Fools Die For Want Of Wisdom

Almost a year ago to the day, I was in hospital having a knee ligament reconstruction. Look back at my June 2006 archives: it’s all there. I’ve just read it back and can’t believe what high spirits I was in.

On Tuesday, I was back in hospital again for another operation. This time: wisdom teeth extraction. All four of them.

I quite liked the whole anaesthetic thing last time, but this time I woke up thinking that there was a chance I was going to be sick. That’s probably because I had two gauze swabs soaking up the blood and dangling from my mouth like tendrils. Straight after I was woken up, I reached for my mouth to take out the gauze swabs, thinking that they were pieces of chewing gum I’d left in my mouth. The nurse told me to leave them where they were. After a couple more attempts to remove the chewing gum, I gradually became aware that my jaw was feeling a bit tender and that I should probably do what she told me to do.

It was only day surgery this time, so I was home about 3 hours after waking up. No fun hospital stories this time, I’m afraid.

Nothing much exciting has happened since. I’ve had the last 3 days off work because my gums are still bleeding and my face looks strange. No doubt you can guess what I look like. Take your pick:
I look like a chipmunk
I look moonfaced
I look like the Fat Controller
I look like Sophie Ellis Bextor
I look like Jay Leno.



Ella’s made me lots of really great soup and I’ve been eating ice cream too.

During the first day and a half I read A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini. It’s not as good as The Kite Runner, but it’s still very good.

I’m now reading Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer. I am loving every second of this book. It’s made me laugh out loud a few times, which books hardly ever do for me. It’s also one of the most moving books I’ve ever read. I keep putting it down to do something else, either because I’m moved, or because I don’t want to finish it. I’ve never done that before with a book. What’s wrong with me?

Anyway, read the book. It’s dazzling, heartbreaking and beautiful.

They’re showing one Star Wars film per night on one of the movie channels here. The first night it was the unwatchable Episode 2, which I was sure I’d seen before, but only bits of it seemed familiar. I watched it until I realised that it was unwatchable, then went to bed. Which is probably what happened last time. Last night it was Episode 3, which I love, even though it’s a bit silly in places. It surely contains the most exciting and eagerly anticipated moment in cinematic history: Darth Vader’s mask descending and attaching to his face for the first time, then that first breath being taken. Spine-tingling stuff.

Then there’s the funniest moment in Star Wars history: Darth Vader’s first few steps, crying “Noooooooooooo!” in a very un-Darth Vader-ish way. Cringeworthy.

Tonight it’s Episode 4. Classic.

Despite the joys of soup, reading books and watching Star Wars, it’s no fun having all four wisdom teeth out at once. Even though it doesn’t really hurt, it’s uncomfortable. I can feel the stitches in my mouth – they seem to thread from my gums to the sides of my mouth, for some reason. There’s a tangle of cotton or whatever it is in my mouth. Either that or it’s some bread. I’m not brave enough to get my finger in there and find out in case I pull stitches out. It’s also no fun having to go and spit blood down the toilet every twenty minutes or so.

Still, it could be a lot worse. That’s enough moaning.

But it is really annoying that wisdom teeth are completely unnecessary.

At least, I hope so.

Easter Treat

At Easter, my brother and his family visited for the first time. It was an absolute joy to have them here and we did loads of stuff with a week in Bali and a week in Singapore. This 'loads of stuff' included:

seeing some Balinese dancing (all colourful costumes, monkeys, eyes and fingers)





seeing pink dolphins:



going to the aquarium:



marvelling at what some people can do with water melons:



pool and beach action:





the obligatory Singapore Sling in Raffles:



the list goes on and on. And, indeed, on.

Being so far away, it’s always really special when someone takes the trouble and takes on the expense of a visit, but I was especially pleased that my bro made it out here. After they left, Ella and I took a while to get over it and spent our days moping about lethargically and crying on each other's shoulders. The goodbyes just seem to get harder and harder. Fortunately, Macau came along (see below) which served as an ideal distraction. It turns out that all we needed was a holiday to get over our holiday.

Ho ho.

We're much more positive again now and, instead of moping, we're looking forward to going home for a bit in the summer and seeing everybody again. That's the spirit, eh?

Anyway, here are some more photos, if you’re interested.

Mac-Wow!

Went away this bank holiday weekend to Macau, kind of near to Hong Kong and attached to mainland China. Until 1999 it was Portuguese, in the same way that until 1997 Hong Kong was British. They’re both now Chinese again. If only the Iraq situation was that simple.



It was about 2am when we got to our hotel in Downtown Macau, only ten minutes from the airport, and slap bang in the middle of casino land. We decided the best thing to do would be to head out and find a bar in a casino and get some food. The casino fronts were all glitzy interchanging bright lights, shuffling through various neon/LED pictures of playing cards, chips, coloured patterns and, bizarrely, fish. Inside our first casino we were expecting a stock exchange atmosphere – all shouting and clattering. In fact, the atmosphere was closer to that of a library: hoards stooped over desks studying their cards quietly and seriously. They were playing games that we didn’t understand, and everybody seemed to be drinking tea.



Interested, but disappointed by the heavy atmosphere and lack of bar, we left and went to find somewhere to eat. Wandering up a sidestreet, I was struck by the presence of several beautiful women who seemed to be waiting around for their friends. I told Ella that none of them were as beautiful as her, of course, but also remarked that I’d never seen so many attractive women in such a small amount of space. I wondered whether Macau was going to be like this wherever we went. Perhaps they had special genes or something. Ella informed me that she suspected that they might be prostitutes, at which I kept my eyes glued to the ground until we reached the other end of the street where we got some fried rice. I ate the rice while Ella gave me a running commentary on the business transactions taking place outside.



Visually Macau reminded me a bit of Shinjuku in Tokyo – all lights and people, shops open well into the early hours. In Shinjuku, though, there exists a kind of synesthesia: sights merge with the sounds of all those colourful shops, arcades and Pachinko joints and fill the streets with sparkly cacophonous mayhem; flashing aural overload; blinding earth-quaking noise. In contrast, Macau was all sight and no sound. It reminded me of the end of Hitchcock’s The Birds when Mitch, Melanie and Lydia gingerly leave the house and walk to the car with the threatening birds lining lampposts, perching on cars and sitting on telephone wires, silently watching them. The threat of the eerie hush.



Fortunately, the next morning revealed Macau in a much more favourable light. We went on a walk through some of the main tourist attractions (other than casinos). Mostly the attractions were architectural, and Portuguese-influenced. We particularly liked the colourful cobbles of Senado Square, cheerful old churches and the Fort at the top of the hill which yielded stunning views.







Most importantly for us, lots of things were old. Really old. Historical, you might say. Living in Singapore, old buildings are few and far between. Indeed, a building forty years of age is classified as old. Some buildings may have ‘1820’ stamped on them, but they look as if they were built yesterday. Like Trigger’s brush in Only Fools and Horses, which he claimed he’d used for twenty odd years, but then revealed had had five new handles and twelve new brushes, in Singapore I get the impression that the building may have gone up in 1820, but since then it’s had all of its 1820-ness knocked down and replaced. Macau, though, had really old stuff that they had let grow old. Like 500 years old. I know that’s nothing compared to Stonehenge, but I’m just not used to it anymore.



The ruins of St Paul’s church (below) is a case in point. It was destroyed by fire in the 1800s apart from the steps and the facade. Instead of knocking it down, they kept it there and it is beautiful. In Singapore it would be Starbucks in seconds.







We also managed to see China for the first time, which lies about 500 metres across the water from Coloane Island. We didn’t make the trip this time (too little time to spend waiting around for a visa), but one day....



I should probably mention the food, too. As I'm sure you can imagine, there's a European-Asian- with-colonial-influences fusion thing going on in Macau. I'd recommend the African chicken with a Portuguese green wine. And the pear and sesame seed dim sum was a pleasant breakfast. It's always nice to see a doyley, too.



On the third and fourth nights we made forays back to the casinos. We shunned the one we went in on the first night, choosing instead to go to a fairly new one run by an American company. The atmosphere was much better. There was a bar and everything. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a game that a) I wanted to play and b) I understood. Baccarat looked confusing, but seemed to be by far the most popular game. I watched a few hands and was slightly less confused, but still didn’t really get it.

The only kind of poker they had was Caribbean Stud, which is a five card game with what seemed like no bluffing involved. What was the point of me spending hours in front of the mirror perfecting my poker face?

There were some strange dice games which I wasn’t interested in because there were no seats for the players.

The only roulette I found was a machine-operated wheel: no click-clack of the ball being thrown? No little man with white gloves doing the throwing? No long stick with which he collects chips? No thank you.

The only game I understood well enough to play was Blackjack, which I’ve always known as Pontoon. I’d saved up a few coppers in the hope that I might have a little gamble, but the minimum bet we could find was 100 Hong Kong dollars, which is about six quid. I was hoping for some tables for cheapskates like me, but it seems that gambling in Macau is a very serious business. My coppers didn’t go very far, unfortunately, and when I did get some chips, Ella found it amusing to throw them on the floor as if in a tantrum. With cameras everywhere, I was expecting to be escorted from the premises quick-time. When she’d stopped laughing, she picked them up and gave them back to me. I spent a while pretending I didn’t know who she was until I felt the danger had passed and, after finally deciding that I probably should start speaking to her again, I suggested that we sit down at a Blackjack table. Ten minutes later, after a few wins but more losses, our chips were spent.

I would have gladly spent a couple of hours wasting the same amount of money if only they’d let me.

Just a little tip for you: it seems that the casino pretty much always wins in the end.

Beastie Besar

It’s been a rollercoaster, the last few weeks. This weekend, though, was Chinese New Year, which meant (yet another) holiday – three days off, Friday to Tuesday. We went for a long weekend in Pulau Besar, which is a tiny Malaysian island, then came back to Singapore to watch the Beastie Boys and Jurassic 5. Nice.

Besar was stunning. White sands, sea of various shades of blue and lovely sunshine the whole time.







In my two and a half years here, I’ve become accustomed to travelling light. When I first arrived and went off to Sri Lanka for half term, then Krabi for Christmas, I over-packed. I would wear trainers, for example, and take flip-flops. Stupid. I’d take five pairs of shorts for a week. Ludicrous. I’d take two more t-shirts than there were days. Imbecilic. I’d take two pairs of long trousers, just in case one pair got wet. Pathetic.

In addition to all of these clothes, I’d make sure that my bag contained lots of important equipment like sun block, mosquito repellent, sting relief and tiger balm. Since becoming a more experienced traveller, I’ve realised that, actually, you can travel even lighter by leaving all that stuff at home and buying it when you get there. 7-11 is ubiquitous in Asia. They even had one on Phi-Phi Island.

So to Besar. The hotel didn’t have a shop. We wandered down the track a little bit and came to a shack which had bottles of coke in the window, so we thought there was every chance it might be a shop. An old hunchbacked woman lifted herself off a hammock strung onto a nearby tree and limped over to us (she was carrying two huge bananas behind her back, which is irrelevant, hence the brackets). She wandered into the house next to the shop and said something in an irritated voice to an old man, who opened the shop door. He had whiskers sprouting all over his face and not many teeth.

The shop was tiny. The counter was covered by a film of greasy dust, on top of which were placed items for sale which, in turn, were covered by a film of greasy dust. There was some sun lotion in a glass cabinet, but, after scraping off the film of greasy dust, I discovered that it was out of date.

Our search for a shop continued, but every time we asked someone where the nearest shop was, they pointed us back towards the shop that didn’t sell the stuff we wanted. There was, you see, no other shop.



Fortunately we had a squeeze of sun lotion and, by conserving it carefully and sitting in the shade, we managed to avoid burning. Ella had brought a little bit of mosquito repellent, but she still got bitten about 20 times by sand flies. I, however, managed to avoid being bitten at all. Brilliant.



Anyway, after over two years here, I’ve finally been somewhere (other than the Red Centre of Australia) that really is in the middle of nowhere. Unless you count the shop as evidence of not-nowhereness. Which I didn’t, because its sun cream was out of date.



Snorkelling was problematic too. On the day we decided to do it, millions of miniature jellyfish were being washed up to shore. They were about an inch or two long. They were harmless, but Ella was a little bit squeamish. Every time we did a swimming stroke, we pushed them away with our arms. They filled our vision, too. Ten minutes was all we managed. Ella maintains that it was 'like swimming through frogspawn' and that the only reason I wasn't scared too was because I couldn't see them without my glasses. Nonsense.

We watched a number of other people run enthusiastically into the sea, then realise they were surrounded by jellyfish, before beating a hasty retreat.



After two and a half dreamy days in the sunshine reading Dracula and Snow Falling On Cedars, it was back to hectic Singapore to go to the Good Vibrations festival. It was an all day event, but most of the acts were a little disappointing. It warmed up with the third to last act, Aussie band Cut Copy, who were really eclectic and had some great songs. Then the Jurassics took the stage. They were cracking – very tight and melodic – they even rap in tune at times. The Beasties took the biscuit, though. They came on looking like 1940s types with suits and trilbies. They also carried briefcases, which was a nice touch. Oddly, they reminded me of Madness in a way: same sense of humour and natty threads. They played a number of classics, opening with Gratitude and closing with Sabotage, with No Sleep ‘Til Brooklyn the song they chose from License to Ill. It’s hard to believe I was still (just) at Primary School when they released that album. They were very classy.

The Rainbow

Jonny’s doing a grand job of documenting my holiday. It was a quite extraordinary three weeks in which we saw the stunning Blue Mountains; went wine tasting at the Hunter Valley; went to the races (and lost – it’s a mug’s game); had a top Christmas day BBQ followed by a game of cricket on the beach, rounded off with another BBQ; enjoyed H’s birthday; watched the NYE fireworks from the Opera House; went to Field Day, a dance festival; body boarded and wave jumped; walked coastal walks; celebrated Chewie’s birthday… the list goes on.

I’ll leave Jonny to carry on telling the full story, but I’m a busy man at the moment, so I’ll just talk about the sky on our last night. Having seen so many people from home, saying goodbye was pretty tough as no one really knows when we’ll all be together again. In fact, the longer I spend away from home, the harder the goodbyes seem to get.

As we were getting ready to go out on the last evening, the sky went a misty grey colour and what appeared to be a fine mist dressed the promenade like a peignoir. Looking out to sea, we noticed the faint glimmer of a rainbow, which gradually sharpened until the whole arch had fastened itself to the sky. The sky morphed, bruised and blossomed.

The rainbow seemed to reflect the bittersweet nature of parting. The sky seemed to reflect the time of uncertainty ahead, for just about all of us. The holiday was over. I’m going for promotion which is pretty much make or break in my current job. Ella’s finished her MA and is trying to work out what to do next. Jonny, H, Chewie, Stan, Steve etc might also be able to apply this slightly overwrought symbolism to their own lives too. Either that or they’d tell me to stop being so pretentious.

The rainbow was a fitting end to an unforgettable holiday. Thanks to everyone, but especially H and J for putting us up and putting up with us. Eye am the sky, as Dr Phibes and the House of Wax Equations once put it.

Moving Too Fast

I can't keep up with life at the moment. I start writing about something for this blog that's about to happen, or that might happen in a while, then it happens before I finish writing about it. I then either have to rejig what I've written or scrap it.

I can't believe how little time I've had to do anything since September. Life is rushing by. I've been reading the same book for four weeks, which is unheard of. All I seem to do is work, eat and sleep. And write sketchy blogs that never see the light of day.

September to December really are the killer months. In fact, looking at last year's blogging, the only time I blogged regularly was when I was at home doing nothing because I'd had major knee surgery. I went to the dentist yesterday who says I need a wisdom tooth out, so there'll be three days of blog action coming up soon, I reckon.

What I want to know is, how do people find the time to write these things every day? And read loads of other ones? And watch telly and go out to gigs and socialise and play sport and read books all at the same time? Sure, I'm generally at work for 12 hours, but I'm sure I'm not alone in that.

Blogs I've started but not finished recently include:

The one about the condition of my knee - my doc says I can play football next month.

The one about my new regime of cycling to work. I've lost some weight and everything.

The one about going to the dentist.

The one about my week-long migraine.

The one about trying to buy electrical goods when I don't have a clue about them.

The one about how salespeople here lie through their teeth - or talk without thinking - when trying to convince me to buy stuff.

I like life to be busy, but I'd like to be able to write more than two blogs in six months. With my schedule over the next few weeks, that doesn't look likely...

So those are my excuses.

Properly Clipped On Like A Peg Should

By popular request (well, Andy mentioned it once), here's my very belated run down of my Summer. In order to do this, I need to go all the way back to July. Bear with me, though, because it's not going to be like your boring old uncle talking through his holiday snaps.

That last sentence isn't true.


The last thing I told you about my trip to Sydney was this - an account of why I love Aussie Rules referees. Well, as you may’ve read on Jonny’s blog, we also went to the Sydney Opera House for a bit of the old Shostakovich. Even though we were in the cheap seats, we had a great view. Indeed, as Jonny explained at the time, we got in for the under-30s' price, even though only H is under-30. I let Jonny do the talking, because he's really rather good at it, and he did a superb job of charming our ticket-seller into believing that two balding, wrinkly men, one of whom was walking with the aid of a walking stick, were still in the first (or possibly second) flush of youth. Although thinking about it, perhaps she thought we were senile OAPs and were therefore concessions anyway.


Usually I wouldn't bother trying to get in for a cheaper price, but Jonny was out of work at the time and didn't seem to mind people thinking that we were students, so I allowed myself to be carried along on the crest of his penny-pinching wave. On the night, we made sure that our trousers were hanging below our underwear in the style of the youth of today, just in case. Anyway, here's Oprah's House from within:

And without:

The next day we went whale-watching, which prompted lots of Welsh accents, although there were no whales. If you don't see whales you get your money back, so we got a voucher for another boat trip. I'm going back to visit H and J at Chrimbo, so, unless Jonny's flogged the voucher for a profit(!), we'll be going on another boat trip of some kind.

Even though there were no whales, we saw zillions of dolphins. According to our jocular whale-watch guide, dolphins are part of the whale family, which I hadn't realised, but they didn't count as whales when it came to getting our money back. This all seemed rather generous to me, and I felt as if I didn't deserve such generosity since the previous day I'd listened to classical music with deceitfully youthful ears.

Anyway, I failed miserably to take photos of any dolphins because they simply refused to pause in mid-air while I got my camera ready. Somewhat predictably, I did get some good pictures of the sky. Regular readers will know that I have a bit of a sky fixation:

Did loads of other great stuff in Sydney too, all of which Jonny has mentioned, including climbing all the way up to the bridge a mere month after knee ligament surgery. Jonny counted the steps, which really helped. Finally, I bid a sad farewell to Jonny:

And H:

Sydney was brill, and I'm looking forward to seeing it without a crocked knee and when it's not freezing cold. Thanks again, H and J. Only a month to go! Writing this has brought back some top memories. There's now less time ahead of me until I next go than there is behind me since I last went.

I like that last sentence, because it only just makes sense.

After Sydney, I went back to Singapore and moved house. I realised that we have too much stuff:

After a couple of days spent unpacking boxes, I went back to England. I met one niece for the first time:
And got reacquainted with another:

No summer would be complete without playing Pegs™, the rules of which have changed since my last visit. Andy has described the rules at length, but really all there is to it is lobbing pegs, corks and various bones that are lying around in your back garden into some receptacles at the other end of the garden. You get points according to which receptacle your projectile lands in. One of the receptacles is a wire mesh (known as 'the four-two mesh', because you get four points if your peg stays in the mesh, and two if it drops down to the pot beneath). It produced one of my favourite phrases of the summer. Andy went to inspect whether one of his pegs had landed in the mesh, and he informed us that it was in fact 'properly clipped on like a peg should.' This, I decided, was a good metaphor to describe things going well. If, for example, people ask me if I'm having a good time, I now reply that I'm properly clipped on like a peg should, thanks for asking. The latest Killers album is properly clipped on like a peg should, too. I'm sure you get the idea. It takes a bit longer to say than 'fine, thanks,' or 'really good,' but so what.

This is one of those pleasing sentences that I referred to here, when I pointed out the probable uniqueness of the sentence 'we were led through the labyrinthine innards of the bamboo structure by the euphoniumist'. It's one of those sentences where the words make sense, but they can surely never have been combined in such an obscure order before throughout history. Indeed, one could go so far as to say that those sentences themselves are properly clipped on like pegs should (be).

I do realise how silly all this is, by the way.

Anyway, here are Chewie, Andy and Joe in a very obviously posed photograph, looking as if they're about to play Pegs:

One gloriously grey, blustery day, I went to the seaside - Clevedon, no less - with my parents and one of the nieces. There's a pier there. Going on this pier made me realise that, even with no amusements on them, piers are brilliant, and other countries that don’t have them, or call them disappointing things like 'jetties', are rubbish. Save our piers! They’re architecturally pleasing to the eye! You can fish off them! Some of them have turnstiles and you have to pay stupidly small, quaint amounts of pence to get on them! Most importantly of all, they jut out into the sea and everything!

Indeed, in September, four of my friends who I’ve been in bands with in the past were supposed to be playing a gig on this very pier. Having been in trendy guitar or hip-hop bands, they’re now in a ukulele band – ukulele being the new guitar, or something - and are playing things like “I Predict A Riot”, “Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want” and, of course, “When I’m Cleaning Windows” (known only as "Windows" in any conversation I had with the band about it) on the uke. So good luck to Joe, Neil, Ieuan and Mike. When I return home, please can I join in? If any of you are reading this gibber, did the gig on the pier happen?

Here’s the pier:

This snap was taken at the end of the pier and is perhaps a symbol of our times, if not politically, then certainly footballingly after the last World Cup:

Whilst in England, I saw the best sunset that I’ve seen in the last two years. Sunsets just don’t seem to happen in the same way in my part of the world. Bristol still rules as sunset capital in my book. This from my brother’s back garden:

I caught up with some people I hadn’t seen in years at Mark’s 30th. I had a brilliant weekend with them all. The main thing I can remember about it is laughing long and hard. I managed to get this photo of Em with an international athlete, whose autograph I will ask for next time I see him, Jonny:

And I got this one, too, which ranks as one of the most extraordinary photos I’ve ever taken. All I said was, “Let’s make this a cheesy one, please” and Andy and Chewie’s faces seemed to turn to rubber. A case of Mr Hyde and Mr Hyde:

Andy and I both took photos of Sam drinking brandy or something rather late in the evening, looking every inch the Victorian gent:

In other news, baby Ben was born to Neil and Cath about a week into my trip home. He was over 10lb when he was born, and I found myself calling him “champ” automatically as soon as I met him. Ben had an operation on his heart a couple of days before I came back to Singapore. It went very well and Ben is now in rather good shape, so I gather. The day before the operation, I went in to see the three of them in hospital and said ‘goodbye’ because I was leaving for Singapore two days later. That was horrible. Fortunately, after Ben’s op, Neil and Cath came out on my last night, despite having had very little rest and having been through all that stress, and we were able to have a much nicer ‘goodbye’. Winner:

9 years on and Funky Onion is still going strong, with Dave and Joe Onion still doing for House Music what Teddy Sheringham is doing for West Ham United:

Dave and I were at the Oval on that fateful day when Pakistan cheated, or didn’t, as the case may be. You know those flats that overlook the ground? The ones the TV cameras always show cos people are on the balconies watching the game from there? You know how you wish you knew someone who lives in one of those flats? Well, we know someone who lives there and so we saw a crazy, historic day of cricket for free! Although, of course, we had no idea what was going on because we were inside the flat having a spot of lunch at the time. Anyway, here's the proof that we were there:

And here's that historic scoreboard:

Finally, I also went to Wookey Hole for the first time ever. Here I am with Pen, sister-in-law extraordinaire, and the children. Photo taken illegally by Dave. Apparently, flash photography scares the bats. There were no bats in this section anyway. At least, not after the flash photography:

I had a brilliant summer, and I've only not written about it sooner because I was helping Ella finish her MA, then we had 8 weeks of guests in a row. That was brilliant, too, but it meant that instead of writing I've been sightseeing. My trip home was all too short this year and it gets harder every year to leave. Still, you can't have your cake and eat it, can you? Whatever that means.

Finally finally, every time I switched on the radio in England, they were playing 'Chasing Cars' by Snow Patrol. Is that still the case?

Chicken Bandages

Since that unusual Thursday night, lots has happened, but let me home straight in on half-term when I went to Japan. This was the first trip I’d taken entirely alone. Unlike everywhere else I’ve been to in Asia over the last couple of years, hardly anyone in Japan tried to speak to me in English. This made it an odd week, because I was surrounded by people the entire time, but I was silent most of the time. I was in a state of solitude whilst surrounded by a multitude.

Let’s start with the bullet train, or the shinkansen, which, in my own little silent bubble, quickly became the ‘shin cancer’ for some reason. The bullet train is notorious for being incredibly efficient and leaving on the absolute dot. However, on the day I left Tokyo to go to Kyoto (which sounds like a song title), the bullet train was two hours late. Although all the signs at the stations are in English as well as Japanese, all the announcements, including two changes of platform, were in Japanese only, so I had the unnerving experience of watching my train disappear from the screen twice. Fortunately, a Japanese guy came and stood next to me on the platform. He asked me, in rather good English, whether they’d said what was going on. I said, very slowly and clearly, that I didn’t know what was going on because ‘all announcements in Japanese. Me not speak Japanese.’
‘I don’t speak much either,’ he replied. He revealed that he was born in Tokyo, but moved to California when he was 3.

I spoke to him very occasionally over the next two hours, and with the little Japanese he understood, he helped me get to the right platform. Imagine the luck! A quiet American! Apparently, someone had thrown themselves in front of a bullet train just outside the station, which had caused the delay. I thanked him, we got on the train, and I never saw him again.

My first three nights were in Tokyo. It was Autumn, so there was an unrelenting drizzle, but the temperature was pleasant. I spent three days under a see-through umbrella, trying to avoid being poked in the eye by considerably shorter people also holding see-through umbrellas. I stayed in Shinjuku, where Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson stayed in Lost In Translation, although my hotel was rather less swanky. I did some of the same stuff – wandering around with a surprised look on my face, stumbling into amusement arcades where people were doing very strange things, like playing some kind of vertical pinball game, which, despite a long period of observation, I still couldn’t understand.

There was a virtual horseracing game, too. This, I suppose, is an upgrade of those plastic horseracing games you can bet on at the end of a pier. This one was made by Sega and was on a huge screen. There must have been 10 punters sat at computer consoles, feverishly making notes about, and placing bets on, pixels that looked like horses. I watched a race and there was a very close finish. Somebody looked like he’d won a lot of money on it from his reaction. Another guy immediately set about making notes on form, I guess.

Hyperreal, man.

Tokyo’s also good for temples,


markets,

people-watching and skyscrapers,

but somehow the amusement arcades are much more interesting to write about. As is the food.

Ordering food was problematic. Fortunately, a lot of restaurants have pictures of the food, or incredibly realistic plastic representations of the food, displayed outside. The display of desserts above, for example, is all plastic. Sometimes I’d go into a restaurant and would have to go back outside with a waiter to point at what I wanted. Quite often I had no idea what I’d eaten, even after I’d eaten it.

Being on my own made going to restaurants awkward because, in a lot of places, the portions are for two or more people to share. I discovered this when I took the plunge on my second night and picked a restaurant at random which didn’t have any pictures outside. I went downstairs and was greeted at the door by a waitress who spoke in Japanese for a few moments, while I nodded, occasionally asking whether I should take my shoes off in English. A bloke popped his head round the door and said ‘No English… only Japanese,’ to me, which I took to mean that they only had Japanese food. By this time I was already halfway through taking off my shoes, so despite this slightly lukewarm welcome, I felt that I had already crossed the point of no return, even after I realised that he actually meant they had no English menu. Nor did they have any pictures on their menu. It crossed my mind that perhaps he had meant ‘no English people,’ too.

Eventually shoeless, I was ushered into a small pod-like booth with a door to shut me off from the rest of the restaurant. This was, if you will, a microcosm of my experience in Japan. I could hear the raucous conversations and laughter of my fellow diners, but, at the same time, I was detached. Solitude in the multitude. Together while apart. Faraway, so close.

I've finished now.

My little dining capsule had a table for two, which would have been very romantic had it not been a ‘menage a un’. Pointlessly, I turned the pages of the menu. It was as bewildering as my GCSE maths exam after I’d got past the first five easy questions, or reading Ulysses. I managed to order a beer by saying ‘beer’, which seems to be pretty much globally understood, and when the waitress returned with my drink I shrugged and pointed at the menu with a smile on my face. She spoke to me in Japanese for a bit. I took the plunge. ‘Tempura?’ I asked. I knew I was on to a winner when she repeated the word ‘tempura’. She continued to speak, pointing at things on the menu, seemingly trying to explain something to me. I wasn’t sure what it was, but I nodded a lot and she pressed a few buttons on her ordering keypad and seemed to go off happy.

Initially, I was given a small potato cake. If this was all I was going to get, I thought, I’d eat it, pay the bill, and go and get some noodles somewhere with a plastic food display outside. My tempura soon arrived, though. It was clearly a dish designed for people to share as I was almost sick by the time I’d finished. Although not the most balanced meal I’ve ever had, it was delicious. Sometimes, even the point-at-a-picture method yielded unexpected results. The following night I went to some kind of barbecue type place and pointed at some delicious looking beef. I was fortunate enough to have an English-speaking waiter, who informed me I’d pointed at beef tongue. Beef tongue isn’t my favourite dish, I have to say. I pointed at something else, which my waiter told me was ‘barbecued beef’. This was much more like the kind of non-specific dish I was after.

One of the things I particularly enjoyed doing in Japan was watching businessmen part company. Once I watched a group of 8 businessmen saying goodbye to each other in the street, oblivious to all the people trying to get past them. They stood in a kind of big circle, facing each other, and bowing, and it seemed to be some kind of contest to see who could bow the lowest, with everybody bowing at everybody else several times. What with there being 8 of them, and them all bowing to each other at least three times, there must have been at least 147 bows within 20 seconds, if my calculations are correct (unlikely).

Once the bowing finished, one of them said something to another, which meant that the last spell of saying goodbye and bowing didn’t count, so another round of bowing commenced. By this time I'd found a nice lamppost to lean on so that I could watch the spectacle unfold. Another chap made a wisecrack, which they all chuckled at, which, of course, resulted in more bowing. It reminded me of when I was a kid in assembly trying to get the last clap when someone’s being applauded. If someone else joins in, the clapping goes on until a teacher glares at you. With no glaring teacher to referee the bowing game, it amazes me that these businessmen ever part company at all.

Lots of waiters bowed at me while I was ordering stuff, and I would, of course, bow back, only clashing heads twice.

Being on my own and not saying anything enabled me to do lots of thinking and lots of staring. No one seemed to stare back. The Japanese seem to be either excessively chic or excessively bohemian. Even though you might think that wearing striped stockings above the knee or huge ‘cat in the hat’ hats is just stupid, whether weird, smart or scruffy, they seem to carry it off.

When I stopped thinking about what I was seeing and started thinking about myself, I discovered that, instead of thinking about the future, I thought about the past. I found myself going over the things I’d done in the past that I wished I hadn’t done and that make me cringe to think about them. I also found myself remembering things that I had completely forgotten about that happened at school or university. Perhaps I was giving myself some kind of non-consensual internal therapy-by-stealth.

On my last day, when I was looking at five large mushrooms in a market which were selling for about 300 quid, a woman approached me and told me that the mushrooms were expensive. I agreed. This was only the second time in a week that a Japanese person had approached me and spoken to me in English. I was conversationally rusty, so she kept the conversation going. Her last question was, ‘Are you in Japans doing sig-hut-si-ing-ger?’ It took me a while to work out that she was asking me if I was sightseeing, but was pronouncing every letter with great care. Shrooms:I had a similar experience at the airport, when a guy asking security questions asked me how many chicken bandages I’d had. Initially, I thought he was being sociable and was asking me whether I’d eaten some obscure chicken dish while I’d been in Japan. Before I answered, I fortunately worked out that he was asking me how many check-in baggages I had.

I realise I haven’t said much about what stuff looked like, but that’s what photos are for. It’s a stunning place, and I know I say this whenever I go away, but it’s the most interesting place I’ve been to yet, and I have to go back. Next time, hopefully, Ella will be able to come too. Here are some photos of Tokyo, and its anagram, Kyoto.

These wooden 'vocatives' were outside a shrine in Tokyo. People write their prayer requests on them:

One down, two to go! Get in! Come on you Spurs etc. I didn't write this one, honest:

These, too, were outside the same shrine. Loads of sake casks, for reasons unknown, I'm afraid, but they look nice:

Altogether now:

Red street by night:

Kyoto Station - an amazing place:

Looking at the view 11 floors up at Kyoto Station:

Kyoto Tower:

Reflections:

Shrine:

Raked gravel:

Emptiness:

These are fortunes (I think) which people get at shrines. They tie them to a tree so their fortune doesn't blow away (I think, again - I don't speak the language, you know):


The sky proves, once again, that it's the best thing ever:

I was really glad I went here. I walked up a hill (some would say mountain) for 4km through these toril, or shrine gates. They went all the way up. I took a million photos. Here's one:

At the top of the hill there was a great view of Kyoto and a shrine with lots of mini-toril, with prayers (or something) written on them:


Another beautiful sky with a castle or something in the way:


And finally, more great sky. I liked this one despite, or maybe because of, the coaches:

And that's quite enough for now.

An Unusual Thursday Night

Over the last year, Ella’s been doing her MA here and last Thursday she held her final show. It was called Pilgrims’ Process - A Journey Over Land and Sea: Beyond the German Girl Shrine. Ella has researched loads of stuff about Chinese customs and rituals for her course. She knows lots of legends and stories and has dug deep into local culture, all of which fed into Pilgrims' Process.

One of the most interesting places she’s been to in order to find stuff out is a workshop where they make miniature bamboo and paper houses. They also make shirts and ties out of paper. Shoes, hats, horses, people and cars, too. These paper and bamboo objects are burned when someone dies. The Taoists believe that when these objects are burned, they will become real cars, houses, horses etc and will go with the deceased to the after-life. The objects in this photo, for example, are all made out of paper:



Same goes for this shirt:


A lot of her research has been into pilgrimages, shrines and rituals and her final piece reflected this. The audience (including me, of course) met at her college, where we boarded a minibus. We were given a goodie bag with various things in it like a map, a torch, some sweets and a brief description of the legend of the German Girl whose shrine is on an island called Ubin, which was where we were heading. Once we reached the jetty, we boarded a bumboat and made the 5 minute crossing to Ubin. There we got on bikes and cycled for about 15 minutes, following a red thread that guided our way.

As we reached the brow of a hill, we heard music on the breeze. There was a chap playing a euphonium, and very solemn it sounded too. The landscape had changed: after cycling through jungle, we were now at the barren edge of the island, by the quiet and calm sea. Ella's installation/sculpture loomed. It was a bamboo structure, about the size of a large transit van, but an unusual, sometimes angular, sometimes rounded shape. It looked a bit like the bone structure of some kind of giant insect, possibly. Red curtains were attached to bits of it, looking like hunks of flesh still hanging from the bone, if you like. A mysterious atmosphere immediately descended on the group.

There must have been about 40 of us and we approached the piece hushed. This quiet, reverent atmosphere prevailed for the next 30 minutes or so. During that time, we were led through the labyrinthine innards of the bamboo structure by the euphoniumist. We also walked around the structure whispering about what it might mean. Then we watched Ella approach it with a homemade fire-torch, which caused some people to gasp in a “she’s not, is she?” kind of way. She set fire to the curtains, which burned as the sun went down.

There was a ripple of applause as she put the torch out, then we got back on our bikes and cycled back in the dark – using our torches to guide the way – to have dinner at a seafood restaurant on Ubin jetty.

What was all that about then? Well, I suppose we were all the pilgrims referred to in the show's title. The way the audience was behaving reminded me of the way people behave in temples and wats. For example, on my first visit to a Buddhist temple, I didn’t have a clue how I was supposed to behave, what I could look at, what I was supposed to be doing, whether I was allowed to talk, whether I could take photos... that kind of thing. Most of all, I didn’t know what any of the ornate stuff inside the temple meant, or who people were praying to and why. The experience of visiting such an unusual piece of art, in such an unusual context, which had been preceded by such an unusual journey, created the kind of mystified, reverent response one feels in the temple of an unfamiliar religion. The almost ceremonial, ritualistic burning of the curtains by Ella took ages, maybe 10 minutes, and, apart from the music, there was complete, respectful silence.

The meaning derived not from the structure, I suppose, and came more from the behaviour of the audience. I suppose it was about human behaviour. That's what it meant to me, anyway. The artist didn't explain her work afterwards... they, don't do they? I think most people thought something either slightly, or very, different to me. Which is what art should be like, I guess.

Of course, Ella's piece was very much modern, abstract art, but there was also something quite anachronistic about it. It was almost like going to visit a henge or something.

Anyway, about that modern art stuff. I’ve been to the Tate Modern a couple of times and I like 50% of it and hate the other 50%. Unfortunately, the best contemporary art never really gets much exposure, whereas people like Emin and Hirst are rammed down our throats. Emin, in particular, gets my goat, with her visually unappealing and uninteresting, self-obsessed, obvious, illustrative and oh-so-shocking installations. Ella likes Emin, so we… er… discuss her from time to time. Perhaps I’m just biased, but what Ella did on Thursday seems to me to be open to interpretation, which, for me, as a literature bod, is what I like, whereas Emin’s work seems to have only one idea running through it. Usually that idea is “I’m really rock and roll, and a touch miserable, me”. It’s all about trying to shock the audience with how rock and roll and miserable she is. Her themes are obvious and are presently crassly. Looking at Emin’s “My Bed”, for example, is the visual equivalent of reading an Irvine Welsh novel. Spare me, please spare me…

I say all that about Emin because I’m quite hard to impress when it comes to, well, anything, really, but particularly modern art. At risk of someone sending my words into Private Eye’s “Pseuds Corner”, Ella’s work seems to layer concepts and ideas on top of concepts and ideas. Her lecturers were impressed, but so were the people who were there who, like me, don’t really know much about modern art, but like pretty paintings. I was very proud of her for pulling it off. Whatever it might mean, “Pilgrims’ Process” was a lovely experience. How often do you go on a mystery journey to an uninhabited island where you watch the sun go down by the sea to music with a mysterious, burning structure in front of you? Beats my usual Thursday night routine, I tell you.

Please note: this blog contained the phrase: “We were led through the labyrinthine innards of the bamboo structure by the euphoniumist”. I love sentences like that because I am almost 100% certain that those words have never been used in that order ever before. I suppose the words only came about in that order because that was what actually happened. Life's brilliant! More on this phenomenon soon, possibly! And hopefully fewer exclamation marks!

Some photos of the structure:

Steve Irwin RIP

My first encounter with him was on a preview for one of his first shows broadcast in England. He was winding up a crocodile. "Who's this loony?" I wondered. Then he turned to the camera and uttered the immortal words: "If you think that's dangerous, you wanna see what I've got in my shed!"

I've said that as often as possible ever since, even when it's only slightly relevant to the conversation I'm having.

After all that time spent tempting crocs with his own son, he's eventually killed by Stingray. Death by dodgy 1960s supermarionation TV show.

He was up there with Richard Madeley, Ainsley Harriott and Rolf Harris. Very sad.

I'll be back sooner than I was last time to catch you up with my summer.