www.un-understand.co.uk

January book failure

2012-01-31T14:06:00.000+09:00

Video post!

The Great 2012 Reading Challenge

2011-12-29T23:48:00.001+09:00

I have decided that 2012 will be the year that I read as much as I really ought to have been doing.My plan is to read an English novel, an English non-fiction book and a Japanese book each month. My January picks are:William Gibson - Neuromancer,Rachel Carson - Silent Spring,Natsume Soseki - Botchan.See you this time next month to tell you how little I've read.

The Quickest Way to Soil One's Underwear

2011-12-09T04:59:00.001+09:00

I had the pleasure of doing English level checks at one of Japan's fastest growing companies yesterday. The people working there were very pleasant, interesting and engaging.One thing that was not all pleasant and lovely was the fact that I went up to the twenty-third floor in a glass elevator. Definitely not great. I had to close my eyes going up. However, coming down I mad the mistake of opening my eyes too early and saw what death must surely look like for those who plummet from buildings. I didn't, actually, drop one in my pants but I must have been close to evacuation.

Glass and Steel by filmvanalledag on Flickr

Seriously, has there ever been as tortuous a form of architectural ornamentation since spiral staircases in high buildings. If so, I can't think of one.

2011-11-18T12:00:00.000+09:00

Updated targets from a previous post.Japanese- JLPT Level N1 by 2012. Currently studying.- One new Keigo phrase per week, minimum.>More like once every two weeks, maybe. Will step it up.- Finish the Harry Potter books in Japanese by March. About 30% through.>Been sidetracked but got through a chapter of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.- Keep a diary in Japanese every day for 30 days. Will start today.>Most days. I missed about two.Diet- Less than five cups of coffee per day. Achieved.>Actually I've now drastically cut down on my coffee and some days I don't drink any at all.- Two regular-sized snacks maximum per day, preferably replace all with fruit. Trying it now.>Failed but I'm going to get back on this.Psychology- Refrain from anger regarding slow and/or erratic human traffic.>Slowly getting better. Perhaps linked to reduced coffee or just mindfulness.- See more good. Be less judgemental.>Again, slowly coming along. I just imagine, a la Gretchen Rubin in The Happiness Project about how it might feel to be in their shoes. Make excuses for other people and it feels a lot better. Instead of seeing a complete prick, like you may be tempted to, you see a human. Most of the time.

Out of the Hospital

2011-11-10T07:25:00.001+09:00

My son is out of the hospital. He's been out since Tuesday and so far he seems to be out of his usual routine.

The net effect is that neither Princess Prettygood nor myself have slept the past two nights.

Still, he's well and everything. I just wish he'd realise the benefits of a good night's sleep.

First (and Hopefully Last) Hospital Stay

2011-10-31T07:15:00.001+09:00

On Friday night, The Heir Apparent was a bit hot. He'd got a fever so Princess Prettygood rang a medical helpline. They said if it gets worse during the night take the baby to the emergency reception.

He didn't get worse or better in the night so we took him to a popular children's clinic near our home on Saturday morning. The doctor listened with his stethoscope and looked down his throat.

"Ah, it's difficult to say," he said. "You should wait two or three days and see if his temperature goes down. If it doesn't, go to an emergency section."

We took The Heir home, had lunch and I let Princess P sleep. For a bit. The Heir's temperature managed to race up to 39.4゜C.

We got a taxi to Central Hospital and had The Heir seen. The doctor was almost in a rage.

"This doctor isn't a paediatrician. What on Earth did he tell you to wait for? We need to act quickly and run tests."

Japan doesn't have General Practitioners; we went to an internal medicine specialist who also treats children. To me, if you put down that you practice children's medicine then I'll assume you're experienced enough. I'm so angry words cannot express it.

The poor bairn had a spinal tap to test for meningitis and has a drip in his hand. He's likely to be in for a week. Still, he's in good spirits. I can't visit him for a couple of days because I've caught a cold. Hopefully he'll be out in a couple of days.

Thanks to everyone who sent their regards via Twitter.

(Not much) Writing

2011-10-28T21:59:00.001+09:00

I actually got around to writing this week. It was about two paragraphs in total of snatched time. By writing I mean non-diary stuff: the novel in (slow) progress and the e-boo/app/wiki idea I have going on. I may post one short section of the novel in progress in the downloads section very soon but this all depends on time to type.I've also been writing application emails for jobs a lot.

Targets - Hopes - Strivings

2011-10-18T10:58:00.001+09:00

I'm on a self-improvement kick at the moment. I've set myself targets.

Japanese

- JLPT Level N1 by 2012. Currently studying.

- One new Keigo phrase per week, minimum.

- Finish the Harry Potter books in Japanese by March. About 30% through.

- Keep a diary in Japanese every day for 30 days. Will start today.

Diet

- Less than five cups of coffee per day. Achieved.

- Two regular-sized snacks maximum per day, preferably replace all with fruit. Trying it now.

Psychology

- Refrain from anger regarding slow and/or erratic human traffic.

- See more good. Be less judgemental.

Autumn

2011-10-11T08:24:00.001+09:00

There is something about Autumn mornings that makes them feel special but what it is I don't know. It isn't the frost on the ground because we don't get that here in the Tokyo area. It's not the putrid smell of gingko nuts because that was never a part of English Autumn. The only thing I can think of is the quality of light at dawn; the awakening brilliance of Summer replaced by a yellow that appears warmer than the actual temperature.

That is not to say Iam a morning person. I am dependent upon coffee to get me through the door in order to even experience the season. However, once awake, the weather, light and slowly changing foliage have me looking up at the sky and the treetops.

Last week I taught a college girl who had four-leaved clovers and yellow gingko leaves in her diary. It is comforting to know that even amid Tokyo, dwelling in concrete, steel and glass, there are people who value the timeless and unrelenting changes imposed on the planet.

She gave me one of her clovers.

"Are you sure?" I asked, knowing that while they cost nothing they are not without value.

"Yes, because I can share good luck."

The clover is now in the back of my diary.

Captain Corelli's Mandolin

2011-10-01T18:36:00.002+09:00

Currently, I'm taking a break in the study of Japanese to get through Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis De Bernieres(with a horrendous film tie-in cover), a book that has a large number of English words that I had forgotten the meaning of due to lack of use and precious few encounters. 'Venial' is one such example. There are some choice words in Italian and Greek I have learned too!So it's really taken me by surprise and I think I am going to have to ensure that I make more time in my life to read novels in English as well as plough through my self-impose quest to finish the Harry Potter series in Japanese by February.Captain Correlli's Mandolin is a joy to read and it reminds me rather a lot of Kundera but in a less rarefied way. It also makes me feel determined to finish my Tokyo thriller I have in progress.Sorry I don't blog so much these days; I'd love to but don't have tons of time. There are a million things I'd love to blog about too.

Crowded

2011-09-18T21:43:00.000+09:00

It's the start of the Bank Holiday Weekend, or Silver Week, in Japan. This means a million extra users of Tokyo's transport system as the far suburbanites come to Shibuya, Ginza, Shinjuku and Ikebukuro. It irritates the hell out of me because of the vast number of people not used to the city and thus deciding to stand in exactly the most inconvenient place possible while catching their bearings.It's times like this when one wonders, "Why exactly would Governor Ishihara want to hold the Olympics in Tokyo when there's no way to build extra infrastructure to deal with all the extra visitors?"It's worse than London in the summer.Anyway, moan over, I'm glad of the rest tomorrow and this coming Friday. Enjoy yourselves. Here's some music me and the kid like:

Being Busy

2011-09-16T07:15:00.001+09:00

Hello. There is a lack of frequency to my posts and I'm sorry. There are some days when I work long days and have no energy to write a post. I also have the baby. My mother recently asked me if I'm doing too much; I'm not doing as much as I'd like to.

Writing-wise I have a series of posts on Disney that I am researching, an Ebook I'm writing slowly, another novel in addition to that and a series of posts on my failed rock career.

Till the next time, probably next week or so.

Minotaurs - Eat Yr Hate

2011-08-26T14:51:00.001+09:00

The friend and bandmate of my friend, Dave (of Frankie & The Heartstrings), Mick Ross' band Minotaurs have released an album. I wouldn't have to mention it, because I haven't actually met Mick and so have no Christmas card list to be crossed off for not featuring it.

Anyway, it is quite a nice album. The press release mentioned Belle And Sebastian, my pet hates, as an influence. I can see it, and the music is like Belle and Sebastian without the contrived lyrics and pretense of a lack of musical proficiency. Also, an added bonus for a band these days, the singers can actually sing in tune and everything.

Witches is a cracking, bitter, loving slice of pop like all those bands influenced by the Velvet Underground should have made. Dictaphone is the song you need on in the car after a crap day at work. When they are weak, the guitars sound a little bit pompous, overdriven and rock out that little bit too much but when the band are truly on top form, the guitars sound brittle and warm like the old bloke in the corner of the pub who everyone knows and loves.

If you need something slightly bitter but not miserable, this is your cup of tea. If you like pop music with a folky bent to it, without being 'quirky' you should snap this up.

Minotaurs have free tracks available here.

No Essay and the Excuse

2011-08-24T15:25:00.000+09:00

Sorry, there was no essay on Monday. I'm back to a relatively busy schedule and the Heir Apparent is giving it some at 3 a.m., thus ensuring that Princess Prettygood are sleep starved.

I've been reading about radioactive milk in Japanese and reading Harry Potter in Japanese.

There should be an essay next week. I also have a new ebook idea I'm working on, which will have hyperlinks and whatnot. Ooh, exciting.

Interesting Essay

2011-08-15T14:06:00.003+09:00

Tim Adams in The Guardian. "Who owns our green and pleasant land?"

A nice companion to the Paul Kingsnorth book Real England.

A Baby at Home

2011-08-13T11:47:00.000+09:00

Princess Prettygood and the Heir Apparent are out of hospital. They're healthy and well. I'm not going to go off on one talking about how cute babies are, though; everybody knows that babies are cute.

Anyway, I found out that:

My simple cooking is better than when I try more difficult stuff.

Changing crap-filled nappies is bloody hard, and there is a correlation between how much a baby moves and how much crap is in the nappy.

Bathing a baby is even harder than changing a nappy due to the crying and wriggling when soapy. My first baby bathing session was last night and it was, let's say, eventful.

Beethoven's 'Ode To Joy' makes a wicked chill-out song. As does Cornelius' 'Star Fruits Surf Rider'.

Interesting Essay

2011-08-08T22:42:00.000+09:00

Dutch rethink Christianity for a doubtful world by Robert Pigott on the BBC website.

Really made me think as an athiest who has illogical moments of faith.

Now a Father

2011-08-05T09:41:00.000+09:00

Less than 24 hours into it.

3.3kg. 50.9cm. Male. Dark hair. Dark eyes. Healthy, like his mother.

I'm ecstatic. I won't be posting photos in public places either. It's Google Plus or Flickr with privacy settings.

Impending

2011-08-03T23:40:00.000+09:00

Tomorrow, I should be a dad, that is if all goes well like it is supposed to and stuff.

Princess Prettygood is scheduled to have a caesarean section and then The Heir Apparent will emerge. The happy part follows the scary part. Prettygood has never had surgery before. She is putting a brave face on the top of her worry.

I am trying to be the face of routine, business as usual but the fact is that I am also very scared indeed. The caesarean is scary-ish, but it's the fatherhood that scares me more. Casarean sections performed by skilled medical professionals are as risk free as crossing the road, or thereabouts.

I know that any moron can father a child; what worries me is that I'll end up inadvertently mentally scarring my son or clumsily physically scarring him. I know it probably won't happen but I am sure that everybody who has kids fears that they'll cause their offspring irreversible harm.

I'm allowed to worry at night, while Princess Prettygood is in the hospital and I am here by myself for now. Tomorrow I'll meet Queen Quitegood, take the train to the hospital and smile while I cower inside as Princess gets rolled down to surgery.

The old maxim "It's a good job men don't have kids" is probably quite fitting, although I know Princess is worried herself.

Interesting Essay

2011-08-01T10:01:00.001+09:00

Race, Riot Grrl, the Black Rock Movement, and Nirvana: The Teen Espirit Revisited Overflow by LaToya Peterson at Racialicious.com

A very interesting essay about the fallout from grunge viewed through a feminist, non-white lens.

Interesting Essay

2011-07-25T21:58:00.000+09:00

Via @pipstar: Aleks Krotowski "Friendship: why social networksare too crowded to get close" in The Guardian.

An interesting piece on why social networking sites are not like being real friends.

The Bossa Nova Toilet Experience

2011-07-22T22:09:00.001+09:00

Warning! Scatalogical content (talking about poo) ahead.

There is a certain delight in using public toilets in department stores and restaurants in Japan. People generally go the extra mile to make their customers feel welcome and the water closet is just one more aspect of good customer service. It is actually possible to use dreadful public toilets, especially in train stations where there are likely to be squat toilets where you hover above the porcelain and admire the vast array of shit stains and such while you strain your knee muscles and try not to have your trousers fall into what you hope is water but is probably errant piss. However, hotels, department stores, restaurants, bars, malls and even office buildings have very nice toilets indeed.

I think, one way to gauge the quality of service is by the music piped into the toilets. there are only three main genres that seem to be acceptable:

1. Jazz, preferably Bossa Nova, probably instrumental

This is most likely in restaurants but also a staple of the sophisticated fashion floors of department stores.

2. New Age or World Music

Crystals, wind chimes or pan pipes. Possibly a didgeridoo or Hawaiian guitar in some cases.

3. Classical Music

And by classical, it should be Brahms, Beethoven, Vivaldi or Pachelbel. I would have thought Handel's Water Music would be ideal for the lavatory but it appears not to be the case.

And one gets to sit in peace listening to all of this, on a heated seat in most cases and even with jet bidet facilities in the very posh toilets which are still more common than one would think if one were from provincial England.

I really don't think I will ever get used to just how good toilets are here, no matter how long I live here.

New Weekly Feature? - Interesting Essays

2011-07-18T15:08:00.001+09:00

I, probably like you, am quite tired of the internet being full of short stuff that has no real staying power, nothing to really grab you and make you keep your attention fixed on it for anything more than about three seconds.

Really, the internet could be a much greater thing than a repository for hardcore pornography, illegal media downloads and recipes for variations on a pasta sauce.

So, hopefully, weekly, I'll be linking to at least one or two interesting essays.

This week:

Devin Friedman, 'Will You be my Black Friend' in GQ (US). Via @longreads

White man with insecurity about the small number of black friends tries to make some. Makes himself seem like an arse. Funny, sad, maddenning, annoying at various points.

Will Storr 'The Rape of Men' in The Guardian from their front page.

Disturbing. Makes you wish the world was not how it is. Makes you feel powerless to help your fellow man.

A bit about Google Plus

2011-07-14T12:01:00.000+09:00

I am a social networker. I love Twitter after hating it for a while. I hate Facebook and don't use it because of Privacy issues. Google Plus seems to be quite ideal. Also, the best things about it at the moment are:

There are no invites to Farmville, Zombies versus Pirates, etc.

There is a gentler option than blocking people by having limited sharing.

Not many people are on it, thus reducing the deluge of mail alerts.

So, yes, I'm quite liking Google Plus right now. But one wrong move and it could change.

Traveller Wedding

2011-07-09T22:34:00.002+09:00

I finished Graham Jones' (no relation) Traveller Wedding the other night. It's well worth reading and has a narrator with a really engaging voice. I was a bit taken aback with the ending, but I knowhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif somebody else has said that about mine as well.

If you want a cracking, and quite short read, you could do a lot worse than download it. Have a look!

The Approach

2011-07-08T15:36:00.003+09:00

Yay! I'm on my summer holidays from the Junior High School I work at. Today I spent my first full day off in 3 weeks mainly in a hospital waiting room while Princess Prettygood had a blood test for gestational diabetes.

One lesson to be learned from this: take a book as well as a notebook. Princess P nodded out a couple of times due to lack of sleep the night before. The television was rubbish (NHK BS Premium; I assume the BS stands for Bog Standard) and Princess P wasn't especially in a conversational mood due to tiredness. A hospital waiting room is not very much like a bookshop or a theme park is the crux of today's post.

The next appointment is in a couple of weeks. We've been told that the Heir Apparent could make an appearance in the first week of August. Exciterrifiedelighted is a real word, isn't it? I think it means crapping your pants while clapping your hands.

Summer, or how I learned to stop fuming and love my fellow man

2011-07-01T21:22:00.004+09:00

It's the summer. My family love summer. My family, that is, apart from me. Summer in England is always associated with hayfever, itchy eyes and making excuses not to go outside in the daytime and instead listen to music indoors. In Japan, it's positively Dantean. Sweltering heat, a million pissed-off people roaming the streets with their temper set to short.

But one can't avoid work. So it goes that I end up boarding the packed commuter trains and dissolve half my body in sweat before I even make it to the workplace, carrying a good two kilos in book form.

This year, because of the sacrifices we're being told to make due to there being a nuclear power plant offline, people do seem to be restraining their irritation a bit more even than is customary. Even I have lost most of my morning commuter killer instinct. While I'm not quite Sakyamuni, I think I'm doing a good job of keeping the anger in check, especially when you consider I've been breaking new work shoes in as well.

Have a bit of summer fun:

Sooner rather than later

2011-06-24T21:45:00.004+09:00

Apparently, the Heir Apparent is keen to make his way into the world sooner rather than later and aims to do this by increasing his size as quickly as possible inside Princess Prettygood. We may be going for an early caesarian birth.

Obviously it's a worry. I'd like everything to be 'normal' and with this pregnancy there is a lot I'm finding out for the first time about kids and stuff but also I'm finding stuff out about myself too. Feelings that I never thought I had. The ability to be a massive hypocrite (or rather revise several opinions I may previously have held).

Apart from my feelings, Princess Prettygood wishes she could give birth as soon as possible, seeing as the Heir Apparent is kicking the crap out of her stomach and lungs. I don't know where he can get such a lust for physical activity from. Certainly not me. Princess Prettygood complains of being in pain or uncomfortable all the time. And today her legs got really swollen. It's like the stereotypical pregnancy. But she's more radiant.

Anyway, it's on. It's imminent. And it's bloody scary and thrilling at the same time. And this week I re-read Keep The Aspidistra Flying by George Orwell. Which isn't entirely unrelated to coming to terms with opinions and such.

Featured on Toycamera.com

2011-06-17T22:54:00.002+09:00

I was featured on Toycamera.com.

It may have been a quiet week.

Weightlessness - Now on Obooko

2011-06-15T22:24:00.003+09:00

Hello. This is just to say that my book will no longer be available on this site after 29th June 2011. However, it will be available on Obooko, a really good free ebooks site. I'm reading a book at the moment from them, and will recommend it heartily and without reservation once I finish it.

You need to register with an email address but, it's free. So why not?

No Nukes

2011-06-11T18:33:00.003+09:00

There was a really peaceful anti-nuclear demonstration in Shinjuku today. A mix of people, young and old turned out. Maybe not old enough to have been badly affected by Hiroshima and Nagasaki but certainly old enough to appreciate the shadow it cast over the nation's consciousness in the post-war years.

Now that use of nuclear power and its potential consequence for disaster is back in prominence, the public are making their feelings known. The only question is whether they'll look at Fukushima and people's reaction to it or just go ahead and be corrupt and take tainted money and lie about it being for the public good.

Summer Reading List

2011-06-09T20:34:00.004+09:00

I fancy a bit of something familiar and a bit of something new. The something new is definitely going to be the child being born. The others shall be:

1. Hopefully finish The Brothers Karamazov (Dostoyevsky) [Ha! As if that's possible!]
2. and Gods, Demons and Others (R.K. Narayan)
3. The Buddha of Suburbia by Hanif Kureishi. I read The Black Album as a kid and it was one of the books that really made me see that reading is actually entertaining as well as educational.
4. Actually, I want to read the Kureishi essay collection but it is more than I can afford at the moment.
5. Neuromancer by William Gibson. I read Spook Country two years ago and liked it a lot. I'd like to read the 'big deal' book. Actually, I read a few pages in the bookshop and it seems very good indeed.
6. The third volume of 20th Century Boys by Naoki Urasawa. A really interesting, sci-fi doomsday-cult manga.
7. The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein. Because I've been in the No Logo mood lately. And I don't read enough non-fiction.

Now, this list could easily sprawl to a year rather than just summer but we'll see how we go. There were others I could have put in but I know I will be short of time so this is about as realistic as I can get it.

How much time to die?

2011-06-06T23:15:00.002+09:00

There's a fascinating article I read this evening about David Eagleman and his research into perceptions of time (via Lifehacker). The hook that caught me was the fact that time seems to run more slowly in a near-death or a high-stakes situation. That it then takes in synaesthesia, neuropsychology and autodidacticism makes it even better.

It reminded me of my scooter crash and the time spent sliding across the road after being pelted off the thing by twin foes gravity and momentum. I had time to imagine a ton of stuff, but I can't have taken too long to come to a halt at all.

Give yourself a nice chunk of time to savour it.

Pregnancy Consumption

2011-06-03T20:52:00.003+09:00

I've already had a go about the number of parenting blogs that are thinly veiled press releases and PR exercise for toy/food companies.

Princess Prettygood was in a bloody horrible mood yesterday and today. She went for a social tea and sweets with the ladies from the parenting class and basically everybody ended up making her feel shit because:

1. We have no money. I have no savings, having lived payday to payday.

2. Their husbands have savings and better income than me. And at least 8 million yen saved up.

3. They have untold disposable cash to spend on foreign imported brands of stuff for baby. And we don't.

They didn't consider her feelings, even/especially when saying "I've never heard of anyone with a yearly income of less than six million yen having a baby in Kawasaki." Yet who feels like the reprehensible turd? Me, that's who.

Tumblr / SocialNormal

2011-05-30T15:03:00.004+09:00

I've tried Tumblr a few times but never really got into it. Probably because I used to be an evangelical del.icio.us user.

Anyway, I'm curating stuff and putting in stuff of my own - little detournements and such here: http://socialnormal.tumblr.com/

There will be a lot of different stuff - hopefully some video and MP3s of homemade stuff. Audio collages and stuff. Fake realism. Real fakism. Enjoy.

Parenting Class

2011-05-26T14:44:00.003+09:00

With the good fortune of a day off falling on the same day of Princess Prettygood's parenting class I went along. I met a few other dads, though I was the only foreign dad in the group.

Got to see how to change a nappy (last done about 16 years ago when babysitting), how to bathe a baby and got to chat to loads of dads. Not having a drink meant I was a bit on the shy side but 9 a.m. is a bit early for a beer anyway.

Afterward a group of us had lunch and it was all rather nice and what was even better was I actually understood more than I thought I would have done.

Sweatshop labour again

2011-05-20T23:04:00.004+09:00

So I was thinking about this whole sweatshops problem. It occupies quite a lot of my thoughts.

Is it something that we'd have to get governments to criminalise? Would that be workable? Would companies still produce in sweatshops and just have front factories sew in their labels?

It's fairly obvious that companies can't and won't police themselves. Governments need to legislate because markets won't decide. People will choose cheap goods all the time when their wages are decided in relation to the Retail Price Index or other apparatus.

With the perhaps unworkable or unenforceable laws, governments will be reluctant to send bills through let alone vote them into law. It may mean a return to manufacturing for a lot of developed countries who have had a lot of production offshored or relocated overseas.

Vocabulary Retention - Japanese - Note To Self

2011-05-14T23:10:00.003+09:00

So, I decided that I'd put the Athens password I wasted for a year to some good use and look at some linguistics journals. In doing so I found out that repetitive gap fill exercises are more effective for retaining grammar than producing single sentences. Sentence production is time consuming, so for simple retention of grammar, I should fill blanks in sentences. Then afterwards, to practice the vocabulary I think I will produce Japanese sentences using said vocabulary.

A Childhood in Music - 18/18 - 1995

2011-05-12T20:54:00.000+09:00

It was the year of Britpop, it was the year I was glued to Wear FM in my bedroom. It was the year I got (and lost, somewhat carelessly) my first serious girlfriend. This is what I was listening to.

After this, I would often flirt with extremely disposable indie pop (Bis), but many of the CDs I bought in and around 1995 are staples of what I listen to now. After leaving school I got to be about the happiest I ever was and while I made some bad choices I made some really good ones as well.

Of the whole series of posts, omissions include: 'Much Too Late For Goodbyes' by Julian Lennon, Cyndi Lauper 'Time After Time', Cypress Hill 'Insane In The Brain', Senser 'Age of Panic', The Pain Teens 'RU486', Mambo Taxi 'Do You Always Dress Like That In Front Of Other People's Boyfriends?'

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17

A Childhood in Music - 17/18 - 1994

2011-05-07T22:23:00.004+09:00

Although I had desperately tried to avoid grunge (bar Nirvana and Sonic Youth, pretty much), I wasn't totally anti-rock. Sometimes, though I liked pop, it just wasn't appropriate listening for my state of mind at that time. I was, like many other kids, bullied at school.

I was a weird kid, which is normal, because there are always weird kids. I was not really sure about how to be very social, desperately wanted to be liked but just seemed to have different standards regarding stuff to actually like.

Because I was different in a County Durham colliery town that was dying and on its knees, people had little toleration for bohemianism (even pop music and long hair). So I got kicked in the back every science lesson which the teacher turned a blind eye to, threatened with chisels in woodwork, verbally abused in IT and PE (if I went to PE), and ignored in the other lessons. I also had my hair burned in Personal and Social Education class. I don't even consider this out of the ordinary now. Undesirable, but I am absolutely sure there are still too many kids who have to undergo what I managed to get through.

I hung about with people, most not from my school, who had similar, but not the same tastes, and who I was really not middle class enough to be hanging about with, although they would have denied they were middle class until they were blue in the face for the most part. They also made me feel uneasy and I never really fit in with them.

You can't really shout along to pop very often, so something a bit rockier is absolutely necessary. Imagine you've got acid running through your veins instead of blood while you listen to these.

My clothes, shoes and outrage and where they come from.

2011-05-01T23:24:00.005+09:00

The recent article in The Guardian about fashion/leisurewear companies being supplied by factories producing goods without paying minimum wages, living wages, or by forcing illegal overtime makes me feel quite angry and rather sad. I thought, perhaps too optimistically, that we had moved on since the late 1990s and early part of this century. I thought the ire of Naomi Klein's No Logo and the fire it put into the people who saw Fight Club may have made the companies that seek our money also seek to be nicer people who actually give a shit about other human beings.

Seems I was wrong. Seeing as my money will be going toward clothing a child soon as well, it's doubly depressing. If I want my child to grow up respecting other people, how can I possibly justify spending 1000 yen on clothes that a shopworker gets paid 850 yen per hour to sell and the person in a factor gets between 1 to 10 yen an hour to produce? I'm not quite earning enough to be shelling out for Patagonia or similar high-end brands that guarantee fair prices and fair trade.

It's a bloody quandary is what it is. But I won't be spending at Gap or Forever 21, that's a foregone conclusion unless they can show that there is actual, measurable progress and not just talk.

Optimistically, the only thing I've seen to cheer me up is this link via Peter (@cheapasyouare)

Dydo Morinaga Hotcake Flavoured Milk

2011-04-30T19:02:00.003+09:00

Bought from: vending machine at Nojima Denki, Maginu, Kawasaki.

Taste: extremely sweet. A bit like pancakes, but not very. A bit like Ovaltine, but not very. Quite sugary and milky.

Would I buy it again? Only if I was going to enter a coma due to lack of sugar.

A Childhood in Music - 16/18 - 1993

2011-04-30T09:53:00.003+09:00

The obsession with music just got stronger this year. Although all my mates seemed to opt for Nirvana, who I sort of liked, and Pearl Jam, who were just too earnest and macho for me to enjoy, I liked more European, poppier fare. I would never have admitted liking this Duran Duran song at the time but it was on more than one compilation of stuff taped off the radio.

There was also the burgeoning interest in Saint Etienne after 'Nothing Can Stop Us' featured in John Peel's Festive 50 of 1992. 'You're In A Bad Way' was something I even learned to play on the keyboard.

Saint Etienne - 'You're In A Bad Way' on YouTube

And Björk made it on to the CD player most days in 1993.

Björk - 'Human Behaviour' on YouTube

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New Movements

2011-04-25T13:47:00.002+09:00

Last night the baby kicked. Just after I got out of the bath, Princess Prettygood declared that "The baby just kicked! I had my hand on my bump for ages."

I had my hand there for a good while too but nothing. Then, in bed she said "The baby's kicking like crazy."

And he was.

I won't go mooning over babies being miracles or anything. But I felt very, very emotional indeed.

It gets real now.

A Childhood in Music - 15/18 - 1992

2011-04-23T19:03:00.005+09:00

If 1991, according to Sonic Youth, was The Year That Punk Broke, then for me 1992 was the year that Indie broke, with my new CD player that I'd received for Christmas and an unhealthy obsession with the radio which would continue for many a year.

That 1992 was actually a fairly dreadful year for music was more than made up for by an obsessive amount of attention paid to the NME and Select magazine.

Manic Street Preachers - Little Baby Nothing

But, not only this. It was also the year of frivolous dance pop.

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DVD Frenzy

2011-04-20T22:55:00.003+09:00

Recently my local Tsutaya has been renting DVDs out for 100 yen per week. I have watched Are We There Yet?, Slumdog Millionaire, Death at a Funeral and Gran Torino.

Slumdog Millionaire was rather good. Stylistically excellent as you would expect from Danny Boyle. It was quite easy on the romanticism of poor people compared to what I actually thought it might be like, though it is a bit 'poor people make good'.

Gran Torino was marvellous. Breathtaking. Minimal special effects and maximum plot. I think it may even be one of the best films I've ever seen and possibly one of the most pacifist films ever made, in a way.

I am generally busy. Apologies for sporadic posts only.

Are We There Yet? was crap and Death at a Funeral was quite good.

This was a real conversation

2011-04-18T10:23:00.003+09:00

Mr. Rugged, a co-worker, is being talked to by Mr. Kerouac Junior, another older co-worker.

"Hey, Mr. Rugged. Did you ever make it to the Amazon when you were in Brazil?"

"Yeah, it was pretty cool."

"You know, next time I go there I'm gonna totally hook up with a shaman and do some ayahuasca."

Because, of course, tribal religious rites are just there for people in arrested adolescence to observe for the stoner fun of it. Maybe it's the Generation X/Y version of visiting cathedrals in Europe but I somehow doubt it.

A Childhood in Music - 14/18 - 1991

2011-04-16T21:21:00.003+09:00

Erasure were one of the only groups that both my parents and I liked. This is off the album with the best synth noise stuff and this is the best song off it.

Just a short post because I have been busy.

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Just a quick link regarding News

2011-04-09T09:34:00.004+09:00

Over at Neojaponisme there's a great post regarding the treatment of the Fukushima disaster by the foreign media. It's sourced from a Japanese-language Newsweek article.

The Day the Journalists Ran at Neojaponisme.

A Childhood in Music - 13/18 - 1990

2011-04-08T21:58:00.004+09:00

Love is a game of chances.

Ooh, 1990 the Summer of Love in the provinces of the UK, London and Manchester having already experienced theirs. For us kids, it meant hanging about in wide-bottomed jeans and hooded tops at the pre-teen roller disco. Even liking these songs couldn't make me cool.

Deee-Lite - Groove Is In The Heart

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Reality Check on Shortages

2011-04-04T22:58:00.005+09:00

If you think things are bad in Tokyo regarding shortages of everyday items, perhaps get a reality check and compare it to Cuba.

This is really compelling and puts the mineral water shortage into context.

Generation A - Oiled Mechanism

A Childhood in Music - 12/18 - 1989

2011-04-02T09:12:00.002+09:00

The first two albums I ever requested were Hangin' Tough by New Kids On The Block and Feeling Free by Sydney Youngblood. I own neither of those cassettes anymore.

New Kids On The Block inspired a whole generation of pre-teens to try and dance like no-kneed cossacks and repeat across playgrounds worldwide the cry "Oh oh oh-oh-oh". I wanted to be like Donnie, perhaps knowing that I would never be popular with girls.

Sydney Youngblood is one of those artists that went by the wayside once people decided that they wanted their soul/house crossover less poppy but dubbier like Massive Attack. I'm now kind of ambivalent toward this, but I do like the drum track.

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Thinking about news: Part 2

2011-03-30T23:14:00.003+09:00

News is really just dissemination of information and news gathering has come a long way since the days of the so-called 'Penny Dreadfuls' and political pamphlets. Apparently.

The large news organisations have always relied upon rank amateurs for footage (Super 8
footage of the John F. Kennedy assassination; World Trade Center camcorder footage) and photographs taken on camera phones have made it all too clear that those on the ground in the right place and at the right angle will be able to produce compelling material.

On the internet it is easy for such content to 'go viral' by word of mouth as friends and acquaintances send links by email/Twitter/Facebook.

This may be one of the reasons why Twitter keeps going despite finger pointing an accusations of losses. Twitter may be the perfect tailor-made news aggregator - the hyper personal, timely gossip and big news stories along with ephemera and jokes.

In this way, Twitter will always beat the traditional media because it is giving people exactly what they want because they're having it fed to them as and when they want it. The nearest comparative old media solution would be buying every newspaper and magazine possible according to one's taste and skimming them for interesting articles or having several televisions and radios turned on at once and hoping that something would grab one's attention.

Part 1

Weightlessness

2011-03-28T21:17:00.002+09:00

Since I've posted the book online for free (see up near the top for the downloads page), 35 people have taken the trouble to download it. No feedback yet, but I'd still like to say thanks to everybody who bothered.

Worry Factor Reduced

2011-03-27T19:06:00.002+09:00

Apparently, the water is less radioactive now. Still, all bets are off regarding the media so Princess Prettygood is still consuming bottled water/tea from PET bottles. I'm drinking the tap water.

I just have to try not to get too irritated when I see middle-aged people who likely don't have young kids carrying mineral water. The only thing that keeps me calm is thanking myself lucky I wasn't living in Fukushima. It gets me through the day.

Today was uneventful apart from listening to a co-worker vent.

A Childhood in Music - 11/18 - 1988

2011-03-25T21:24:00.003+09:00

1988 was the year of the Acid House explosion proper. Of course it was 1986 in sophisticated enclaves in London and Manchester but it didn't make it to the backwater mining towns until later. It probably made it big with We Call it Acieed

We Call It Acieed was crap but it opened the door for other pop/acid house crossovers.

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I loved House Arrest when I first heard it. It doesn't exactly stand up now but it was fairly mindblowing for a nine-year old. It was like Pump Up The Volume by M/A/R/R/S (from 1987) with vocals.

Despite all the hype about the dance music in the charts, I did also rather love this. I only found out that Prefab Sprout were from County Durham when I was about 17 as well.

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Alert status: Worried

2011-03-23T21:50:00.003+09:00

I wasn't worried before. I don't think I was exactly cavalier, but I wasn't worried.

The reason for it is that the radiation in Tokyo's drinking water has risen above recommended levels for infants. Because Princess Prettygood is pregnant, this scares me a lot because Kanagawa Prefecture, especially Kawasaki City, is right next to Tokyo.

Here is the list of national water analyses (multilingual).

Thanks to Hiroko Nakata for tweets with links.

Thinking about news - Part 1

2011-03-22T00:20:00.005+09:00

It's hardly a shock that news organisations are funded entities. They exist to make profits and the way they justify charging for their services is by making the news interesting enough to make people engage with it and simple enough to understand.

Or is this the way they actually operate in the 'Information Age'?

It was reading sensationalist news about the situation in Fukushima from tabloids and poorly fact-checked, badly sourced news from organisations I had previously respected that has made diminished my trust in larger media organisations. It's made me think about the following questions. I hope I can actually answer them myself over the next few weeks?

Do citizen media and user-generated content tend to lack resources and actual time to go out news gathering due to their usually amateur nature?

Are they produced by people with a passion and a large amount of local knowledge?

Can they outperform the mainstream media on a consistent basis? Would this be possible within a loosely-knit consortium?

Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On

2011-03-20T10:54:00.003+09:00

One of the least bearable things for me in this spate of earthquakes/aftershocks has been the seasickness aspect of it. I am quite sensitive to earthquakes if I am not in bed when they occur. During 'The Big One' on Friday 11th March, I thought I was going to vomit. With much of the greater Tokyo area behaving essentially as pendulum, I am sure that I have been going around green faced for the last eight days.

And although I wondered whether eating jam/marmalade might help, as in the old story how French sailors ate jam to avoid seasickness, I can conclusively say that it doesn't work at all.

My book for free: Weightlessness

2011-03-19T23:52:00.003+09:00

I've been on and on forever about writing this book and stuff. To be honest, sending it to agents is a pain and they say it's too short and whatnot. I like short books, and so do other people.

You can download Weightlessness, my first novel I've been truly content with here until 29th June 2011, upon which I will review the situation.

Light Relief - A Childhood in Music - 10/18 - 1987

2011-03-18T21:11:00.005+09:00

Somewhere in my heart there is always a Vauxhall Cavalier on a long road journey in school holidays with the radio tuned to Atlantic 252.

Radiation NOT Sweeping the Nation

2011-03-18T11:02:00.002+09:00

I found this useful link by doing a quick Google Search.

Metropolis Geiger Counter Readings

I was a bit scared yesterday by the number of embassies advising their citizens to leave Japan/Tokyo. I was thinking about whether to send Princess Prettygood somewhere in Western Japan for a while. However, it should be OK. We're a while away from tin foil hats in the Greater Tokyo area.

Holy Grails

2011-03-17T23:29:00.002+09:00

Today I bought toilet paper. Admittedly, I bought it about 15km away from my house, but I still managed to buy toilet paper.

Princess Prettygood's uncle treated us to dinner in a family restaurant. They had a bigger list of what wasn't on the menu than what was on the menu.

I hope everybody is doing fine.

If you're like me, and get seasick in earthquakes, I wonder what the benefits of eating marmalade or jam are.

Ford Prefect or Arthur Dent

2011-03-16T22:29:00.004+09:00

Today I walked to the immigration office to hand in some forms that I thought would arrive too late if I posted them. When I arrived it was the molst crowded I'd ever seen it. Throngs of people lined up, although mainly young professionals, while off to the side others asked questions to officials. I tried to hand over my forms to one of these people but was told to post them anyway with a brief note that they may be late due to the earthquake.

I saw two colleagues - Mr. Rugged and Mr. Ready.

"Alright, gents. What are you doing here?" I asked.

"Re-entry permits*," Mr. Ready said.

"Are you going home?"

"Not home but somewhere tillthis all blows over."

Earlier on I got a direct message on Twitter from a friend asking "Are you leaving Tokyo like all the rest of the gaijin I know?"

To which I replied in our customary non-African American tone of banter, "Hell nno! I'm like Chris Rock. I'm never scared."

But I am a bit scared, actually. I'm scared of idiots storing petrol and the possibility of explosion; I'm scared of people panic buying and leaving Princess Prettygood and I trying to find god knows what to eat; and I'm scared of the power that panic has over so many usually level-headed people.

I worried last night when there was a big aftershock, the first big one I'd experienced in this apartment. I stood in the door frame of the living room. Princess Prettygood fumed at me afterwards that I could have turned off the gas for the hot water in the kitchen instead of being an arse.

Radiation is nothing to panic about though. Anybody with a GCSE in Science could tell you that using a mobile phone or microwaving leftovers is more dangerous than walking in Tokyo right now.

Never go to bed late after an earthquake

2011-03-15T12:10:00.002+09:00

I slept relatively late today. Most supermarket shelves are empty and today I missed the chance to buy toilet paper.

Perhaps a diet of boiled eggs is necessary until I can buy toilet paper.

The Waiting Game

2011-03-14T14:34:00.005+09:00

As I tweeted earlier, the trains were crazy this morning. Seeing as people are still having problems getting into Tokyo from the suburbs work is cancelled for today.

Supermarket queues were longer today than they were yesterday but not quite like Russian bread queues on television in the late 1980s/early 1990s. Panic buying isn't quite happening but if deliveries happen more scarcely due to lack of food in the north east then who knows what will happen.

Power cuts start in an hour or so here where I am. Take care everybody. Remember, there is no cause for alarm.

On being relatively unprepared

2011-03-13T11:48:00.005+09:00

Yesterday, Prettygood and I ventured out of the house to find a torch but our local electrical retailer and our local budget retailer had sold out.

There are power cuts scheduled across 9 prefectures in Japan, each taking turns, in order to save power. It's understandable when one of the main power suppliers for the greater Kanto area has one or possibly two reactors out of commission. So far everything is alright but there are rumours (and only rumours) about higher radiation levels in Tokyo.

There are some alarmist pieces in the foreign press about Tokyo. We actually have it good in central Kanto - trains are running on skeleton services, supermarkets are open and people are in good spirit.

Supermarkets are selling out of things fast, although panic buying is not as much of a problem as you would think. It's mainly bread, frozen and instant food that's selling out quickly although pretty good and I saw a woman buying about 5 packs of anindofu (a kind of dessert tofu) and general junk food.

We are still OK but I am wondering what work will be like tomorrow.

Longest walk of my life

2011-03-11T21:45:00.005+09:00

From Mita in Tokyo to my home in Kawasaki.

Buses were packed. Taxis were in high demand. That said the roads were packed and as the madness with today's earthquake went on, people started driving ever more crazily.

My heart goes out to the people of Miyagi, Iwate, Hokkaido and the other truly, terribly affected ares like the Chiba steel plant. That Princess Prettygood didn't have electricity or water until just now is a blessing compared to that.

This was the scariest earthquake I've ever experienced. Some people think they'd like to experience a big one, that it would be really something. It wouldn't. It's at best a massive inconvenience and a huge worry, at worst it's impending injury or death.

I hope everybody from my circle of friends in Japan is OK.

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Now with added freelance goodness

2011-03-11T01:06:00.003+09:00

I have gone part-time freelance. This is sort of exciting, and not so scary seeing as I have two regular part-time jobs, so I won't be in the doldrums waiting to get paid like many freelancers.

If you live in the Tokyo area and you want English lessons (or if you want English lessons over the internet anywhere in the world by Skype) email me for a quote. I can also provide an English proofreading service.

Parenting Blogs - zero links

2011-03-05T23:39:00.003+09:00

Trawling my way around the net for blogs about having a baby or being a dad (yes, I have a little one on the way this year! Yay!) I found almost nothing worth reading. By nothing, I mean a collection of blogs where people have been sent Product X and rather than review it objectively they write puff pieces about how awesome Product X is and how XCorp are so great for sending them stuff.

In place of XCorp you might want to substitute Fisher Price, other toy manufacturers and people who make educational goods of dubious quality.

Just saying.

Will this turn into a 'Daddy blog'? Not in the reviewed stuff way. Will I blog and moan about my child? Er, yeah probably. And books. And work. So no change there.

A Childhood in Music - 9/18 - 1986

2011-03-04T21:39:00.003+09:00

It's not often that I get the chance to feature a fellow North Eastern lad as part of the music of my childhood (though there will be one more, I promise).

After Frankie Goes To Hollywood's in-your-face gay pop, it seems that the charts were ready for less shocking yet still political dance songs.

Did the Pet Shop Boys open the door for Erasure's slightly bland, less artless, more derivative pop (more of which in 1992)? I think so, though to be fair to PSB, there was a wealth of faceless synth-pop acts in the 1980s that you just couldn't dance to, like The Thompson Twins and Jean Michel Jarre (though both came at pop from a rockist angle, post-punk from the former and prog rock from the latter).

What they were really famous for in my family was the sound of Sunday at my grandma's while my aunts were glued to The Clothes Show.

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Things that have made me happy this week

2011-03-03T11:48:00.003+09:00

I was told about students appreciating my lessons. This made me smile rather a lot.

Roxy Music's For Your Pleasure and Björk's Vespertine. Two brilliant albums that I hadn't heard for ages. Vespertine was especially surprising because I'd always thought it was a bit too cold. They were listened to about three times through on the computer and twice through on my iPod shuffle. The Roxy Music one was pleasantly dark on the way back from work.

Princess Prettygood laughing a lot. Sometimes at me, sometimes with me.

Sunny intervals.

Getting a bit more of The Brothers Karamazov read.

Feeling good about Japanese grammar.

Getting over an outbreak of hives.

A Childhood in Music - 8/18 - 1985

2011-02-25T23:26:00.004+09:00

Small boys in small towns in North East England used to ride around the streets on BMX bikes shrieking "Touch me!" while ensuring their spiky hair had not become flattened by the ever-present drizzle. While A-ha weren't to blame for the bicycles, and were only partly to blame for the hair, they were entirely to blame for the "Touch me!" business.

Which was scary because public service announcements like this were still all the rage.

You might see Charly the cat later in the 1990s.

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Tired

2011-02-23T22:37:00.002+09:00

This week I have managed to:

nurse a hangover due to having not drank for two months
study Japanese (including starting to keep a diary again like I always recommend to students)
work
get up early nearly every day, and
eat vegetables and fruit.

Today I managed to:

drink only one cup of coffee, and
not buy sweets from the convenience store.

Seems like a result. I am well and truly on it with my time management too!

More Books

2011-02-20T21:57:00.004+09:00

I finished reading The Sea and Poison by Shusaku Endo. Bloody marvellous. It's like Endo looked inside the basest human emotions and analysed the reasons that people behave like animals (forgetting for a moment that people actually are animals). It's a harrowing read despite its slim 160-odd pages but you won't regret it.

Also, coming soon, for free, my novel Weightlessness as an ebook (PDF) and maybe as a podcasted audiobook.

Any particular formats you'd be interested in seeing, leave a comment.

A Childhood in Music - 7/18 - 1984

2011-02-18T21:57:00.003+09:00

I am, despite my protests, a pop lover. As much as I love atonal noise, I also love bass that gets you in the gut, gets you in the mood and a nice "ooh!" be it from The Beatles or Bananarama. I was hooked young. No matter how much you try to love a dischord, you always come back to a melody.

In my mind, Bananarama are much maligned. They have songs worth singing along to ('Cruel Summer', 'Nathan Jones' and of course 'Venus'). But now we have an ode to the man who played Travis Bickle by three supposedly frivolous pop chicks. Still, I wasn't thinking of that when I was dancing to this aged five and dancing at a school party.

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JLPT Result

2011-02-16T00:28:00.003+09:00

Just a short post.

I found out that the last JLPT test that I took, and thought I had failed, I passed! So now I have an N2 Level Japanese Language Proficiency Test Certificate, so in theory I have business level Japanese.

A Childhood in Music - 6/18 - 1983

2011-02-11T18:01:00.003+09:00

Though everybody much prefers the 1970s David Bowie, really it was the 1980s that Bowie defined. The big hair, the experimenting with synthesizers, the white experiments with funk are all hallmarks of Bowie. As much as he has been accused of being a cutural magpie/vampire, he's had his own influence on the pop charts, not only with Duran Duran but others such as Toyah Willcox who owes far more Bowie than even Annie Lennox from The Eurythmics or Gary Numan.

Here is the most memorable Bowie hit from my childhood. The video doesn't smack as much of exoticism quite as much as I remembered either. Put on your red shoes and dance!

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Juveniles and Prophets

2011-02-10T11:53:00.003+09:00

I've not been in Japan for *that* long, compared to a lot of Westerners. My work and social circumstances mean that I I often run into 20-somethings as well as 40 and even 50-somethings.

It's amazing, the arrogance that some people have when they are in their early twenties. I should know; I was an arrogant sod myself and thought I knew everything. Now I'm in my thirties I see that I know a lot but realise that approximately 0.27% of my knowledge is useful. It's fairly depressing but then I'll die and know even less.

The 20-somethings run around, claiming expertise in a country. I don't see how you can be an expert on a country. Surely the Japanese have quite a considerable knowledge of Japan themselves. If one wanted to consult an expert on Japanese bureaucracy one wouldn't consult a 25-year-old English teacher. A professor in organizational behaviour would be the one who'd get the call even though the friitaa (free worker, or rather casual worker) accustomed to the various labour offices and branches of Hello Work (Japan's Job Centre or labour exchange) would have more experience. Being an expert on Japan is like saying that fatties are sofa experts. I'm not doing down the discipline of cultural studies or anthropology because those are specific areas of research, like looking at Japanese literature or analysing empirical evidence and linking it to social factors and such.

The kids know everything. There are a certain number of older people who behave like they're prophets. It's not disputed that they have experience of living in Japan as a foreigner. It's just that there are more diplomatic ways of advising people than "You don't wanna do that!"

No matter how much Japanese I learn, I still have a disadvantage because I don't speak naturally and I don't have substantial cultural experience living in a Japanese only environment. Maybe it'll come. I just hope I have absolutely no advice to give.

Current Reading

2011-02-07T22:48:00.002+09:00

I got some English translations of classic Japanese literature out of the library.

Just finished Junichiro Tanizaki's Diary of a Mad Old Man this morning. Absolutely great, weird and pervy. It's so slim, but has more to say than many thicker contemporary novels.

I've started reading Rashomon and Other Stories by Ryunosuke Akutagawa. The first story, 'In A Grove' is pretty fabulous. I'm looking forward to finishing this collection very soon.

I'm still barely into The Brothers Karamazov, mind.

A Childhood in Music - 5/18 - 1982

2011-02-05T19:15:00.003+09:00

Duran Duran were one of the first pop bands I was ever even aware of. They were like wallpaper in the 1980s. I can say that they were, to me, like Hollywood stars must have been to generations before. They were my Beatles. Not in that I was a massive fan; I couldn't stand them between the ages of ten and sixteen. Duran Duran were just inescapable, whether it was from videos played on Saturday morning television, Top of the Pops appearances or the pages of Look In.

I always regarded them, during the ages I disliked them, as girls' music. This is quite strange because some of the music that marked out those years was girls' music, but we'll cross that bridge in due time. The four year old Marc marvelled to Duran Duran, so you can too.

Save A Prayer on Youtube (embedding disabled)

However, hip-hop had landed in County Durham, however vaguely. Not for provincial England the raw fury and party tunes of The Sugarhill Gang or The Furious Five, at least not until it was played on Atlantic 252 later in the decade. Instead the fury of growing up black in racist America was filtered through a very white ex-Damned bass player with nothing much to moan about. But then crap rapping would mark much of my beloved pop hits. And I stood up in the back seat of my grandparents' Morris Maxi singing "I said Captain, I said wot," for the entire 1-hour drive from East Durham to Thirsk.

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Getting into Momus 20 Years Too Late

2011-02-04T18:13:00.003+09:00

Lately I've been exploring Ubuweb and delved into Momus, out of curiosity.

Actually, that's not strictly true. I've kind of delved into Momus through his work with Kahimi Karie, of whom Princess Prettygood is a massive fan. So I dipped into the Timelord album, but Tender Pervert is in a different class altogether. Superb stuff.

I wish that I had discovered the Tender Pervert album back when I was being bullied at school for being effeminate, being teased by my grunge-loving friends for liking pop music and indie and for thinking that music was either keyboards or guitars.

A Childhood in Music - 4/18 - 1981

2011-01-29T22:26:00.005+09:00

You know, you get people who always moan that pop was better when they were a child. I would argue that it's always been a mixed bag. For every Taylor Dayne there was a Tiffany; for every CeCe Peniston there was a Shanice.

In Britain, everybody used to get excited about Eurovision around the time I was too young to stay up. I believe that it was to do with Sun-type xenophobia and 'gettin' one over on the Krauts and Frogs'. Bucks Fizz won the Eurovision Song contest in 1981 with 'Making Your Mind Up'.

Bucks Fizz were insanely popular, despite dreadful singing and dancing that would embarrass the most uncoordinated gangly kid in your school. I do remember liking this as a child, which is evidence that taste is something that develops as one gets older.

Watch out for Cheryl Baker nearly poking one of the guy's eyes out.

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Cooking for Losers

2011-01-28T22:20:00.003+09:00

Princess Prettygood has been on at me for ages to get better at cooking. I have previously been able to eat my own cooking but she has been largely unable. The main problems have been:

undercooked vegetables that have been cut too large
overcooked vegetables that have been cut to small
a lack of salt
a lack of actual flavour

So today I cooked breakfast, lunch and dinner. This is not an accomplishment; this is normal for most women and many men. What did I cook? Well, Jamie Oliver helped me out with this risotto (I used asparagus and courgette as well in mine) and found this hamburger recipe by a quick search. We had salad with both, which is unusual for my cooking which is ordinarily a no-side-dish zone.

All dishes were edible, nobody died and they didn't take too much time or create too much mess. I feel almost grown up at 32.

Food and The English

2011-01-26T22:58:00.003+09:00

You know what? You can have as many television programmes like Masterchef, The Great British Menu or The Naked Chef as you like but I don't think it will ever change the opinion of people outside Britain that English food is utter crap.

Princess Prettygood commented to me yesterday that she read on a blog (in Japanese) that "there are so many explorers from Britain because they are looking for delicious food".

It got me wondering. The Scottish have haggis, the Welsh have Welsh cakes but really what do the English really lay claim to? Sandwiches? The Sunday Roast is probably the closest we come to a national dish that is purely domestic but it's still even lampooned overseas for vegetables boiled to within an inch of becoming liquid. Fish and chips are awesome and well liked but bemoaned for being high in fat due to being drowned in oil.

I can't think of any other food that I ate growing up that I'd be desperate to eat in a restaurant here in Japan. There are British pubs in Japan but no English restaurants. Even when Gordon Ramsay had his restaurant over here (a franchise that bore only his name) it was adapted French food.

Maybe if Jamie Oliver was more handsome or Delia was about 30 years younger things might be different?

Cold Water Shaving

2011-01-24T21:28:00.003+09:00

I found this while browsing The Art of Manliness a while ago. I always used to shave in the shower in my old place because I couldn't shave in the same sink I washed my dishes in. In the new place, we have plentiful hot water in both the sinks. However, after a day where I overslept and had to shave quickly, I am a convert to cold water shaving.

Cold water shaving makes your skin feel better, you also don't need to use shaving cream and also a cold water shave seems to keep a five o' clock shadow at bay for longer.

Next post: pentapeptides. Actually, no.

Books, Surprises, The World

2011-01-23T20:51:00.003+09:00

Well, I finished Manhood for Amateurs by Michael Chabon and my goodness it was addictive. Not all of the essays are as great as the others but even the lacklustre ones are better than half of anything that you'd read by anybody else. If there were a book I think I could really compare it to, it would be Palm Sunday by Kurt Vonnegut, in that it feels like it is the closest thing to a blog by that writer.

To be honest, when I hit up the library I wasn't expecting to find anything out of the ordinary but I had been hankering after reading that Chabon book for a while. However, there are only a certain number of books that a person can buy in a month so I felt it almost ominous to find Manhood for Amateurs in a Japanese library.

I found The Yiddish Policemen's Union in a library in Buckinghamshire; I bought The Final Solution in the Gateshead branch of Borders and then lent it to someone who didn't give it back. I'm sure that I'm just meant to find Chabon as and when I need him.

I haven't read any of the others yet despite having nearly got hold of The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay almost a million times.

A Childhood in Music - 3/18 - 1980

2011-01-22T23:18:00.005+09:00

1980 - the start of The Thatcher Decade. I was 1 year old going on 2 years old.

As a teenager, my father had been into hard rock like Led Zeppelin and The Who. My mother was very much into pop. This would be something that my mother would have liked but which my father had a tendency to play incessantly throughout the 1980s and early 1990s.

I often wondered if fatherhood caused the musical tastes of men to become more sensible, more bland. Almost every adult male I knew, growing up, liked boring music. I am sure that I strongly disliked this song growing up. I still dislike it now but this is not meant to be the "what I like" series of posts but what I was exposed to.

For what it's worth, I loved this from when I was aware of television.

Older posts from A Childhood In Music: 1, 2

Book Lover

2011-01-21T21:01:00.002+09:00

I visited the local library for the first time since I moved house. Even though I'm away from the city centre, lo and behold, there were tons of English books (and a host of very recent Japanese books too). I borrowed Michael Chabon's Manhood For Amateurs, which I shall read while I contemplate tomorrow's music post about 1980.

A Childhood in Music - 2/18 - 1979

2011-01-14T09:50:00.003+09:00

I became one year old in 1979, and was barely six months when Thatcher came to power. I have no memories of this, unsurprisingly.

My parents liked listening to the radio and watching the television. They listened to local radio stations and I know that they watched the Kenny Everett show. This song is one of the earliest songs to hit my consciousness despite my parents owning no Squeeze records.

Part 1

New Year's Resolutions

2011-01-13T23:20:00.002+09:00

This year I tried to make a point not to ask my students about New Year's resolutions because from past experience it either makes students shrug and then ask "what's a resolution?", after which I explain that it's a promise to oneself and then they simply say, "Oh, no, I have none."

But this year I've had student's almost foisting their New Year's resolutions upon me. One lady says it's her goal to change her job from a tolerable one to one she finds rewarding. One lady says she wants to improve her French grammar and her English vocabulary. One guy says his is to get married.

Mine? Eat fewer sweets, which is surprisingly still going strong.

A Childhood in Music - 1/18 - 1978

2011-01-08T20:25:00.003+09:00

I was born in Sunderland in 1978. While the capital was experiencing the fallout of punk, edging toward new-wave, the provincial towns worshipped glam rock and hard rock.

My dad could never have been punk. He went to see Led Zeppelin at Knebworth as a couple of years before I was born. One of the earliest pictures of me sees my dad with an awful Phil Lynott perm and moustache.

My mother always sang snatches of songs as she wandered the house with a can of Pledge, polishing anything that didn't move. She still does. She likes pop, mainly rubbish but there are some things that astound me to know that she likes them.

I'm not 100% sure, but I dare say this would have been all over the radio while I was a foetus and maybe even when I was born. This is a decent song, but there will, throughout the music of my childhood be gems interspersed with utter crap. I don't mind. I intend to give an overall picture. The squeamish may want to avoid the late 1980s to early 1990s.

Unruly Youths

2011-01-07T13:38:00.002+09:00

Due to Princess Prettygood craving greasy food, yesterday found us in a branch of a popular multinational fast food chain in Kawasaki. Upon being seated, it was like a flashback to being in a provincial town in England.

Tracksuits. Stupid hair. Ill-advised juvenile moustaches. Loud voices.

Older Japanese people say that Japan is becoming too Westernised in the wrong kinds of ways. I'm not sure myself whether that's true or not, but kids with no sense of future - these weren't the kind of kids you'd imagine getting into high school for the most part - need some kind of sense of belonging to society.

I don't think orange hair dye is going to cut it.

Wikileaks Hurts Genetically Modified Crops Too

2011-01-04T00:21:00.003+09:00

In The Guardian, Wikileaks has released cables showing that the US government (more specifically the Bush administration) were planning to punish the EU and other nations who refused to kowtow to biotech business interests, especially US big players such as Monsanto.

I'm no big foe of GM. I dare say I've eaten my fare share of genetically modified tomatoes, corn products, etc. over the last couple of decades. What I do wish is that there were further tests to determine whether it is truly safe for all people to eat without any long-term health implications.

However, I don't want US biotech interests dictating what plants are grown, which would essentially be the case if the US was pushing Monsanto's agenda. They already have patents on technology that would prevent farmers from collecting seed, thus forcing them to buy seed year on year not only in the developed but in the developing world too.

With Monsanto seeds, it's part of the agreement (in America at least) that growers can not mix local seed with Monsanto seed. However, many farmers traditionally mix strains of crops to support one another and hybridise in hopes to produce stronger strains of seed that are used to the local ecosystem and become disease resistant or resistant to local physical factors.

Links: Monsanto, US Government.

Happy New Year / Mildly Dangerous Food

2011-01-02T11:51:00.002+09:00

Wow, it's 2011. Always a big surprise, because when I was a child I always felt the New Year was going to bring about the apocalypse. Well, it hasn't so let us rejoice.

On the other hand, I've been a bit more culinarily involved than usual. This wouldn't usually be such a bad thing if it weren't for the injuries.

1. Peeling Small Potatoes - led to peeling of skin from knuckle on left hand (twice).

2. Grating Papaya - led to grating little finger on right hand.

3. Eating Crab - the horned part of the skin pierced my right index finger.

Not exactly globefish, the famous fish that needs the chef to have a special licence to remove the poison glands, but more a catalogue of my clumsiness and being uncoordinated.

2010 - How was it?

2010-12-30T23:02:00.003+09:00

I normally hate these year-in-retrospect type blog posts but, ah, well, changes are afoot in the Un-Understand household so it seems as good a time as any to take stock.

Politics: Britain replaced IngSoc with Plutocracy and a dollop of Let Them Eat Cake. Brown and his draconian security measures were voted down in favour of, erm, vague gestures. Had I voted I would have voted Liberal Democrat and would have been driven to mania by the lies from that party. The British General Election has cemented for me that Abby Hoffman's quote that "All politicians are liars and murderers" rings all too true. In Japan, the Prime Minister changed and was poised to change again but didn't. I'm sure not many people would have noticed. In the good news, Aung San Suu Kyi was released from house arrest.

Wars: Afghanistan, still on. Pan-Asia, warming up. Kim Jong-Il is doing his crackpot best to start World War III and Chinese fishing boats seem to bee keen to attack both Japanese and South Korean boats.

Sport: Crap World Cup. England were dreadful. Japan were pretty good. Other than football it is clear that no other sport exists. Sunderland are doing OK despite some bizarre displays of non-finishing but no change there.

Music: Nothing really grabbed me by the lugholes for more than two weeks. Went through a Serge Gainsbourg phase. Went through a Cure phase again. Loved the Best Coast album.

Books: Still haven't finished The Brothers Karamazov. I did finish The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played With Fire. Currently reading Doris Lessing's In Pursuit of the English.

Predictions for 2011: China will flex its muscles. Russia will too. People will still bury their heads in the sand. I may be too busy to blog come summertime. And I leave that as cryptic as I can.

Have a great New Year and try not to drink too much.

McDonald's Sued for Happy Meal temptation.

2010-12-20T11:27:00.002+09:00

Via The Guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/dec/19/mcdonalds-happy-meals-sued-california

If this is the case, then surely Kellogg's would be up next for putting toys in their boxes of cereal. Interesting development.

Favourite quote:

"These fast food companies think little kids are fair game… This is unfair marketing regardless of nutritional value, whether they are selling a pound of lard or a pound of broccoli."

Catatonia: You've Got A Lot To Answer For

2010-12-20T10:56:00.000+09:00

Note To Self: Economics Study

2010-12-20T10:48:00.002+09:00

Re: Slutsky and Hicks Pricing/Income and Demand: useful PPT

Saved, but just in case you delete it!

http://courses.ttu.edu/econ3320-kdesilva/Lecture7.ppt

Delicious closing

2010-12-17T08:36:00.002+09:00

Delicious.com is closing (via @darby3) so I deleted my account. Say goodbye to random links at the side. I'll try to post more random links within the blog instead.