Taking a dive for it

Pretty tired on the train home today and it was full so I wasn't so pleased to see two women down our end of the coach hogging adjacent seats with their shopping bags. Some people here can be amazingly selfish like that and they get away with it because almost everyone else is amazingly polite.

Not me though. I don't hesitate to shift them with a hearty 'sumimasen' in their ear. If they don't want my bottom in their cream cakes it's time to put them on the luggage rack quick. My hapless victim today pretended not to hear the first time of asking but of course I just asked a lot louder. I was her worst nightmare I guess, a very pushy gaijin with very sore feet.

This hogging of seat spaces is a definite Japanese 'thing' and I don't see it in England. But I'm sure we are just as bad in other ways - our little weaknesses are more motoring related, like not being courteous to people trying to pull into traffic with our "push off I was here first so I'll pretend I didn't see you ..."
Later, at Yachimata where the train gets a lot emptier another middle-aged lady literally ran about half the length of the coach ot grab a newly vacated twin seat for herself and her shopping. And I mean RAN! She was like a Rugby winger diving for the touch line with the ball, it was like watching Barry John at his best (1). I expected her to yell "Bags I this one!" Definitely not dignified at all.

Actually she made me laugh because it reminded me of a hugely embarrasing moment I still cringe to remember from when I was around thirteen or fourteen years old. I somehow was on my own at a dance at school - it was a grown up affair, probably a barn dance but why was I there? Who knows.

Anyway I totally misunderstood the directions for some game the dance 'caller' invited us to take part in. It involved scooping up some small prize he had put in the middle of the dance floor. I suppose the plot was that you had to dance around the place with your partner (which of course I didn't have) and then, when the music stopped, whoever was nearest got the goodies. But I thought he meant that when the music STARTED that you have to make a dive for the loot. At the first chord of the 'Gay Gordons' I was over that floor like I'd come out of a cannon and I'd scooped up the parcel before I realised that about a thousand eyes were watching me in disbelief.

I didn't go to many dances after that.

+ + + + +

(1) Barry John was maybe the greatest Welsh rugby player of all time, back in the 1970's.

Pony Express

I've been back on the trail of my fieldwork in earnest over the last few days and it's going well. In fact - hate to gloat you guys - the weather in Japan is bloomin' gorgeous at the moment. I've been striding around Chiba covering ten or twelve miles a day between sample points in my shirt sleeves and with the sun on my back. But there's none of the stress of heat and humidity that I experience doing this stuff in high summer.

Hopefully I'll get all the serious walking done before it gets hot again, I'm planning to put the winter to good use and try to get out three days a week.

It's the first time in my life that I've attempted a project that goes on for so long and involves so much physical effort for me. "A journey of ten thousand ri begins with the first step" says the Chinese proverb and that's good advice but it doesn't tell you how to KEEP moving once you have started. "Don't look too far ahead" would be my two pennyworth. Like the words of the hymn says - "I do not ask to see the distant scene, one step enough for me!" Sometimes on big jobs a sense of proportion is actually the LAST thing you need eh?

There's a wonderful story re-told by the author Kikuchi Kan on this theme called "Beyond the Pale of Vengeance" which I might talk about soon. But I smiled to see that Edera is reading a piece on the 'Pony Express' tonight with our High School students. That must have been some operation to run, no wonder it caught the popular imagination. But if all those riders had been thinking of the WHOLE 3000 miles between the Missouri and Sacramento the mail would never have got through eh? Enough to worry about the hundred miles in front of your nose; that way the mail bags will get from coast to coast.

Now swallow

We were struggling a bit to get Tora's medicine into him this morning. He's sometimes asthmatic and when it gets too noticable we get some pills and eye drops from the vet for him. Even a couple of days treatment with them makes a big difference. When he's wheezy he sounds like some Gothic monster padding up the stairs in the dark but medication soon has him back to normal volume.

He's got a lot craftier about avoiding swallowing the dreaded tablets though and it takes two of us to get him in a good arm lock (or should it be 'paw-lock'). Normal feline escape tactics seem to be to paddle backwards and keep your mouth tight shut when confronted by human fingers clutching disgusting tasting little white objects. Now he has also developed a good line in spitting bits out sideways hoping they won't be noticed.

But I know to watch out for that one. Our dog Crackers was a virtuoso in keeping unwanted medication under her tongue for hours until the chance came to spit it out behind a flower pot. I have a 'sixth sense' about all that.

I suppose it says something about the degree to which our pets trust us that we can do this stuff at all. After all, they haven't the slightest idea what we are doing and why, and when it comes down to it all cats however benign are essentially wild animals. Come on now nice kitty, open wide and swallow ...

Palm Print

Perhaps my favourite author is the Yorkshire playwright Alan Bennett. Back in the 1960's he wrote a very funny, often vulgar and at the same time deeply moving play about recent English history. It is called 'Forty Years On'.

A school - 'Albion House' - presents the school play to parents. It consists of scenes about events during the lifetime of it's retiring headmaster. Of course 'Albion House' is an analogy for a vanished England.

In one scene where they recall former students who had died in the 1914 - 1918 War the maths teacher asks his class "If the ten million dead of the 1914 -1918 War were to march in column of fours into the Gates of Death they would take eighty days and eighty nights to pass through and for eighty days the marchers would be the English dead. In the light of this information I want you to calculate (1) the width of the Gates of Death to the nearest centimetre and (2) the speed in miles per hour at which the column was marching".

Perhaps it is because of the time of year - in two weeks time it will be Armistice Day when in Europe we remember the victims of all wars - this nice little mural spotted yesterday on the wall of a kindergarden in Inage reminded me of Alan Bennett's crazy maths teacher.

Maybe we could all add our palm print onto one vast mural eh? At some stage in our life we could take a trip to a special place where the cerulean blue stetched away in all directions. There we would dunk our hand in some white paint and slap it on the sky and later an angel could pick up a brush and add our name once the palm print had dried. Those palm prints past, present and future would stretch away like Indra's net in all directions and through all worlds but, lacking permanence, they would slowly fade like the Cheshire cat in 'Alice in Wonderland'. Lovely!

You can hear 'em scream ...

"Sounds of screaming off" as they would say in stage directions. That's the third time tonight that someone has been hollering downstairs. Has Edera-chan gone crazy at last? Is she taking an axe to all the students that can't remember their English past participles?

Don't worry! It's only the week before Halloween eh? She just can't resist giving the kids a little bit of a fright, we all love scary stories. Boo!

We don't scare so easy as adults though. When I was a kid I and I used to wake up at nights I'd be pretty careful not to poke my nose out from under the quilt. There were ghosts out there and if I looked maybe one was leaning right over my bed just inches above me. But ghosts were a polite and respectful lot too, they knew the rules. They wouldn't come and grab the bedclothes off you if you just lay doggo and pretended to be sleeping.

Now I can't get through a night without at least two visits to a bathroom but I don't usually feel nervous. I don't totally discount the possibility of bumping into a dark shade out on the stairs or landing, in fact I have an experience of my own in that direction that maybe I won't share with you. But usually I'm just more concerned with tripping over Tora, or even worse discovering the remains of his evening meal with my toes. He's an elderly cat.

But sometimes I spend the night in places that still feel spooky to me and I like to get that trip along the corridor over as quickly as I can. Draw up a chair, turn the light down low and let me whisper the details in your ear ...

trompe d'oeil

One of those expressions that I need to learn how to spell. Or maybe to pronounce first. Anyway I'm sure that you know what I mean, it's those paintings that the French love to paint on walls and other bits of buildings to kid you that you are looking into another place, down another street. An amusing illusion. Some of them are very realistic.

It's an art form I've not often seen apart from in France. I can't ever remember seeing one in Japan but I suppose here we knock buildings down so fast that the paint would hardly have time to dry before it was gone.

In Britain I'm sure that there's lots of planning regulations about that kind of anarchistic stuff, we don't care much for 'arty types'. I seem to remember some guy ending up in the High Court recently just because he fancied a fibre glass shark's tail sicking out of his house roof. Now that's something I have seen in Japan, there's a fake bi-plane crashed into the roof of a night club in the middle of Chiba. At least I hope it's a fake ...

This kind of trompe l'oeil idea could be a lot of fun. What's your fancy? I hanker after a tee-shirt with a realistic representation of my liver and stomach and other bits all luridly displayed . Maybe I could paint our exterior walls here with some trick picture of our students apparently working hard inside the windows ... the possibilites are endless.

Front Page News

While I was in England last month I kind of half heard half a programme on BBC Radio 4 that made me laugh out loud and I wish I'd heard it all. If anyone can track this full story down please let me know.

An editor of a small town newspaper one the west coast of Scotland (maybe it was the Oban Times or Fort William Gazette?) was recounting how long ago they had published an item about a local swimming event. It was an annual 'do' and involved swimming out to an island and back from the beach. As usual one of the participants was an ageing batchelor farmer who lived in the town with his sister. The man was blind and relied on the other swimmers to call out to him to find his way.

When they arrived back on dry land the newspaper's photographer took his photo and the following week he appeared on the front page of the newspaper in a 'blind resident completes swim' story. But because they were short of time the printer's block was made straight from the negative, no-one examined the picture before it appeared in the paper.

Early on the day of publication the editor received a frantic call from his deputy and hurried to the office. Staff were busy trying to get back all the copies of the paper that had been sent out. It seemed that what no-one had noticed about the blind swimmer, not the man himself of course nor the photographer peering through a misty viewfinder or anyone else, was that a private and rather large part of his anatomy had somehow slipped out of his bathing trunks and was very visible to all readers.

Most local copies of the paper were rerieved but many had already left by train for Glasgow in the mail - Scottish papers like this find their way to expatriate emigrants in Canada and Australia and around the world.

The editor added that he'd been impressed afterwards just how much the town came together to avoid the blind athlete ever hearing about his unitentional revelations.

Nice story eh? I wonder if it would still work out that way. In rural Scotland possibly. In any case it points up a lesson for photographers for sure - take a good look before you publish photos.

Out on the marshes

Here's one of a fistful of neat pictures I took the day that we went down to the Carmargue; maybe I'll show some more later. If you haven't been there - and this was a first trip for me - it's the big swampy delta of the Rhone where it meets the Mediterranean. There are two main branches of the river which split north of Arles and make their separate ways to the coast and between is a vast flat area of what used to be lakes and marshes but is now largely agricultural land. Empty and windy.

There's plenty of marshes and water left though, especially near the coast, and it's a major area for water birds and wild life. There are very few villages; around here people used to ranch cattle.

This kind of flat open water-filled landscape is quite unfamiliar to me, I don't have any reference points in my own experience. It's very beautiful but there are aspects of it that I find scary. Where does solid ground end and water begin? Is there even an easy definition of those two terms? Where do you stop using boots and start using a boat and how do you move from one to the other? Just how deep is all that water? Could I wade through it? Are there quicksands?

It would be the stuff of nightmares to be lost in this sort of country with no maps and no roads. You might think that you were making good progress through the long grass but then suddenly a distant vista of water opens wide to the horizon. It all reminded me of a film I saw long ago of two guys lost in the Louisiana swamps persued by alligators and drunken Cajun hillbillies. At least there are no 'gators in the Carmargue - I think ...

Stormy Night

A really nice storm overnight, the kind where you can lie awake in bed and listen to the rain rattling on the window for hours. What greater fun in life is there than that?

And then today a blustery cool wind ... time to sit and read next to an open window.

Amazing how vivid childhood memories can be around the wind and the rain. I've been back somewhere around 1953, walking to school in Barnard Castle in my blue mac with my cap pulled down over my eyes. There's been a big autumn storm the night before and down Galgate there are lots if branches blown off the trees.

What a twiggy mess!

Thick mats of wet leaves are blowing around my feet as I dodge the showers by cutting through the back lanes; it is all greys and browns here. But over Startforth there are some shafts of bright sunlight bringing a shine to the roof tops of farms and barns.

Small town autumn in the north, the province of the wind and rain. Let me paint it for you!

Theatre tickets

On this trip down to Provence we managed to see the 'ancienne' Roman theatre in the town of Orange. In my opinion another 'worth a detour' as the Michelin Guides would describe it..

Let's be clear, this isn't an ampitheatre of the 'gladiator fights and feed Christians to the lions kind' so popular amongst Romans and with Hollywood. No - this is a real theatre of the type that became widespread in the later empire. Orange is special because it's so big - much bigger than most of our own paltry contemporary theatres - and also remarkable in that almost all of the wall behind the stage has survived. No jokes about "Row LXXI Seat CCXVII" please!

Until this visit I'd never thought much about the Roman theatre but it seems most of our present-day words for theatre buildings come from this period - terms like 'proscenium arch' for example.

Roman officials organised about 90 free days of theatre a year at Orange to keep their audiences docile and amused. Just to make sure that everyone remembered who was footing the bill for these shows a figure of the emperor was set up high above the stage but here's the neat thing. It seems that on statues like this the Romans made the head removable so that come the next equivalent of a 'general election' they didn't have to pull down the whole thing and carve it again. They just swapped heads. Maybe we could learn a thing or two from them.

Dancing with Balloons

In an effort to reclaim my life from the dark pit of jet-lag I dragged myself out today to do some walking. I didn't trust myself to do any proper field study but I caught the train over to Togane and walked a few miles 'across country' to Naruto.

Nice to be back on the road again and I was glad that I'd aimed for something modest; if I'd done a full day's work I would have been worn out. The sun on my back and quite a cool breeze and the life of Japanese streets all around. The first couple of hours were in new housing areas and a retail 'strip' along Highway 126 but as I came into Naruto it was much more of a traditional town locality with lanes and old Kadzusa buildings.

On this first outing for a while I was really struck just how many people avoided my gaze. I'd forgotten how reserved and shy Japanese pedestrians and train travellers can be. I had a good laugh thinking to myself that I should work on perfecting an instant 'smiley stare' and the art of looking at people directly without warning to catch them looking at me. Watch out all furtive observers!

This art of looking suddenly at people looking at me reminded me of some guys I saw dancing with balloons on BBC TV years ago. Does anyone remember what they were called? They were just amazingly good at the 'sudden move'. I think that there were three of them and they were all stark naked apart from three balloons which each carried as a kind of modesty shield. During the performance they passed these balloons around to each other with split-second timing so that even the fastest observer could see nothing untoward! And of course as the dance progressed more of the balloons burst until they were passing just four between the three of them.

Amazing skill! That's the kind of rapid fire cheeky smile technique I need to replicate. But on JR trains maybe I should dispense with any balloon work and keep my trousers on don't you think? People so easily misunderstand your intentions eh?

A sandwich in Beaune

Don't tell anyone because we don't want it to become too crowded but personally I reckon that Burgundy is easily the most beautiful part of France. And such an interesting history too. There was one moment back in the fourteenth century when the Duchy of Bourgogne could easily have become a country in its own right but it didn't quite happen although you could say that the northern bits of Burgundy went on to become Belgium later.

The Duke's southern base was the city of Dijon and just south of Dijon in the classic Cote D'or wine growing area is the town of Beaune. We stopped off there on the trip south to grab a sandwich and also so that Kodemari could see this building.

It's the medieval Hospice in the town - one of the earliest hospitals in Europe. Beautiful eh? And inside too - you can still see how patients were looked after 600 years ago. Some of the medical equipment from that period looks pretty scary but the institution itself still has a friendly feel, you can sense that people were nursed well here over centuries.

The Catholic order that ran the hospice still has many hospitals not only in other parts of Europe but also in Africa too. But there's no nursing done at this site in Beaune now. In fact as we walked around someone was tuning up a grand piano in the chapel for a performance later that day.

Pont du Gard

One of my favourite spots in the south of France is the old Roman aqueduct across the River Gardon. It was built around 2000 years ago to supply water to the Roman city of Nimes and as you can see it is still a very impressive bridge. Part of the north end is missing but otherwise it is more or less as the Romans left it. Perhaps the sheer impressiveness of the structure has helped to preserve it down the centuries, who would want to pull down something so beautiful?

At this spot the River Gardon is flowing in a very rocky limestone bed and the site is surrounded by garrigue woodland which has a lovely scent of pine resin and herbs when the sun shines.

I was more than a bit sad this trip though - since my last visit there about 20 years ago the P du G has cleaned up its act and been granted the dreaded 'World Heritage Status' which means that you pay more for parking, no-one goes into the overpriced museum any more and - worst of all - you can't actually walk over the bridge! There are do-gooders everywhere I'm afraid.

Last time I was there you could walk through the water channel in that upper storey or - if you were brave - actually walk over the cap stones along the top. Some view. Those days are long done it seems - now you join the crowds to use the adjacent bridge. All very conservation conscious and safe and boring as hell. There you go.

But despite the dead hand of the Heritage Industry P du G is still worth a visit. I love old stone bridges.

Musee Rodin

Do you like Rodin? Some sculptor eh? Maybe the greatest, the most subtle in his understanding of all things sensual and how to reproduce perceptions in stone.

There is no shortage of things to see and do in Paris but my favorite museum there has always been the Musee Rodin in the Hotel Biron, just across the road from the Invalides metro station. If you haven't been yet you are in for a treat. It's the old house that served Rodin as his last studio and home before his death in 1917 and has an amazing collection of his work in the building and around the garden. There's something very intimate about the way this mseum works, it's the best I've ever seen for giving visitors access to the art displayed there and the house itself has a kind of 'run down' charm. At one point there's a short video showing Rodin at work in the building, peering short-sightedly (his eyesight was awful) at a chunk of marble and chipping away with his nose a few inches from the stone.

This picture is of one of my favourite pieces in the museum - a representation of the 'Tempest'. If I had to imagine what the Lord of the Storm looked like as he shrieked over the hills I guess it would be like this.

Savage Amusement?

Good grief! It's five weeks since I last wrote an entry here. I'd planned to keep up with some regular stuff when I was back in Europe but it was not to be eh? In the end I managed to set myself a busy schedule there and also both my mum and step-father needed my time to sort out some of the problems around their health and daily support. So I took a break for a while.

Lots seen and lots to write about now though. I've come back with a whole 'hard drive' on this lap-top full of pictures taken in England and France and I'm looking forward to boring everybody with them. Kodemari and I also took a ten day holiday in France, the first time that we've ever been away together on a holiday, and of course I kept her busy every day with a rich diet of museums, historical sites and other things to see. No slacking if you are travelling with me on holiday! It all goes onto the spreadsheet, you won't be in any doubt about what we are doing tomorrow.

My grandfather used to refer to this kind of stuff as "savage amusement". Bungee jumping, busy schedules, anything that involved huffing and puffing and building up a voluntary sweat and he would mutter "Huh! Savage amusement!" rather disapprovingly.

I keep telling myself I'm going to indulge in less 'savage amusement' as time goes by but I wonder if I'm ever going to learn this important lesson.