Modern art with boats
I think this boat would look cool with three control turrets.
Looks like James Bond came through here sometime past.
In all seriousness, I was driving around the other day when I stumbed across a pile of boats. They were mostly fishing boats, though there were one or two dinghies and an Oxford / Cambridge stylie eightman rowboat there too. Stacks of boats are a part of the solution for boat owners, but for the government these are a big issue.
The Japanese use a hell of a lot of stuff. If you go to buy a bottle of water, you will recieve a plastic bag. If you buy a digital camera, you buy one every few years. If you buy toys they come from the hundred yen shop (50p shop) and get broken and thrown away within weeks. A new law has been passed making it illegal to trade in electronics over five years old. The country is consumerismed-up in a big way and the garbage man can't keep up.
I have this garish calendar at home that tells me which day I can put certain kinds of garbage out. Stuff for burning like old food and bits of wood go out twice a week. Glass goes out once every two months, metal alternates with it. Cans get collected by the local school. Anything else is a pain in the proverbial to dispose of.
On a micro scale the boats are the same as anything. If I want to throw my batteries away, I have to take them to the town hall. If I want to throw my futon away (and I desperately do - it is more sweaton that futon), I have to take it to the town hall and pay about five pounds. If I want to chob my fridge in the dustbin I have to pay twenty quid for the pleasure. How much for a boat?
I can't imagine a twnety foot fibreglass boat is going to be cheap to throw away. As you can see, some enterprising farmer has found a way to make a quick buck out of the situation. How long until we start seeing fields full of fridges? Fridges that still work? I think some one needs to have another look at the way the garbage gets dealt with.
A few years back I looked around my room despairingly and decided that something needed to be done. Usually this equates to something needing buy buying and so it was in this case. The problem: About 1000 CDs, DVDs, and SVCDs. The solution: A set of matching CD cases from the 100 yen shop.
Those of you out there who have done this kind of thing will appreciate why this is a poor idea. Say you want a particular CD - which one of the twenty identical cases to look in first? The inneviatble point where you realise that you have been putting them back onto the "to be looked at pile" meaning you have to go through them all again. You get the message, right?
So in preparation for the upcoming
Belle and Sebastian concert this week I was growing increasingly frantic about the whereabouts of my favourite album of theirs, Tigermilk. I had been through all the "one last tries" and looking behind the toilet that accompany this kind of search. I had had the seats out of the car, put my more suspect CD-borrowing friends to the torture and still come up with nothing.
Then I came across a seemingly empty CD wallet. I opened it up and nestled inside were the following CDs:
Tigermilk by Belle and Sebastian
The Great Eastern by the Delgados
Wonderland by the
CharalatansGlobal A-gogo by
Joe Strummeralong with the thought-previously-lost entire CD collection on CDMP3 on about 7 discs.
Since then I have been listening to the four CDs listed above and floating around in a kind of fierce joy. These are amongst the best CDs I own and my God how I have been missing them.
All apologies - Dangerzone yasumi
I have broken my resolution to bring you this news.
The missus is always complaining about these. "Your nuts smell like fish," she says.
"That's nothing!" I shout, "Your Tshirts are pants." She leaves hopelessly confused about her vocabulary.
Danger Zone 4 - hang on....
This is the lunch from a few days ago: Rice, milk, miso-soup and deep-fried gyouzas. They are a kind of Chinese dumpling sort of thing, usually boiled or steamed. They are quite nice in fact, though they are about as healthy as leaded petrol when deep-fried. But wait, what's that?
... that kind of fishy-cabbagy smell? What has the Randam Salada Selectaa come up with today?
Baby Fish and Cabbage! Boiled to a uniform shade of yellow saltiness. This is yet another salty treat that will make your dog fear.
No Danger Zone 1 - A colossus is born
If you like Soy, and you like Joy, you're bound to love SoyJoy. Who would have thought rhyming and confectionary could produce such a wondrous lovechild.
This is what it looks like in all of it's birthday suited glory, and half-eaten to boot. A chocolatey soy-y bar of beer acompaniment. Just what the doctor ordered.
EDIT
I do actually like this one
As I said, long time no meither.
I got about halfway through last week and decided that I was having "one of those weeks" again. You know what I am talking about. Those weeks when even the lepers won't come near you and all the tramps think you smell like piss.
For an English teacher in Japan, this means everyone showing up ten minutes late and not really settling down at all. The form teachers forgot I was supposed to be coming to eat with the class, and laughed about it when i turned-up and everyone was eating. I'm not really allowed to punch people at work so I had to content myself with stuffing horse penisses through her sunroof and sending her a cows heart full of nails in the post.
Anyway, I thought I was having "one of those weeks" but I was totally mistaken. In fact I have come to understand I was having "One of those fortnights". I sincerely hope I am not having one of those months.
The bright ray of sunshine, and let me just stress the singular nature of this one beam of energy from that distant nuclear ball, was my 2 year aniversary with Mariko yesterday. It is now only some 320 days to re-entry. This is largely down to the fact that is is also roughly 320 days til she becomes my common-law-wife and gets a cushy visa to come to the UK.
I will leave you with a bit of random news that was on telly while I was running to no-where in the gym: It seems that some japanese people saw a taxi at the station. You are wondering how this made it onto the TV? The people who saw the taxi were in fact inside the station. On the platform. It emerged that the taxi driver in questioning actually "mistook the road" at a level crossing and ended-up driving up the tracks.
Three hundred meters up sleepers? Presumably it is him that had been driving through the park and in and out of rivers. 320 days.
UPDATE
I was wrong - he didn't do it by accident. HE DID IT ON PURPOSE BECAUSE THE TRAFFIC WAS BAD. The man had a passenger in there too. For those of you who can read Japanese
read this. 320 days, I tell you.
The Tshirt Guy 3
This is a later piece of the work of the man. By this stage in his life the Tshirt Guy had cast off all contact with his roots, society and dictionary / lexicon pocket calculator.
In terms of colour, there is a rather fashionable brown background with a mixture of orange, yellow and white lettering.
Tackling some of the smaller issues first, let's take a look at the title. Though the majority of the language is not-English, there is a little section of not-German too. What does this little umlaut mean? What is he trying to tell us?
The subscript is one of his more instructional constructions. Initially, the change of colour halfway through a sentence draws a frown across ones face. Why? WHY? Then we realise that it is a
sentence pattern. The reckless wondermerchant has decided to show us the folly of using sentence patterns, by purposefully screwing one up. Experts beleive that this is a comment on his Japanese blood.
As for the meaning: There are two schools of thought here. One believes that the Tshirt Guy is a secret naturist. The other places him firmly in the 1990s watching
Shallow Grave.
This is an almost verbatim rendition of the introduction to my training presentation on theme and task based learning:
"Good morning everyone. I am glad to see you all here today. I hadn't expected to see so many here. Most gratifying.
Before I move onto the main part of my presentation, I would like ot take a couple of minutes to tell you what I think makes a good teacher. The first fifty percent is in the preparation. If you are not ready then your lesson is in the hands of the gods. As such I spent almost four hours on my handout, a further three on my speech and powerpoint presentation. The planning was almost perfect.
The second half of a good teacher is in working in the moment. On those days when things are not going your way, can you carry the lesson, the day or even the week by thinking on your feet? As I say, tmy planning was almost perfect, up to the point where I left the office without my memory stick."
So there I was, without my powerpoint presentation. To be fair I didn't absolutely need it. I luckily had most of the data on my laptop. That icy-cold bucket of terror that thoroughly drenched my body as I was setting-up the projector drained-off and a bit of quick thinking saved the day.
The guy that had been running the seminar had said we might be able "to give you something for doing it" beforehand. I thought that this sounded a little along the lines of a book-token or a warm handshake. Personally, I had been thinking that the experience was more valuable than anything because I want ot get into University next year and anything that makes me look beter is most welcome. I had thought that 5,000 - 10,000 yen was about all I could expect.
At the end, I got the warm handshake and was given an envelope. The guy said, "here is a token, no two tokens, of our appreciation." I was thinking to my self, "They have never decided to give me 2,000 yen for it?" In the end I just threw it in my bag and forgot about it til this morning. 20,000 yen! It could not have come at a better time.
The upshot: I am feeling benevolent today.
I couldn't really avoid commenting on this after I read it. I know, I know, yahoo news is actually worse than the Mirror or the Daily Express.
Anyhow, it seems uber-cunt Nasseem Hamed has been out in his tank again. Aparently he has been enjoying his favourite hobby "destroying the little people" in his native Sheffield. His 38 year-old victim aparently, "broke all the bones in his body", which is quite an achievement.
Don't believe it? read about it all
here.
"prince among men" Nasseem Hamed off to the shops in his Merc.
"Oh fuck! What the hell was all that noise?"
A close-up of 38-year-old Anthony Burgin, after Prince Nasser had broken every bone in his body, including
all those really small ones in his ears.
Danger Zone 3 - Mortal Danger
You know, my time in Japan is rapidly drawing to a close - some 370 days or so at this point - but I think i understand the place less than I did one year ago.
Japan has a way of thinking that is almost the opposite, or an inversion, of British thought. This is true of Western culture in General, I think. English grammar puts the important bit at the start of the sentence. Japanese puts it at the end. You average Brit has a clearly defined self-image, an awareness of themself. In most Japanese people thisis less developed and group dynamics play a much bigger role in thought. I could go on, but I will try and come to the point.
In the UK, defining someting takes time. I call this the "what" stage. Literally, what is it? If a japanese person were blindfolded and dropped into the middle of, say, Yorkshire, they would spend their time wondering round sking "What is this?" and generally getting a feel for things. As they are Japanese they understand the group dynamic and their place in it (outsider, at the bottom) and move onto the "How" stage. If they have been paying attention during the "what" stage this one is very simple. The smart ones will then move onto "why". Why is it like this? Why does it have to be like this? In Britain, I think this is largely practical or ethical, in most cases.
My time in Japan, stretching over four years now, has had a lots of "what" and "how", as I have been learning how to speak Japanese, how to do various martial arts, how to fit into the public school system, etc. As I learn more of "what" and "how" more and more "why" situations have been cropping-up. I grow more dissatisfied as these build-up.
Anyway, The same system can be applied to food here, with the same result.
What is it? It is raw octipus mixed with wasabi.
How do you eat it? Cautiously and with extreme distaste and chopsticks.
Why do you eat it? I don't, at least not twice.
Let me re-phrase that; why does one eat it? Presumably because one has always eaten it and one has come to like it. Use makes master, and all that.
Ok, then. Why did one start eating it in the first place? Pass - I have asked myself the same question about many foodstuffs without any satisfactory answer becoming aparent.
I must add in passing that this is one of those fifty-fifty ones. Either you like it or you don't and the population is split. The Mortal Danger warning is this: Do not eat this if you are planning a lot of drinking for the evening.
The Tshirt Guy 2 - An awakening
On a hot summer day I was ambling along the streets of Harajuku in Tokyo when I decided I was in need of some clothes. The resulting binge was to colour my life as it lead me almost to the door of the Tshirt Guy. After a frenzied fifteen minutes I was with jeans, two shirts, a bag and an accidental copy of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Clothes Shopping for me is one of those tantric exercises where the event if preseded by months of thought and claminess. The event itself is carried out without human emotion and as quickly as possible. I know what I want. Either they have it, or they don't.
I was shirted, bagged, jeaned and booked, but still sadly unTshirted. At this point I was unnaware of the mystical significance of the Tshirt. Even then, I had vague feelings about their role in the wardrobe.
After stumbling through a few record shops (I love vinyl, but alas my turntables are in another country) I dived into a small shop to escape the heat. The weedy looking clerk took a look at me as I walked in. I didn't see him, though. My eyes were fixed on the masterpiece above. In dark blue and of tight fit, it had thbe word "Curling"
completely contained within a curling stone. Beneath this, it said "Let it slip" and almost too small to see "in the direction of the tee" A stunning summary of the very soul of curling. What fierce joy in the world of mop, kettle and fronzen bowling green. What hours of research, demography and youth-culture had been spent to create this, I wondered.
The clerk broke into my reverie, saying, "It was the Tshirt Guy."
"The what?" I said.
"One score and four years before..." he began. Thus was the lay of the Tshirt Guy revealed to me. When he had finished we both sweated in silence. I digested his words, the small room, the isolation, the rapute that only carefully proportioned Tshirt / wordy combinations could supply. I swore my life to his on that day.
"I'll take it."
"I thought you would.
You have seen."
That night I was so emotional I accidentally paid ￥3,500 to get into a Jazz-bar.
Sunday Blogging on Sunday! What is the world coming to? A trip to the brewery up the road in Nagahama. There is a website
here, but they utterly forgot the bogs! They are cerainly more worthy of mention than the beer, which is all gassy largery stuff, even the stout, if you can form an image of such an abomination.
How about this then? The bogging connoisseur can do the dirty deed whilst having his attention diverted by the topiary and heavenly lights of varying colours. All thoughts of wee leave me!
And how cool is this guy? I toilet with the gentry! There is a kind of pattern, though. This is a "Roman" brewery, built twenty tyears back, so why not victorian deco in the dunnies?
Edit
If you look at the photos on the page above, you might be able to get a Danger Zone out of this, too. There is a picture of a bunch of food on there - Check out the steak. Can you see all the fat?
The Tshirt Guy 1 - A quiet beginning
This was my first run-in with the Tshirt guy. At that point I wasn't aware he existed and this was my first adventure among the craziness and revelry of Tshirts.
This was an early effort, I later found out. Written when he was a mere twenty years old, it is a burgundy piece which says "Quick" in big white letters, with "Maximum Speed" written in small yellow letters. The Tshirt shows none of his usual prosaic subject matters, such as nature or dogs.
This was an innocent time in the life of the Tshirt Guy, before his
avante garde essays into
spelling, grammar and punctuation. Later, his bold statements and commentries would, emblazoned onto Tshirts, rock the very foundations of the art world. This was not his first work but it was his first that I owned and so it occupies a special place in my heart. Other than that, it is of little value, which is just as well as I singed two holes in it lighting a barbeque some years ago.
Nevertheless, this is still a Tshirt Guy Tshirt and it possesses that
je ne sais quoi brilliance that characterises his work. Many have stopped to stare in wonder at this shirt.
Happy News For The Wine Guy
The doctor took a file from the nurse as she said, "They are waiting in your office. They seem quite distraught."
The doctor frowned, then pushed the door open. "Good afternoon, Mr. and Mrs. er, Wineguy?" He checked the file again and looked hopefully at the couple sat before him.
"That's right," said the man. Something of the puzzlement on the medic's face must have promted him. "It is part of my hereditary position. You know the descriptions on the backs of bottles of wine?" The doctor nodded. "It is my job to write those in a small room somewhere. It has been in my family for longer than we can trace."
"How interesting! Does that mean that you have to taste all those wines, too?"
"Yes, of course." The Wine Guy flashed a fatherly, cardiganish smile.
The doctor paused for a second, "Say, I had a bottle of French wine the other day. It said it had a 'creamy mouth-feel.'"
The Wine Guy steepled his fingers and said, "Not one of my better days, I am afraid. And the stress has been getting the better of me. I am worried about my son."
The doctor looked at his file, "Wine Guy Junior?"
The Wine Guy shook his head, "no, we are both most happy with his progress, aren't we dear?"
His wife nodded. "It is James, our youngest son. I am afraid that, well, have a look." She handed over a piece of paper for the doctor to have a look at. "This is his diary."
Tonight was sunny. I loving to out in the sun. Tomorow also will sun. I should die happiness in the sun.
Tomorow Dave would call. He liked snoopy but not Charlie. Snoopy is everyones' favourite dog. He play in the baseball.
The doctor had a look at it and then reached behind him for a book. "Ah, yes. I have heard of just one case like this. Mrs. Wine Guy, you are in fact Japanese, are you not?"
She looked down demurely, "Yes I am."
"Yes, it all matches! Let me be the first to congratulate you. You may or may not know of the sad and untimely demise of the Tshirt Guy?"
Mrs. Wine Guy nodded and Mr. Wine Guy said, "Yes, ours is a small brethren and we mourn his loss extremely. He had an unhappy time of it, as you may know. His son turned-out to be someone else's."
The doctor beam triumphantly. "Well, I rather believe that your blood has combined with that of your wife to produce the new Tshirt Guy!"
"Oh! Thank the Lord! I was so worried." The doctor saw the worry drain from her face. Her husband was no less pleased. "I am so proud! I can't thank you enough, doctor."
Thus the saga of the Tshirt Guy was begun.
Conversations with oneself are always rewarding
My combined hangover / cold thing metamorphosed into a weeklong headache.
So What?True enough, that isn't enough to keep me quiet, usually. I did take a little time to have a look at my computer, specifically the OS.
Was there something wrong with the OS?No, as it turns out. There was the trifling matter of all the bugs and virusses, but the only real thing wrong with it was it's inherant piratey feel. This is the first ever time I have bought Windows. I did find out why it had been so dreadfully poorly of late.
Why was that then?The wind moving part of the processor fan had parted company with the main body. The motor was there, the fan was rattling round the bottom of the case.
So, effectively the processor was being cooled by a vibrator?Yes indeed. The cooling fan on the graphics card had also gone off on its own.
So that was Sunday. How else have you been whiling away these medium-long Spring nights?Well Friday night and Saturday Morning were spent getting drunk at and recovering from Cs party. She made a really nice beef stew and an olivey / broccoli-y concoction which sounds bad but was actually quite delicious.
OK, but your last entry was last Saturday. What do you think this is?Yes, I really must apologise for that. I was busily burning my retinae out with Ebooks. Oh, and we watched the Life of Leornardo Da Vinci in five parts.
Was it good?To be honest, it was piss-poor. There was a historian, a seventies historian, with a beard and a grey suit who would come on at various points and fill in some of the gaps and interact with the minor characters. His main role was stressing that, "We don't really know, we are just guessing that it was like this."
So you are saying that it was a piece of fiction based around reality, in the documentary style?Yes, how perceptive of me to think that. The exercise left me unclear about the life of the man without actually allowing me to like him. It took the worst parts of either format.
I suppose I can let you off, though unless we see some progress soon our couple of readers might dissapear. Haven't you got a few pieces about Tshirts in the pipeline?Yes I have. I might fire one up tomorow.
See that you do.
I think this boat would look cool with three control turrets.
