Joshua tree was released 20years ago and, like, if you go back twenty years from that you’re in, like 1967, which is like another planet”. That’s when I began to lose it a little. It only seems (sort of) like yesterday that I got a copy of the Joshua tree and played it for the first time, but twenty years before that is like soooooo long ago – but if course it’s not, it just seems that way to me.
So anyway, as I was mulling all this over, my disappeared youth and the fact that policemen and doctors are looking younger everyday, fate in her fickle way decided to make me feel really bad.
In our office at the moment is a guy named Joe. He is from New York and is an intern. He came to Japan a few months ago and is studying at a university in Chiba but on a Wednesday he comes to our office to gain valuable experience in business and to use his rapidly expanding Japanese vocabulary (the fact they put him on the only set of desks containing foreigners who are all English speakers seems to have escaped his handlers, but there you go (and he’ll learn an awful lot about how companies operate from that piece of planning...)). So I was talking to Dave about this whole ‘getting older’ thing and we were both looking in wonder back at the nineties and eighties, wondering where they had gone, and so, knowing it would hurt, asked Joe how old he is. “Twenty” wss the reply. We both do some mental arithmetic, but get confused so ask his date of birth. “October 1985” he answered.
It then dawns on us both, Dave and I that is, that pleasant Joe from New York was not even born when the original Live Aid concerts were on in the summer of 1985... OMG. And to make it worse is that he looks at us, as our jaws (and jowls and waistlines) sag, with a kind of ‘yeah, I’ve heard about it but it was, like, so long ago man, ancient history, it had those kind of drug dudes from like the seventies in there, the hippy stuff, yeah, whatever...’ expression. He probably looks at the original Live Aid the way I look at Woodstock – yeah, I know it happened but like get over it, it was ages ago and no one cares about it anymore, live in the now, man – or something like that. (God knows what Joe thinks of Woodstock, probably reads about it in history class).
All the markers of my formative youth, things like the Falkland’s war, Bhopal and Chernobyl, the first shuttle launch and then the Challenger disaster, Gazza, the Mary Rose etc – this kid has no first hand knowledge of them whatsoever. Completely freaked me out, I can tell you – but what is it going to feel like when the youngster grows up...?
PS up to track #730 now, Kashmir by Plant & Page off their MTV (sort of) unplugged album No Quarter.
Monday, 29 May 2006
Good news
So the good news about this weekend, apart from the fact that I took today and tomorrow off, giving me a four day weekend, is that the youngster decided that he had had enough of this crawling or standing lark so so put them together in a semblance of what can only be described as 'walking' (though waddling then falling over would be slightly more accurate, so gross misuse of the word 'only' there).
His first attempt at this seems to have been on Friday evening - as I was getting ready to give him a bath he was standing by, and holding on to, the fridge. He then let go but instead of sitting down, as is normal, he took three tottering steps to the door, whence he held on once more. I was watching this in the bathroom mirror (the angles are such that one can see into the kitchen, this usually entails a game of peekaboo with the youngster) and thought it was impressive but something he had already done, but on telling the Guru she was surprised as she had not yet seen it (a rare occurence when dad sees something for the first time!). Obviously he realised that as a big boy (well, it was 1 day before his 13 month 'birthday'), he had better get this walking thing sorted, and so he has.
But for some strange reason he has regressed a little in that whilst over the weekend he has tried, and achieved, quite a bit of tottering, the new best game is to use his stroller/trolley thing to practise with, supported by the bar rather that 'free' walking. Anyway that will come, I am sure, but for now it is a big well done for the walking boy!
So the good news about this weekend, apart from the fact that I took today and tomorrow off, giving me a four day weekend, is that the youngster decided that he had had enough of this crawling or standing lark so so put them together in a semblance of what can only be described as 'walking' (though waddling then falling over would be slightly more accurate, so gross misuse of the word 'only' there).
His first attempt at this seems to have been on Friday evening - as I was getting ready to give him a bath he was standing by, and holding on to, the fridge. He then let go but instead of sitting down, as is normal, he took three tottering steps to the door, whence he held on once more. I was watching this in the bathroom mirror (the angles are such that one can see into the kitchen, this usually entails a game of peekaboo with the youngster) and thought it was impressive but something he had already done, but on telling the Guru she was surprised as she had not yet seen it (a rare occurence when dad sees something for the first time!). Obviously he realised that as a big boy (well, it was 1 day before his 13 month 'birthday'), he had better get this walking thing sorted, and so he has.
But for some strange reason he has regressed a little in that whilst over the weekend he has tried, and achieved, quite a bit of tottering, the new best game is to use his stroller/trolley thing to practise with, supported by the bar rather that 'free' walking. Anyway that will come, I am sure, but for now it is a big well done for the walking boy!
Wednesday, 24 May 2006
First Aid
So on Saturday we went off for adventures in Kinshicho. Now you may think there is little adventure to be had in Kinshicho, and in the main you would be right, but we found a little bit of it that was not only adventuresome but also educational and informative as well. Well slightly adventuresome, at least. OK, I’m padding now.
Ever since the little ‘un was born the Guru, in her dedicated mother sort of way, had been looking for a kind of first aid for little kids type class we could go to together as a family. Now I know what you are thinking, how can a one year-old kid do first aid? But no this was a class for the parents of kids who have a feeling that their kid is going to injure themselves in the not too distant future (i.e. every parent on the planet, I reckon).
But it might surprise you to know that these kinds of classes are pretty few and far between and hence we had to go all the way to Kinshicho to find one – not that Kinshicho is really that far away, but it isn’t just around the corner and took a good hour to get to via various train lines. We were meant to leave around 1130ish but sitting arounf at 930 we found we had little to do except tidy the house and as such the cry of ‘why don’t we go earlier?’ was raised and accepted with, it has to be said, a lucky degree of foresight.
The other reason for going was to visit a brand spanking new Baby Zarus. Now I am sure you can looking at it written there, quickly work out that is meant, in fact, to be Babies ‘R’ Us, but when the Guru told me this was where she was intending to go I must admit that it took me a good 5 minutes to work out what she talking about (try saying it quickly with a Japanese accent and you’ll see what I mean). So we arrived in Kinshicho early and headed off in search of the aforementioned Baby Zarus, which had only be open for about a week. Whilst we were in the UK for crimbo we went to a UK version (or it might have been a Toy Zarus, I can’t quite remember) and it was, to be quite frank, somewhat on the dingy side, a bit tatty, understaffed and well, a bit dishevelled – basically, I suppose, like the UK. But this one was all gleaming and new and shiny and, as with most shops in Japan, heavily staffed. However what we also found out was that it was pretty over-priced and Akachan Honpo (to whom we take off our hats) was just as good and a darned sight cheaper (though I will admit that Baby Zarus has Baby Einstein DVDs, of which I will return to purchase as I haven’t seen them anywhere else in Japan).
Other than that it was all pretty much the same as the baby store was in a shopping mall that, I figure, there is a big mould for in some far away corner of Japan, as these places are ubiquitous not only in their occurrence in the towns of Japan but also in their uniformity and, truth be known, their dullness. (OK, OK, I know, cheap shot at shopping malls, but come on, they’re getting a bit too much now, don’t you think?)
Then it was onto the fire station and their attached ‘Disaster Prevention Centre’, or somesuch grandiose name (hint – to prevent disasters in Japan, move away from seismic fault lines and volcanoes (and yes, I realise that would mean moving out of the country all together)). So we arrived and registered and then had a few minutes to poke around and see what was what. It is quite a good place this and there were lots of kids playing with various touch screen TV gizmos that told them how to put out fires or save their elderly relatives from mochi-death at new year and, as luck would have it, you could choose English language variations as well. Got to worth a crack, thought I, and selected a machine for phoning the fire and/or ambulance service. At the start this was quite straight forward as you selected what sort f thing you wanted to report, I chose an accident in the home, then you picked up a real phone and placed the imaginary call. But here it got a little strange at the voice at the other end of the phone said everything in Japanese and the TV screen translated it into English and, as it was all a recording, it didn’t matter what you said into the phone as the video played through anyway. So if I do ever have to phone in an accident in our home I hope a bloke on a TV screen suddenly appears as otherwise person at the emergency end of the phone isn’t going to understand too much of what I’m saying. Hmm.
So onto the first aid bit. Now having been in various boys organisations as a spotty youth I have a pretty good grasp of first aid, rusty though it may be, and so I was quite looking forward to this to see if it was what I remembered and to see if things were the same in Japan as the UK. But in the end there wasn’t actually that much first aid going on, more it was what to do in one of two situations: 1 what to do if your baby is choking on something and; 2 what to do if s/he has stopped breathing (and to be fair the first one is something that is invariably going to happen, judging by the fact that anything that can be picked up goes into the mouth almost straight away).
Places on these sessions are hard to come by and when we saw the other attendees it was easy to see why. The session had been block booked by the Kinshicho women’s volunteer baby task force group, or something, about 15 of whom took over one end of the practice dojo, there were only two couples with kids in there, of which we were one. Not sure what the task force actually do, could be cleaning up the dodgy, gang infested streets of Kinshicho for all I know, but some of them looked pretty mean to me (and others pretty dopey so maybe not).
The leader of the session was not some strapping fire or paramedic type person but a little old lady in a uniform whose skirt made getting up and down from mats on the floor quite an operation. She was also one of those types who would not stop talking or interrupting, which can make instruction excruciating at times. First the choking. This was practiced with a plastic baby who had swallowed a small foam pellet just the right size to get trapped in a hole in her mouth. The instruction was simple, put the baby face down on your thigh as you are kneeling and then give it one almighty thump on the small of the back with the heel of your hand. The instructor women said hard, but I am sure that the way I was thumping the back (and failing to remove the pellet) I would have broken the baby’s spine, but there you go. She said it was fine and in the end the pellet did come out, but only after enough force had been applied to dislodge the lungs, appendix and spleen, I suspect.
The stopped breathing bit was more complex as you had to check various things as you went along, as you would expect, and ended with trying to give artificial respiration to another small plastic baby. This was actually quite interesting and we all got quite into this – the thing to remember is when you are trying to blow air into the baby’s lungs you should only do it a little bit otherwise you might blow too much air in the lungs might explode – not a nice way to go! Anyway the point about this was the instructor showed everyone how to do it, then went through it again, and again and again. Then we got to have a go with the dolls and she talked us through it, stopping at each action to explain, again, what and why. And then we did it again to her accompaniment. At no time did she let everyone just have a go themselves, all the time she was clapping and counting and stopping and explaining. Even the Guru got frustrated with the instructor so in the end we just did it ourselves and got the hang of it without interference, which we felt was more important as it is unlikely the instructor will be in our apartment to help count out 10 seconds if something does happen to the little ‘un.
And that was about it, so now we fell jolly prepared for if something does happen – well, a little bit more prepared than we did before. They also had one of the big earthquake simulators there, which we really wanted to go on, but it was all part of a tour that we had missed the start of so wouldn’t let us in, more’s the pity. But by the end of the day the plan to go early proved the right decision as just as we got home a massive rain storm hit, flash flooding in the streets stylee, and we just missed it. Nice.
So on Saturday we went off for adventures in Kinshicho. Now you may think there is little adventure to be had in Kinshicho, and in the main you would be right, but we found a little bit of it that was not only adventuresome but also educational and informative as well. Well slightly adventuresome, at least. OK, I’m padding now.
Ever since the little ‘un was born the Guru, in her dedicated mother sort of way, had been looking for a kind of first aid for little kids type class we could go to together as a family. Now I know what you are thinking, how can a one year-old kid do first aid? But no this was a class for the parents of kids who have a feeling that their kid is going to injure themselves in the not too distant future (i.e. every parent on the planet, I reckon).
But it might surprise you to know that these kinds of classes are pretty few and far between and hence we had to go all the way to Kinshicho to find one – not that Kinshicho is really that far away, but it isn’t just around the corner and took a good hour to get to via various train lines. We were meant to leave around 1130ish but sitting arounf at 930 we found we had little to do except tidy the house and as such the cry of ‘why don’t we go earlier?’ was raised and accepted with, it has to be said, a lucky degree of foresight.
The other reason for going was to visit a brand spanking new Baby Zarus. Now I am sure you can looking at it written there, quickly work out that is meant, in fact, to be Babies ‘R’ Us, but when the Guru told me this was where she was intending to go I must admit that it took me a good 5 minutes to work out what she talking about (try saying it quickly with a Japanese accent and you’ll see what I mean). So we arrived in Kinshicho early and headed off in search of the aforementioned Baby Zarus, which had only be open for about a week. Whilst we were in the UK for crimbo we went to a UK version (or it might have been a Toy Zarus, I can’t quite remember) and it was, to be quite frank, somewhat on the dingy side, a bit tatty, understaffed and well, a bit dishevelled – basically, I suppose, like the UK. But this one was all gleaming and new and shiny and, as with most shops in Japan, heavily staffed. However what we also found out was that it was pretty over-priced and Akachan Honpo (to whom we take off our hats) was just as good and a darned sight cheaper (though I will admit that Baby Zarus has Baby Einstein DVDs, of which I will return to purchase as I haven’t seen them anywhere else in Japan).
Other than that it was all pretty much the same as the baby store was in a shopping mall that, I figure, there is a big mould for in some far away corner of Japan, as these places are ubiquitous not only in their occurrence in the towns of Japan but also in their uniformity and, truth be known, their dullness. (OK, OK, I know, cheap shot at shopping malls, but come on, they’re getting a bit too much now, don’t you think?)
Then it was onto the fire station and their attached ‘Disaster Prevention Centre’, or somesuch grandiose name (hint – to prevent disasters in Japan, move away from seismic fault lines and volcanoes (and yes, I realise that would mean moving out of the country all together)). So we arrived and registered and then had a few minutes to poke around and see what was what. It is quite a good place this and there were lots of kids playing with various touch screen TV gizmos that told them how to put out fires or save their elderly relatives from mochi-death at new year and, as luck would have it, you could choose English language variations as well. Got to worth a crack, thought I, and selected a machine for phoning the fire and/or ambulance service. At the start this was quite straight forward as you selected what sort f thing you wanted to report, I chose an accident in the home, then you picked up a real phone and placed the imaginary call. But here it got a little strange at the voice at the other end of the phone said everything in Japanese and the TV screen translated it into English and, as it was all a recording, it didn’t matter what you said into the phone as the video played through anyway. So if I do ever have to phone in an accident in our home I hope a bloke on a TV screen suddenly appears as otherwise person at the emergency end of the phone isn’t going to understand too much of what I’m saying. Hmm.
So onto the first aid bit. Now having been in various boys organisations as a spotty youth I have a pretty good grasp of first aid, rusty though it may be, and so I was quite looking forward to this to see if it was what I remembered and to see if things were the same in Japan as the UK. But in the end there wasn’t actually that much first aid going on, more it was what to do in one of two situations: 1 what to do if your baby is choking on something and; 2 what to do if s/he has stopped breathing (and to be fair the first one is something that is invariably going to happen, judging by the fact that anything that can be picked up goes into the mouth almost straight away).
Places on these sessions are hard to come by and when we saw the other attendees it was easy to see why. The session had been block booked by the Kinshicho women’s volunteer baby task force group, or something, about 15 of whom took over one end of the practice dojo, there were only two couples with kids in there, of which we were one. Not sure what the task force actually do, could be cleaning up the dodgy, gang infested streets of Kinshicho for all I know, but some of them looked pretty mean to me (and others pretty dopey so maybe not).
The leader of the session was not some strapping fire or paramedic type person but a little old lady in a uniform whose skirt made getting up and down from mats on the floor quite an operation. She was also one of those types who would not stop talking or interrupting, which can make instruction excruciating at times. First the choking. This was practiced with a plastic baby who had swallowed a small foam pellet just the right size to get trapped in a hole in her mouth. The instruction was simple, put the baby face down on your thigh as you are kneeling and then give it one almighty thump on the small of the back with the heel of your hand. The instructor women said hard, but I am sure that the way I was thumping the back (and failing to remove the pellet) I would have broken the baby’s spine, but there you go. She said it was fine and in the end the pellet did come out, but only after enough force had been applied to dislodge the lungs, appendix and spleen, I suspect.
The stopped breathing bit was more complex as you had to check various things as you went along, as you would expect, and ended with trying to give artificial respiration to another small plastic baby. This was actually quite interesting and we all got quite into this – the thing to remember is when you are trying to blow air into the baby’s lungs you should only do it a little bit otherwise you might blow too much air in the lungs might explode – not a nice way to go! Anyway the point about this was the instructor showed everyone how to do it, then went through it again, and again and again. Then we got to have a go with the dolls and she talked us through it, stopping at each action to explain, again, what and why. And then we did it again to her accompaniment. At no time did she let everyone just have a go themselves, all the time she was clapping and counting and stopping and explaining. Even the Guru got frustrated with the instructor so in the end we just did it ourselves and got the hang of it without interference, which we felt was more important as it is unlikely the instructor will be in our apartment to help count out 10 seconds if something does happen to the little ‘un.
And that was about it, so now we fell jolly prepared for if something does happen – well, a little bit more prepared than we did before. They also had one of the big earthquake simulators there, which we really wanted to go on, but it was all part of a tour that we had missed the start of so wouldn’t let us in, more’s the pity. But by the end of the day the plan to go early proved the right decision as just as we got home a massive rain storm hit, flash flooding in the streets stylee, and we just missed it. Nice.
Tuesday, 16 May 2006
Wednesday, 10 May 2006
Have decided to become a bit coy with the photos of the family, no real reason but there are some weirdos out there who may want to use photos for nefarious purposes like, I don't know, pretending to be me, for example, and we can't have that. So, if you would like to see new photos of the family please get a Flickr log in thing and let me know what it is and I will, after careful vetting, perhaps add you to the list of desirables...
Monday, 8 May 2006
Children’s Day
It isn’t really called children’s day, you know, that, apparently, is quite an un-Japanese sop to PC-ness and inclusion. It’s actually Boy’s Day and most people still refer to it as this, because, basically, boys are allowed to have more fun in Japan than girls so they need a day especially for them, or something like that. That day is May 5th (also, by coincidence, my mother’s birthday – happy birthday mum) and is a national holiday (there is, I think, also a girl’s day, but of course it is a normal day rather than a holiday for obvious reasons (like wives/mothers aren’t allowed a day off so why should girls get one? (The views expressed here are in no way representative of the liberal, new manliness of the author, not only do I eat quiche but I can make a pretty darned fine one too))).
Anyway it was ‘Children’s’ Day on Friday last week and this was also the first proper one for the youngster, as last year he would only have been about two weeks old, and as such there are strange and wonderful traditions that need to be upheld, although actually the strange tradition was for something else, but we will come to that in time.
So on the 5th the Japanese grandparentals and uncle came over to pay their respects to the youngster and generally for lunch and a beer or two. There are two things you have to do for boys on ‘Children’s’ day, the first is to buy some Shobu. Shobu is, as far as I can tell, a worthless type of grass, or possibly weed. You can’t eat it, it doesn’t look particularly appealing and it doesn’t have an arresting fragrance. In fact it is the sort of thing that farmers, a few centuries ago, looked at and decided ‘well, we can’t actually do anything with this stuff, but it seems rampant round the rice fields, so let’s invent a ceremony for it, otherwise we’ll have to cut all the blasted stuff down and that will take forever”. Or something. So, what you have to do is hang some of this stuff around you front door on ‘Children’s’ day in honour and homage of any boys in your house. Fair enough, I guess, bit like hanging mistletoe at Christmas, possibly. Then when grandparentals come in they can nod sagely and murmur “well done on the shobu front. No, I don’t know what it’s for either”.
But then, at the end of the day, when you shobu is beginning to wilt, do you throw the stuff away? Oh no, much better than that, you have a bath with it. As I said before it seems to have no smell, or healing properties, it is grass after all, but tradition has it that you pop a couple of plants in your ofuro before your evening soak. There were even pictures on TV of local sento bath houses with baths full of the stuff. And to be fair the youngster kind of enjoyed it – well, kind of enjoyed slapping it in my face as I gave him a bath, which is pretty much the same thing, but I’m not entirely sure that was the point.
The second thing you must do for boys on ‘Children’s’ day is to buy them some imitation ceremonial samurai armour, so they grow up to be big strong warriors following the Bushido code (and to keep ceremonial armour manufacturers in business), though no one seems to actually wear samurai armour on a daily basis any more, so I think things may have moved on a little. Anyway as you can see from the photos below, we have bought the youngster some rather fine blue, black and gold armour (well, helmet) that has been on display for a week or two now. Unfortunately you can’t actually put the armour on, or even draw the little sword that comes with it, as, I assume, it might be dangerous. But still, it’s pretty cool stuff to have. Girls have to make do with a bunch of Hina dolls on their day – as I said, more fun to be a boy.
The other thing we got to do was an old, old Saitama tradition that the Guru heard about from her pregnant pals and which thought sounded like jolly good fun. The tradtion goes something like this. After a baby (boy or girl this time) has reached the ripe old age of one they take part in a ceremony called Ishoumochi where the parents go to a department store and buy a bloody great lump of mochi, weighing in at about 1.5 kilos (or about 3lbs in old money). Now mochi, if you remember, is pounded rice that forms kind of stringy mozzarella type stuff that Japanese eat lots of at new year and by which old folk are always dying as it gets all stringy in their throats and they suffocate. Anyway it is solid stuff and, again as you can see from the photo below, the lump is quite big and has kanji painted on it. The idea is to show how big and strong a baby is by tying this lump of mochi to them and then getting them to walk around with it.
Now this is jolly good fun, except, of course, for the little kid that has got to do it. The youngster did not take kindly to having 1.5kgs of mochi strapped to his back at all (I can’t imagine why). Apart from the fact that he can’t walk yet and his standing is of the tentative kind as well. But he did manage to crawl a bit, dragging the mochi behind him, which we all agreed was pretty good going and so have him a rousing hurrah. Apparently if the kid can’t do it with one lump of mochi it is because they are over balanced, so the accepted remedy is to strap two lumps to them, one front and one behind (just the 3kgs then) so as to counter balance the forces on them.
Personally I’m all for weird and wonderful traditions, especially ones I can’t understand and can humiliate my offspring with in the future, so I had another beer and watched the show.
Happy families on Children's day
’Children’s’ day armour
Trying to carry the mochi
Playing with the mochi
Quality time
It isn’t really called children’s day, you know, that, apparently, is quite an un-Japanese sop to PC-ness and inclusion. It’s actually Boy’s Day and most people still refer to it as this, because, basically, boys are allowed to have more fun in Japan than girls so they need a day especially for them, or something like that. That day is May 5th (also, by coincidence, my mother’s birthday – happy birthday mum) and is a national holiday (there is, I think, also a girl’s day, but of course it is a normal day rather than a holiday for obvious reasons (like wives/mothers aren’t allowed a day off so why should girls get one? (The views expressed here are in no way representative of the liberal, new manliness of the author, not only do I eat quiche but I can make a pretty darned fine one too))).
Anyway it was ‘Children’s’ Day on Friday last week and this was also the first proper one for the youngster, as last year he would only have been about two weeks old, and as such there are strange and wonderful traditions that need to be upheld, although actually the strange tradition was for something else, but we will come to that in time.
So on the 5th the Japanese grandparentals and uncle came over to pay their respects to the youngster and generally for lunch and a beer or two. There are two things you have to do for boys on ‘Children’s’ day, the first is to buy some Shobu. Shobu is, as far as I can tell, a worthless type of grass, or possibly weed. You can’t eat it, it doesn’t look particularly appealing and it doesn’t have an arresting fragrance. In fact it is the sort of thing that farmers, a few centuries ago, looked at and decided ‘well, we can’t actually do anything with this stuff, but it seems rampant round the rice fields, so let’s invent a ceremony for it, otherwise we’ll have to cut all the blasted stuff down and that will take forever”. Or something. So, what you have to do is hang some of this stuff around you front door on ‘Children’s’ day in honour and homage of any boys in your house. Fair enough, I guess, bit like hanging mistletoe at Christmas, possibly. Then when grandparentals come in they can nod sagely and murmur “well done on the shobu front. No, I don’t know what it’s for either”.
But then, at the end of the day, when you shobu is beginning to wilt, do you throw the stuff away? Oh no, much better than that, you have a bath with it. As I said before it seems to have no smell, or healing properties, it is grass after all, but tradition has it that you pop a couple of plants in your ofuro before your evening soak. There were even pictures on TV of local sento bath houses with baths full of the stuff. And to be fair the youngster kind of enjoyed it – well, kind of enjoyed slapping it in my face as I gave him a bath, which is pretty much the same thing, but I’m not entirely sure that was the point.
The second thing you must do for boys on ‘Children’s’ day is to buy them some imitation ceremonial samurai armour, so they grow up to be big strong warriors following the Bushido code (and to keep ceremonial armour manufacturers in business), though no one seems to actually wear samurai armour on a daily basis any more, so I think things may have moved on a little. Anyway as you can see from the photos below, we have bought the youngster some rather fine blue, black and gold armour (well, helmet) that has been on display for a week or two now. Unfortunately you can’t actually put the armour on, or even draw the little sword that comes with it, as, I assume, it might be dangerous. But still, it’s pretty cool stuff to have. Girls have to make do with a bunch of Hina dolls on their day – as I said, more fun to be a boy.
The other thing we got to do was an old, old Saitama tradition that the Guru heard about from her pregnant pals and which thought sounded like jolly good fun. The tradtion goes something like this. After a baby (boy or girl this time) has reached the ripe old age of one they take part in a ceremony called Ishoumochi where the parents go to a department store and buy a bloody great lump of mochi, weighing in at about 1.5 kilos (or about 3lbs in old money). Now mochi, if you remember, is pounded rice that forms kind of stringy mozzarella type stuff that Japanese eat lots of at new year and by which old folk are always dying as it gets all stringy in their throats and they suffocate. Anyway it is solid stuff and, again as you can see from the photo below, the lump is quite big and has kanji painted on it. The idea is to show how big and strong a baby is by tying this lump of mochi to them and then getting them to walk around with it.
Now this is jolly good fun, except, of course, for the little kid that has got to do it. The youngster did not take kindly to having 1.5kgs of mochi strapped to his back at all (I can’t imagine why). Apart from the fact that he can’t walk yet and his standing is of the tentative kind as well. But he did manage to crawl a bit, dragging the mochi behind him, which we all agreed was pretty good going and so have him a rousing hurrah. Apparently if the kid can’t do it with one lump of mochi it is because they are over balanced, so the accepted remedy is to strap two lumps to them, one front and one behind (just the 3kgs then) so as to counter balance the forces on them.
Personally I’m all for weird and wonderful traditions, especially ones I can’t understand and can humiliate my offspring with in the future, so I had another beer and watched the show.
Happy families on Children's day
’Children’s’ day armour
Trying to carry the mochi
Playing with the mochi
Quality time
Tuesday, 2 May 2006
One year older
So a busy last few days really. As you may have noticed in a comment from golf-playing-brother (and you might even have guessed anyway) it was the youngster’s birthday last week, on Thursday 27th to precise, when he attained the ripe old age of one (saying it to myself now, the grammar seems wrong if you say ‘he is one year one’ or is you say ‘he is one years old’, but surely one of them must be correct and it doesn’t seem right to say ‘he is a year old’, though of course he is, but I’m rambling now). To celebrate this most auspicious of occasions we dined at Maxim de Paris and then spent the night clubbing at Womb, Yellow and the Liquid room, as these are his favourite haunts. Not really, but he may do one day.
What we did do is have a small party with meself, the Guru and the man of the moment, where we had cakes and presents and things, which is at it should be. What it shouldn’t really be, but was, was two days after the day itself, on Saturday afternoon, mainly as we couldn’t really get ourselves organised for Thursday and, of course, about 30 minutes after I got home from work he went to bed, which would have made any party a curiously short lived affair. Anyway he didn’t seem to mind too much about having his party on Saturday afternoon and seeing as it takes a kid over a year to gain a sense of time (apparently), I don’t think he noticed anyway. But he did like his cake, with a candle in, of course. He doesn’t get to each much cake as these things are strictly rationed by his dietician (the Guru), so when he got to eat most of a fruit muffin thing he was most happy indeed, put a big smile on his face at least, though that could have been wind, who knows (oh, and he had his cake and he ate it, putting that myth to bed, I hope). Anyway, he are a couple of photos of the day.
My first birthday party
Mmm...cake
To the park
Monday was 1st May, if you hadn’t noticed, and that means demonstrations by the Japanese Socialist and/or Communist Worker’s Party in the park where not three weeks ago everyone was getting drunk looking at cherry blossoms. Funny old world, eh? Anyway we walked past this demonstration on the way to a much better park that contained no political rallies of any sort.
(Incidentally one has to ask why they socialists/communists bother in this country. I mean no one trusts them; the standard of living is generally pretty good (though with growing disparity, according to the Yomiuri); their idea of tough negotiating with management is to say ‘it was a bad year so no pay rises for the workers whilst managers get fat bonuses? Er…OK’; and culture has got groupthink sown up already. But then again, that’s me up against a wall when the revolution comes.)
But back to the action. Near Kawaguchi there is a place called the Green Centre – the green centre of what, they don’t tell you, but it is close to Green City which is a shopping centre I wrote about once as it contains our nearest branch of Japanese Mothercare. What the Green Centre is, though, is a park that has all the things you want from a park, such as grass, trees, flowers, ponds, waterfalls and lots and lots of little kids running about. Also on Monday the mercury touched 28oc and so a trip to the park seemed a fine idea indeed.
The park was, well parky, as you can see from a couple of photos below. The long carp streamers are there because we are rapidly approaching Boys Day on May 5th (more of which next week), and these are traditional things to hang outside to say ‘yes, my son is 14 foot trout’, or something. At the park we strolled about in a promenade style fashion, taking in the air and watching what seemed like the entire population of Kawaguchi’s kindergarten system running about enjoying themselves (I’m sure I never went to places like this when I was a kid – I got farming museums, as far as I can remember).
Naturally we took a picnic with us. Well, when I say we took what I mean is that the Guru and I took food to eat whilst the young ‘un decided to pick something up at the park. What he didn’t tell us was that he intended to pick up 4 handfuls of mud, a couple of leaves and a stick. I’m glad to say that he enjoyed these very much, though the same can’t be said for the Guru, who was nonplussed to say the least.
(a bit of) The park
About to eat his first leaf
More photos at Flickr.
So a busy last few days really. As you may have noticed in a comment from golf-playing-brother (and you might even have guessed anyway) it was the youngster’s birthday last week, on Thursday 27th to precise, when he attained the ripe old age of one (saying it to myself now, the grammar seems wrong if you say ‘he is one year one’ or is you say ‘he is one years old’, but surely one of them must be correct and it doesn’t seem right to say ‘he is a year old’, though of course he is, but I’m rambling now). To celebrate this most auspicious of occasions we dined at Maxim de Paris and then spent the night clubbing at Womb, Yellow and the Liquid room, as these are his favourite haunts. Not really, but he may do one day.
What we did do is have a small party with meself, the Guru and the man of the moment, where we had cakes and presents and things, which is at it should be. What it shouldn’t really be, but was, was two days after the day itself, on Saturday afternoon, mainly as we couldn’t really get ourselves organised for Thursday and, of course, about 30 minutes after I got home from work he went to bed, which would have made any party a curiously short lived affair. Anyway he didn’t seem to mind too much about having his party on Saturday afternoon and seeing as it takes a kid over a year to gain a sense of time (apparently), I don’t think he noticed anyway. But he did like his cake, with a candle in, of course. He doesn’t get to each much cake as these things are strictly rationed by his dietician (the Guru), so when he got to eat most of a fruit muffin thing he was most happy indeed, put a big smile on his face at least, though that could have been wind, who knows (oh, and he had his cake and he ate it, putting that myth to bed, I hope). Anyway, he are a couple of photos of the day.
My first birthday party
Mmm...cake
To the park
Monday was 1st May, if you hadn’t noticed, and that means demonstrations by the Japanese Socialist and/or Communist Worker’s Party in the park where not three weeks ago everyone was getting drunk looking at cherry blossoms. Funny old world, eh? Anyway we walked past this demonstration on the way to a much better park that contained no political rallies of any sort.
(Incidentally one has to ask why they socialists/communists bother in this country. I mean no one trusts them; the standard of living is generally pretty good (though with growing disparity, according to the Yomiuri); their idea of tough negotiating with management is to say ‘it was a bad year so no pay rises for the workers whilst managers get fat bonuses? Er…OK’; and culture has got groupthink sown up already. But then again, that’s me up against a wall when the revolution comes.)
But back to the action. Near Kawaguchi there is a place called the Green Centre – the green centre of what, they don’t tell you, but it is close to Green City which is a shopping centre I wrote about once as it contains our nearest branch of Japanese Mothercare. What the Green Centre is, though, is a park that has all the things you want from a park, such as grass, trees, flowers, ponds, waterfalls and lots and lots of little kids running about. Also on Monday the mercury touched 28oc and so a trip to the park seemed a fine idea indeed.
The park was, well parky, as you can see from a couple of photos below. The long carp streamers are there because we are rapidly approaching Boys Day on May 5th (more of which next week), and these are traditional things to hang outside to say ‘yes, my son is 14 foot trout’, or something. At the park we strolled about in a promenade style fashion, taking in the air and watching what seemed like the entire population of Kawaguchi’s kindergarten system running about enjoying themselves (I’m sure I never went to places like this when I was a kid – I got farming museums, as far as I can remember).
Naturally we took a picnic with us. Well, when I say we took what I mean is that the Guru and I took food to eat whilst the young ‘un decided to pick something up at the park. What he didn’t tell us was that he intended to pick up 4 handfuls of mud, a couple of leaves and a stick. I’m glad to say that he enjoyed these very much, though the same can’t be said for the Guru, who was nonplussed to say the least.
(a bit of) The park
About to eat his first leaf
More photos at Flickr.
Monday, 24 April 2006
All I ever wanted...
Now as you may or may not remember, yours truly bought an ipod last year as it was a gadget that I just had to have, and jolly good it is too. Now, like most people, I suspect, I put most of my cd collection straight onto it with nary a thought as to whether I would actually listen to most of the tracks and it struck me the other day that I probably hadn’t and wouldn’t. so with this in mind I thought I would give it a try, just to see if anything came along that made me think ‘ooh’ in rediscovery, or indeed in discovery of a hidden gem.
One of the features of the ipod is you can list all the tracks alphabetically by song, rather than album, so last week I embarked on my aural journey to the nether regions of the hard drive. My ipod is only a 20gb one and even then it’s only just over half full, but that still means 1,621 songs to plough through, which could take some time.
I realise you may be wondering where this is all going, and it is here. Last Thursday I was walking home and as I got near to the flat on came Bob Dylan with All Along the Watchtower (which, by-the-by, I’ve always wondered about, as how can you be ‘along’ a watchtower? Maybe I’m missing the Bobness of it all, but a tower seems a bit, well, up and down, rather than along a bit. Any suggestions?)
Nothing strange in a bit of Bob, of course, and just as I reached the flat the ‘wind it begin to howl’ and the song finished. Next morning, which was Friday, if you’re paying attention, I walked out the front door and in the lift replaced the earphones and carried on with my sonic saga and, by the time I got to the office, about one hour and twenty minutes later, John Lennon was telling me, along with Paul, George and Ringo, that All You Need is Love. That’s about an hour and twenty-five minutes of songs all starting with the word ‘All’.
I don’t know why, particularly, but for some reason I find that quite remarkable. No one at the office did, when I remarked to various personages there, and I suspect that neither will you, dear reader, but there you go. I will keep you informed as to whether any other words crop up with such regularity at the start of song titles, but I think they will have to go some way if they are going to beat the all conquering ‘All’ – well, about ninety minutes to be exact...
The ‘All’ list in full
All Along the Watchtower – Bob Dylan
All Apologies – Nirvana
All Around the World – The Jam
All Because of You – U2
All Blues – Miles Davis
All I Wanna Do – Sheryl Crow
All I Want is You – U2
All Mine – Portishead
All Night Long – George Shearing & Nancy Wilson
All Of Me – George Benson
All That You Give – The Cinematic Orchestra
All the Things She Said – Simple Minds
All the Things You Are – Wes Montgomery
All This Time – Sting
All Those Yesterdays – Pearl Jam
All Tomorrow’s Parties – The Velvet Underground
All You Need is Love – The Beatles
NB, now up to Bear Hug by the Fun Lovin’ Criminals, number 117 on the count up.
Now as you may or may not remember, yours truly bought an ipod last year as it was a gadget that I just had to have, and jolly good it is too. Now, like most people, I suspect, I put most of my cd collection straight onto it with nary a thought as to whether I would actually listen to most of the tracks and it struck me the other day that I probably hadn’t and wouldn’t. so with this in mind I thought I would give it a try, just to see if anything came along that made me think ‘ooh’ in rediscovery, or indeed in discovery of a hidden gem.
One of the features of the ipod is you can list all the tracks alphabetically by song, rather than album, so last week I embarked on my aural journey to the nether regions of the hard drive. My ipod is only a 20gb one and even then it’s only just over half full, but that still means 1,621 songs to plough through, which could take some time.
I realise you may be wondering where this is all going, and it is here. Last Thursday I was walking home and as I got near to the flat on came Bob Dylan with All Along the Watchtower (which, by-the-by, I’ve always wondered about, as how can you be ‘along’ a watchtower? Maybe I’m missing the Bobness of it all, but a tower seems a bit, well, up and down, rather than along a bit. Any suggestions?)
Nothing strange in a bit of Bob, of course, and just as I reached the flat the ‘wind it begin to howl’ and the song finished. Next morning, which was Friday, if you’re paying attention, I walked out the front door and in the lift replaced the earphones and carried on with my sonic saga and, by the time I got to the office, about one hour and twenty minutes later, John Lennon was telling me, along with Paul, George and Ringo, that All You Need is Love. That’s about an hour and twenty-five minutes of songs all starting with the word ‘All’.
I don’t know why, particularly, but for some reason I find that quite remarkable. No one at the office did, when I remarked to various personages there, and I suspect that neither will you, dear reader, but there you go. I will keep you informed as to whether any other words crop up with such regularity at the start of song titles, but I think they will have to go some way if they are going to beat the all conquering ‘All’ – well, about ninety minutes to be exact...
The ‘All’ list in full
All Along the Watchtower – Bob Dylan
All Apologies – Nirvana
All Around the World – The Jam
All Because of You – U2
All Blues – Miles Davis
All I Wanna Do – Sheryl Crow
All I Want is You – U2
All Mine – Portishead
All Night Long – George Shearing & Nancy Wilson
All Of Me – George Benson
All That You Give – The Cinematic Orchestra
All the Things She Said – Simple Minds
All the Things You Are – Wes Montgomery
All This Time – Sting
All Those Yesterdays – Pearl Jam
All Tomorrow’s Parties – The Velvet Underground
All You Need is Love – The Beatles
NB, now up to Bear Hug by the Fun Lovin’ Criminals, number 117 on the count up.
Thursday, 20 April 2006
Er....right...
OK, so the eagle eyed amongst my reader may have noticed a lack of a post this week. Apologies, I guess, are in order. Now I don't want to whinge, as it always sounds crap, but it's going to sound like that, I suspect. So, just too many things going on at the moment, too busy, not enough time to think, let along write too much down. These include work (too worky), study (too booky) and home life (too baby - though thank goodness the Guru is around to do most of the work here (thank you :-))
So for a bit, at least the next few weeks, I will try and post a few, shorter posts at random intervals rather than try and rewrite war & peace every Monday evening.
(it doesn't help that ER series 11 is now showing at 10pm on a Monday evening either)
In the meantime here is a photo of one of the few interesting things being built in the backstreets of Omotesando...
That's right, it's a one third size replica of a European cathedral for all those Japanese non-christians that absolutely must have a church wedding. Weird, if you ask me...
OK, so the eagle eyed amongst my reader may have noticed a lack of a post this week. Apologies, I guess, are in order. Now I don't want to whinge, as it always sounds crap, but it's going to sound like that, I suspect. So, just too many things going on at the moment, too busy, not enough time to think, let along write too much down. These include work (too worky), study (too booky) and home life (too baby - though thank goodness the Guru is around to do most of the work here (thank you :-))
So for a bit, at least the next few weeks, I will try and post a few, shorter posts at random intervals rather than try and rewrite war & peace every Monday evening.
(it doesn't help that ER series 11 is now showing at 10pm on a Monday evening either)
In the meantime here is a photo of one of the few interesting things being built in the backstreets of Omotesando...
That's right, it's a one third size replica of a European cathedral for all those Japanese non-christians that absolutely must have a church wedding. Weird, if you ask me...
Tuesday, 11 April 2006
Omotesando
Omotesando [Street, road or perhaps boulevard, I suppose], has been described as the Champs Elysee of Tokyo, though not be me, you understand. I’m not entirely sure why, maybe it is because of the trees that line it, or maybe because it has always been home to fashionable boutiques and expensive stores (and by fashionable I really mean expensive and full of clothes normal (or rather sane) people don’t buy – I digress), but then so is Ginza and no one, to my knowledge, calls Ginza Dori the you-know-what of Tokyo (maybe as they are calling Omotesando that? -Ed.). It could also mean that it is full of rude people, as is the rest of Paris. Or even that it is a long shopping street with too many cars running down it and the Arc de Triomphe at one end (though sadly this is missing from the Tokyo version so it can’t be that one).
BasicallyI don’t really know why, but what I do know is that it is a rather fetching street of Tokyo. Or, at least, it was.
What Omotesando was was a long road full of quite interesting shops and then a network of small lanes behind on each side which contained many small, interesting little shops, bars, galleries and restaurants and where it was pleasant to stroll of an afternoon. It also had, near the top of the road, an apartment block the name of which I cannot remember, but which was built after the 1923 Great Kanto earthquake using cutting edge technology (of the time) and which came to be a beloved, ivy clad symbol of the area as its lower floors were filled with more interesting little shops and galleries
Now as everyone knows the average life of a building in the Tokyo area is about 26 years so an apartment block that was eighty was either going to be declared a national treasure or torn down. And I bet you can guess which one it was...
Enter, stage left, Mr Mori, he of the boring, way over hyped and remarkably uninspiring (in my opinion) Roppongi Hills. He was given he task of redesigning the area surrounding, and possibly including, the apartment block so it became a centre for international fashion and shopping and lifestyle and other vitally important functions as Tokyo, with only Ginza, Shinjuku, Shibuya and Roppongi, was felt to be at something of a disadvantage with other major cities as a shopping destination.
Mr Mori took a long hard look at the apartment block and came to startling but very perceptive conclusion – unlike his other ventures, Roppongi Hills, Ark Hills, Aoyama Hills and Hills Hills, Omotesando in general and specifically the apartment building in question did not have the word ‘Hills’ in their respective names. He also realised that the area of Omotesando had some individuality in its makeup that did not sit well with his vision for the redevelopment of central Tokyo.
Thankfully, a few years later, Mr Mori’s dream has been realised and (no really) Omotesando Hills has been created.
The reason I am going on about this now is that on Saturday I visited Omotesando for the first time in really ages and certainly the first time since OH was opened and so I got there a bit early to have a wander around. I was there for a leaving do (of Chris, who knows stuff about IT and his partner Vicki, who are heading back to the UK), so knowing that OH had been opened I thought I’d have a walk down the avenue to have a gander. I wasn’t expecting much as I had, over the preceding months, read plenty about OH, most people slagging it off as an eyesore. Well, to be honest, I didn’t really feel it was an eyesore or carbuncle on the backside of Tokyo. To me it was much worse than that. It was, sadly, just bland.
It is, essentially, a copy of Roppongi Hills and all the others, only whereas Roppongi Hills is all towers and upwards, Omotesando Hills is flatter and low rise. It does, apparently, go down quite a long way as well, so that while the top is only about 2 or 3 stories high, there are in fact 6 or 7 floors – this has been done to keep the low sky line feel. A nice touch but ruined by another, really ugly building across the road that is meant, I think someone told me on Saturday night, to resemble a tree or something equally preposterous (what’s wrong with a real tree instead of the building, I say?). But for OH, the outside is all white concrete and pale/white glass and not a lot else. The few shops that have windows on the outside, and there aren’t many, for some reason, are full of jeans that cost a month’s salary. Fascinating.
I realise, as I write this, that I am in danger of becoming an old fogey, but what the hell, I don’t care, I loved the old Omotesando for it’s quirkiness and variety and sense of itself and that has all now disappeared.
Walking away, saddened as I was, I went through a few back streets and they, at least, seem to have retained a bit of their charm, thank goodness. But one of my favourite lunchtime eateries, and place named Bamboo that did great sandwiches and which was in a great building, all nooks and crannies, has been transformed into Bamboo bog standard French restaurant (parties, weddings and monotony catered for) that now looks truly uninspiring indeed.
In fact the lanes seemed to confirm that Omotesando is now the place to come if you need to buy expensive jeans or for a woman to get a haircut and not a great deal else.
Shame that.
Omotesando [Street, road or perhaps boulevard, I suppose], has been described as the Champs Elysee of Tokyo, though not be me, you understand. I’m not entirely sure why, maybe it is because of the trees that line it, or maybe because it has always been home to fashionable boutiques and expensive stores (and by fashionable I really mean expensive and full of clothes normal (or rather sane) people don’t buy – I digress), but then so is Ginza and no one, to my knowledge, calls Ginza Dori the you-know-what of Tokyo (maybe as they are calling Omotesando that? -Ed.). It could also mean that it is full of rude people, as is the rest of Paris. Or even that it is a long shopping street with too many cars running down it and the Arc de Triomphe at one end (though sadly this is missing from the Tokyo version so it can’t be that one).
BasicallyI don’t really know why, but what I do know is that it is a rather fetching street of Tokyo. Or, at least, it was.
What Omotesando was was a long road full of quite interesting shops and then a network of small lanes behind on each side which contained many small, interesting little shops, bars, galleries and restaurants and where it was pleasant to stroll of an afternoon. It also had, near the top of the road, an apartment block the name of which I cannot remember, but which was built after the 1923 Great Kanto earthquake using cutting edge technology (of the time) and which came to be a beloved, ivy clad symbol of the area as its lower floors were filled with more interesting little shops and galleries
Now as everyone knows the average life of a building in the Tokyo area is about 26 years so an apartment block that was eighty was either going to be declared a national treasure or torn down. And I bet you can guess which one it was...
Enter, stage left, Mr Mori, he of the boring, way over hyped and remarkably uninspiring (in my opinion) Roppongi Hills. He was given he task of redesigning the area surrounding, and possibly including, the apartment block so it became a centre for international fashion and shopping and lifestyle and other vitally important functions as Tokyo, with only Ginza, Shinjuku, Shibuya and Roppongi, was felt to be at something of a disadvantage with other major cities as a shopping destination.
Mr Mori took a long hard look at the apartment block and came to startling but very perceptive conclusion – unlike his other ventures, Roppongi Hills, Ark Hills, Aoyama Hills and Hills Hills, Omotesando in general and specifically the apartment building in question did not have the word ‘Hills’ in their respective names. He also realised that the area of Omotesando had some individuality in its makeup that did not sit well with his vision for the redevelopment of central Tokyo.
Thankfully, a few years later, Mr Mori’s dream has been realised and (no really) Omotesando Hills has been created.
The reason I am going on about this now is that on Saturday I visited Omotesando for the first time in really ages and certainly the first time since OH was opened and so I got there a bit early to have a wander around. I was there for a leaving do (of Chris, who knows stuff about IT and his partner Vicki, who are heading back to the UK), so knowing that OH had been opened I thought I’d have a walk down the avenue to have a gander. I wasn’t expecting much as I had, over the preceding months, read plenty about OH, most people slagging it off as an eyesore. Well, to be honest, I didn’t really feel it was an eyesore or carbuncle on the backside of Tokyo. To me it was much worse than that. It was, sadly, just bland.
It is, essentially, a copy of Roppongi Hills and all the others, only whereas Roppongi Hills is all towers and upwards, Omotesando Hills is flatter and low rise. It does, apparently, go down quite a long way as well, so that while the top is only about 2 or 3 stories high, there are in fact 6 or 7 floors – this has been done to keep the low sky line feel. A nice touch but ruined by another, really ugly building across the road that is meant, I think someone told me on Saturday night, to resemble a tree or something equally preposterous (what’s wrong with a real tree instead of the building, I say?). But for OH, the outside is all white concrete and pale/white glass and not a lot else. The few shops that have windows on the outside, and there aren’t many, for some reason, are full of jeans that cost a month’s salary. Fascinating.
I realise, as I write this, that I am in danger of becoming an old fogey, but what the hell, I don’t care, I loved the old Omotesando for it’s quirkiness and variety and sense of itself and that has all now disappeared.
Walking away, saddened as I was, I went through a few back streets and they, at least, seem to have retained a bit of their charm, thank goodness. But one of my favourite lunchtime eateries, and place named Bamboo that did great sandwiches and which was in a great building, all nooks and crannies, has been transformed into Bamboo bog standard French restaurant (parties, weddings and monotony catered for) that now looks truly uninspiring indeed.
In fact the lanes seemed to confirm that Omotesando is now the place to come if you need to buy expensive jeans or for a woman to get a haircut and not a great deal else.
Shame that.
Monday, 3 April 2006
Last week
So apologies for the lack of posting last week, other than the brief message – all got a bit too much, as things are wont to do at times. Of course it didn’t help that my boss took three days off in what is arguably the busiest week of the year as it is the end of the academic year, new teachers arriving (the biggest intake of the year), spring schools before the regular teaching day begins and, though not his fault, the owner of the company still fecking about with 2006 budgets even though we are well and truly into the year. Enter stage right muggings here to try to keep all the plates spinning at the same time, whilst worrying about his son’s and wife’s health and getting a little bit antsy over dissertations.
But now it’s all over. Well, apart from the dissertation, which resolutely won’t go away until I have actually written the bloody thing, but at least I have 1800 words (of mostly, if total, crap) down which is, as is oft said, a start. [Not really sure why I used the word ‘oft’ there instead of a more sensible one...perhaps am developing a poetic steak (which would be odd as I have a very strong, profound but personal belief that poetry is, essentially, all shite)]. But no, the little ‘un and the Guru are now in much finer fettle than they were a week or so ago. Work has quietened down a little and the boss is back, so I don’t have to worry about stuff that he has to deal with. Unfortunately the owner of the company still owns the company and is an imbecile, oh well.
Hiding behind words
Anyway, this week I want to write about words in their spoken form. Actually that’s not strictly true, as I don’t believe that ‘words’ could really describe the noises that Marcus makes, though there may be one or two coming through. But here’s the point – how are you meant to know?
Now the little ‘un is quite the verbose type, apparently. Whilst at the community centre with he Guru he crawls around, plays with toys and generally enjoys himself, all the accompaniment of his own voice – something that the other kids there, especially the same age kids from the Guru’s pregnant pals group (not, of course, that they are pregnant anymore, but it sounds a lot better than her birthing buddies or mumma mates). All the other kids kind of get on with things without making too much noise, whilst Marcus keeps up a running commentary, just in case anyone is recording it for posterity. Kinki over at 35degrees recently wrote about the various noises her daughter makes, and there are similarities, though Marcus is now very much into compound noises such as “bababababaaaa” and ‘jyarjyarjyarjyar” and “shashashasha”. As you can see the whole consonant-vowel thing is very well developed
But what got me thinking was this. The other night he woke up about 3am, as he often does these days, for no good reason, it seems, other than let the world know. Except that he doesn’t really wake up, rather he stays in a pretty deep doze but manages to engage the bit of his brain that connects the stomach to the voice box and, sensing he could do with some milk, lets anyone close by know about it. So the Guru will wake up (as will I, I hasten to add), change his nappy and then give him some milk. But the other night, in between changing his nappy and giving him some milk she went to the toilet, so Marcus sat there and wailed and what came out could have been “mamamamamamaaaa” or it could have been “mama, mama, mama” as there did seem to be added stress on each odd syllable i.e. “Mama, Mama” etc
Of course he denies it completely and, when properly awake later would say only “bababababaaa”. Will keep you posted on this one, though I think “...and a pint for my dad” is a way off yet.
Exam hell
Japan is known as exam hell for some very good reasons, such as, there are too many, they are too hard, school doesn’t actually teach you anything useful in terms of knowledge to pass them and there are too many. But now there is another reason – very dodgy invigilators.
Two stories came up in recent weeks that made sitting an exam even worse than normal. One was in an exam at Tohoku university where a professor was invigilating – now I have never invigilated a proper, 2 or 3 hour exam but I reckon it must be pretty dull. This professor thought so he sat down and slowly nodded off. This wouldn’t have been too bad except that his snoring was such that he was asked to leave the hall as he was putting off the examinees. Nice work.
More recently, during the World Baseball Classis as described in an earlier post, a teacher at an elementary school got so wrapped up in the game during the lunch hour that when lesson started again in the afternoon he switched on the TV in his classroom so he could follow the action. The fact that he had set his students a test and they couldn’t concentrate obviously slipped his mind. Again what a plonker, but worse still in this case is the fact that the kids complained about not being able to do their exam, rather than sit and watch the game with the teacher. All going to grow up to be accountants, that lot, and serves them right too.
Last but not least, Saturday last was gloriously sunny and the peak of hanami, or cherry blossom viewing, so we, and the rest of Kawaguchi, went to the nishikoen (or east park) to drink some beer, eat something unhealthy and look at the onset of spring. Here are some snaps, there are a few more over at flikr.
Hanami at night
Nishi park
Hmm, hanami...
People and trees
This is what the fuss is all about
Hanami hangover
So apologies for the lack of posting last week, other than the brief message – all got a bit too much, as things are wont to do at times. Of course it didn’t help that my boss took three days off in what is arguably the busiest week of the year as it is the end of the academic year, new teachers arriving (the biggest intake of the year), spring schools before the regular teaching day begins and, though not his fault, the owner of the company still fecking about with 2006 budgets even though we are well and truly into the year. Enter stage right muggings here to try to keep all the plates spinning at the same time, whilst worrying about his son’s and wife’s health and getting a little bit antsy over dissertations.
But now it’s all over. Well, apart from the dissertation, which resolutely won’t go away until I have actually written the bloody thing, but at least I have 1800 words (of mostly, if total, crap) down which is, as is oft said, a start. [Not really sure why I used the word ‘oft’ there instead of a more sensible one...perhaps am developing a poetic steak (which would be odd as I have a very strong, profound but personal belief that poetry is, essentially, all shite)]. But no, the little ‘un and the Guru are now in much finer fettle than they were a week or so ago. Work has quietened down a little and the boss is back, so I don’t have to worry about stuff that he has to deal with. Unfortunately the owner of the company still owns the company and is an imbecile, oh well.
Hiding behind words
Anyway, this week I want to write about words in their spoken form. Actually that’s not strictly true, as I don’t believe that ‘words’ could really describe the noises that Marcus makes, though there may be one or two coming through. But here’s the point – how are you meant to know?
Now the little ‘un is quite the verbose type, apparently. Whilst at the community centre with he Guru he crawls around, plays with toys and generally enjoys himself, all the accompaniment of his own voice – something that the other kids there, especially the same age kids from the Guru’s pregnant pals group (not, of course, that they are pregnant anymore, but it sounds a lot better than her birthing buddies or mumma mates). All the other kids kind of get on with things without making too much noise, whilst Marcus keeps up a running commentary, just in case anyone is recording it for posterity. Kinki over at 35degrees recently wrote about the various noises her daughter makes, and there are similarities, though Marcus is now very much into compound noises such as “bababababaaaa” and ‘jyarjyarjyarjyar” and “shashashasha”. As you can see the whole consonant-vowel thing is very well developed
But what got me thinking was this. The other night he woke up about 3am, as he often does these days, for no good reason, it seems, other than let the world know. Except that he doesn’t really wake up, rather he stays in a pretty deep doze but manages to engage the bit of his brain that connects the stomach to the voice box and, sensing he could do with some milk, lets anyone close by know about it. So the Guru will wake up (as will I, I hasten to add), change his nappy and then give him some milk. But the other night, in between changing his nappy and giving him some milk she went to the toilet, so Marcus sat there and wailed and what came out could have been “mamamamamamaaaa” or it could have been “mama, mama, mama” as there did seem to be added stress on each odd syllable i.e. “Mama, Mama” etc
Of course he denies it completely and, when properly awake later would say only “bababababaaa”. Will keep you posted on this one, though I think “...and a pint for my dad” is a way off yet.
Exam hell
Japan is known as exam hell for some very good reasons, such as, there are too many, they are too hard, school doesn’t actually teach you anything useful in terms of knowledge to pass them and there are too many. But now there is another reason – very dodgy invigilators.
Two stories came up in recent weeks that made sitting an exam even worse than normal. One was in an exam at Tohoku university where a professor was invigilating – now I have never invigilated a proper, 2 or 3 hour exam but I reckon it must be pretty dull. This professor thought so he sat down and slowly nodded off. This wouldn’t have been too bad except that his snoring was such that he was asked to leave the hall as he was putting off the examinees. Nice work.
More recently, during the World Baseball Classis as described in an earlier post, a teacher at an elementary school got so wrapped up in the game during the lunch hour that when lesson started again in the afternoon he switched on the TV in his classroom so he could follow the action. The fact that he had set his students a test and they couldn’t concentrate obviously slipped his mind. Again what a plonker, but worse still in this case is the fact that the kids complained about not being able to do their exam, rather than sit and watch the game with the teacher. All going to grow up to be accountants, that lot, and serves them right too.
Last but not least, Saturday last was gloriously sunny and the peak of hanami, or cherry blossom viewing, so we, and the rest of Kawaguchi, went to the nishikoen (or east park) to drink some beer, eat something unhealthy and look at the onset of spring. Here are some snaps, there are a few more over at flikr.
Hanami at night
Nishi park
Hmm, hanami...
People and trees
This is what the fuss is all about
Hanami hangover
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