Top 5

This time of year, everyone has a top 5 or a top 10 or some kind of round-up, so I thought I'd get in on the act. I've been researching weird things for Japanese TV for over a year now. Recently a broadcaster we contact often suggested I try adding the word 'wacky' to any searches in their online archives for finding topics we'd been charged with digging up. That's the kind of research work I do.

At the beginning, I tried to note down what I was researching with the intention of writing about them all here. Soon enough, I realised it would be pretty much every topic we research. The list grew longer and longer until it was entirely unwieldy. Top 5 makes sense.

In no particular order:

- Jim Le Fevre



This man is a hero. Jim Le Fevre uses record players and revolutions per minute to make smart animations. He dubs his creation the Phonotrope (formerly the Phonographantasmascope), itself modelled on a Zoetrope.

His website is packed with wonderful things too.


- Cat Gets Stuck in Window



From the wildly imaginative and inspirational, to the wacky, the most lowly of low-brow entertainment available (that no one else in Japan has broadcast yet). That's how my job rolls.

Pretty funny though.


- And one giant mirror



Viganella: a small town in Northern Italy with no sunlight for three months every year, due to it's location nestled at the bottom of a valley. The mayor instals one giant mirror to rectify this.

The Japanese featured in the trailer had nothing to do with us and I don't think the people in Japan we were working for even used the footage in the end. Didn't stop me burning a copy of the entire documentary to take home and watch (it's office policy - eurgh what a phrase!- to burn copies of everything that comes in anyway).

The array of characters is the most compelling thing in the documentary. The guy playing a caisa (the instrument you can hear at the beginning) plays all kinds of instruments throughout but never utters a word. There's a brooding, quiet type who lives at the top of the hill near where they instal the mirror. And the mayor is delightful and gregarious and determined throughout. I love how he gets nearly blown backwards by the helicopter down-thrust, as he tries to take pictures with a pocket camera of the mirror dangling. Landscape then portrait, then back to landscape.

- Solar Impulse



A solar plane that can fly at night.

I spoke with the PR who was lovely but who told me there was no footage of the plane flying. They hadn't got it off the ground yet. Two months later it hits the national press with the maiden flight. Now it seems it's flown at night too.

- World's Deepest Bin



I love this.

Finally, carols

All has been said and done now, but in the run-up to Christmas I was really craving carols. Various plans fell through. Audience participation is not always welcome- who knew there is difference between carol concerts and carol services? Even Midnight Mass turned out to be a lot more Godly than I had remembered. Much less clementines with candles and more, well, like you'd expect from a church I suppose. No less enjoyable for that, mind, in it's own way.

So it was nice, really nice, to get word from the school I'd visited on work experience during the summer, inviting me to their carols and staff party. I don't think I've sung Away in a Manger since I was 7 years old myself. Certainly not Little Donkey. Plenty of candles too, and a few Kings and a Joseph and a Mary trembling on the stage after holding pose for 10 minutes. Back at school, the staff had transformed the corridors into The Lion the witch and the wardrobe. They even has an Aslan (pictured). The picture doesn't really do it justice.

Essentials: sign of the times

BAA spokesperson:

"People are in the lounges and all over the airport. We have given out thousands of blankets, food vouchers, bottles of water and there is free wi-fi. Things are improving slowly."

Snow, snow, snow

Christmas shopping

This is very much a traumatic affair, an annual, traumatic affair.

This year I found myself in an awful, traumatic human tangle on the ground floor of the Oxford Street branch of John Lewis, fighting for access between display stands bearing thoughtfully packaged and well-presented foodstuffs, perfumes, lotions, superfluous stationary and all the other accompanying accoutrements of Christmas (board games, wooden toys, cards and gift wrapping, bored children with mittens on strings), in this mind-numbing, department store light. It all came to a head as I debated spending five pounds on gift tags- nothing more than a folded piece of card with a hole punched in one corner and a barcode on the back.

Even my attempts to skip off the masses with a digital bounce were thwarted this year. The book my brother wanted wasn't in stock. The snow and the ice has stopped any postal guarantee for internet purchases. The cheese website crashed, or wouldn't load, or something. I don't recall why I thought buying cheese over the internet seemed like a good idea, but it did at some point.

I finally caught a break yesterday. I had one more little something to get and the shop I had in mind was a ways away, but I had time and the inclination to wander.

I passed by L'Occitane on my way and a sales assistant inexplicably spraying the area around the door with one of those perfume atomizers with a cord and a spongy ball at the end. I walked past, stopped, turned back and went in. Could have been the perfume. Not really sure. In any case, I was presented with a glass of champagne the moment I entered. Here was something for nothing and I instantly congratulated myself on the best Christmas shopping decision of this year. I found something and bought it from the same sales assistant that had sprayed the door space and offered me the champagne. She processed the transaction, slipped the product in a bag and then she did something else inexplicable. She took a sheet of pink crepe paper, loosely stuffed it into the bag and then jammed the bottle of perfume in and sprayed a good puff-puff-puff, and another puff for good measure. People always seem to want to go the extra mile at Christmas time, even if it's a bafflingly strange gesture, like spraying the inside of a bag.

No car go, Stumpy, Making it further than Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, Kurt Cobain etc

Something wicked this way stalks

Yesterday marked the greatest moment of my working life in London. That’s not to say much, given it’s been only a year and in an entirely one-dimensional capacity, but even so, this was big. This was a coup, this was an Everest: Attenborough.

A brush with a hero is a rare occasion indeed. That’s part of heroes being heroes: they have a distance and an impenetrable aura about them that underwrites your reverence. If you bumped into a hero in your local cafe week, it would take a little lustre off. At least in my book, that’s how it works.

When I was a kid, at one stage, I remember liking two things in life quite obsessively: collecting books I never read, and animals. I was going to be a vet and one day I was going to read all of the books I had collected, just as soon as I finished the collection. All three of these things never happened- I’m not a vet, I never read those books and I still haven’t finished collecting books. I gave away all my old CDs, I streamlined my stuff between England, Scotland, Japan and England again and I toss out old clothes before I’ve bought new clothes. Books, though, I can’t really bear throwing away or donating or ditching.

So, I grew up with David Attenborough on the TV, sweating in a jungle and a headlock at the gangly, orange arms of an orangutang; at the poles, with the penguins and much later, just an absorbing voice speaking over gorgeous footage of things I’ll never lay eyes upon at the bottom of the sea or deep in caverns or stashed in wild ravines. He was always around animals. Not so much books. He became, and remains, a hero of mine.

Yesterday, investigating rights of some early ‘90s nature footage to license for broadcast in Japan, our contact at dear old Auntie came back with a message- we would have to run it by David Attenborough if Japan wanted to broadcast anything with him or his voice. And there was his address and his phone number.

As it turns out, Japan only wanted the penguins. King penguins. That wasn’t going to stop me calling up David though. Except, when the phone had rung through a dozen or so times and an anonymous, computerized approximation of a voice had invited me to leave a message, I thought it more respectful to call him Sir Attenborough. I explained the situation and asked him to call us back, although I thought this a ridiculous proposal. Imagine, Sir Attenborough telephoning T--------! Ha!

So today I drafted a letter. The printer at work (we have only one) is playing up and there are two white smears that run down the printed page it spits out, down the right side. I shifted everything left and tried again, but this only eliminated one white smear and left one column of letters half-way between type and hallucination. This simply wouldn’t do. Not for Sir Attenborough. Instead I plan to print it out from the library and send it myself. Or maybe even hand deliver.

I guess that rules out toys for Christmas

The Future is French

A work in progress:


Motivation letter
http://french.about.com/library/weekly/aa111000.htm

Name: Guy Maunder Taylor      

Date: 3rd Decembre      

Monsieur, Madame,

• General personal description including hobbies and pastimes

Je me permets de poser ma candidature pour le poste d’internat avec le projet Leonardo da Vinci. Je suis vingt sept ans et je travaille depuis Septembre 2009 comme un chercheur de production a une maison de production japonais en Londres...

• Why would like to join the programme

Je suis désireux de travailler en France afin de... I would like to spend some time living in France- I spent two weeks as part of a school French exchange when I was 17 so I would like to return there.

• The ideal internship that you are looking for
• What type of tasks you would like to do in your internship
• What are your strengths and what can you offer the employer
• What you hope to gain from the programme
• Any other details you feel will strengthen your application

Comme l’indique mon CV, j’ai travaillé pendant trois ans en Japon. Mes expériences de travailler en Japon m'incite(nt) à penser que je suis à même de vous assurer une collaboration efficace pour ce poste. I am very adaptable. I have very strong organisational skills having worked in TV.

To renew my French, to learn about teaching in France, to learn about Bordeaux and life in a French city.


Yours truly,


Your name

Notes:

• Your letter of Motivation should not exceed one page
• Once you have completed you letter please ensure all text is in BLACK

Breasts

'I have lots of milk'

These are words you should never hear from your sister.

'I'm lucky, I have lots of milk'

It was my mistake bringing up the subject. I had strolled into no man's land last week: a baby shop down the road, just near a guy with a cart with onion and garlic strings spilling over every side. Baby shops and onion strings. Hampstead is that kind of place.

They had cute stuff, toy stuff, early learners and clothing and then a whole bunch of stuff that I had no idea about. Exhibit A: Boob Tube, a Mama Mio product.



This product promises:

'Within a week you'll notice that the skin on your neck, chest and boobs looks firmer, fitter, glowing, more dewy and youthful. As it reduces crepe and creasing above and around boobs, reduces wrinkles on neck and chest and plumps up skin so it looks young & bouncy. This high quality product is super nourishing in Omegas 3,6 and 9 and packed with very high levels of nature's amazing anti-oxidant, CoQ10 (co- Q- ten).'

What is crepe? How does skin look dewy?? What the hell is CoQ10? Dewy..?

I considered all of this, then I thought about picking it up for my sister as a joke present but in the end the price was a little prohibitive.

Exhibit B was a little further into the shop. I can't deny that as I went further in I felt a shiver of nervous excitement, an illicit frisson something like when pocketing penny sweets in a corner shop.Small time stuff, but enough to make you think twice. And there it was, top shelf, surrounded by all of the other practical mum/baby goods- the manual breast pump. The horror, the horror.

I felt a little strange staring at this product, but I was totally enraptured. In spite of this, I failed to note the brand name. Here's what it looked like:



Application, usage etc remain a mystery. Exhibit B I also considered picking up as a joke present, but I didn't have the chutzpah to walk to the counter and pay for a manual breast pump. Instead I picked up something else and later brought up the breast pump with my sister on the phone.

'How about a manual breast pump?', I asked, jokily.

'Actually, I already have an electric breast pump', she said.

There ensued a 3 minute monologue, the details and gist of which I'm sure you can imagine. Suffice to say the phrase, 'express milk' (my sister used this as a verb) entered my vocabulary. God-willing it will never again surface.

Inside the Royal Albert Hall, the Most Beautiful Tree in Gunnersbury Park, Arabella (aged 45 days)

Debut

I made my debut. My speaking debut on Japanese television. A year in the job and I've seen some pretty good times- the time I first started eating my lunch on the big red sofa, the day I moved to the Desk by The Window, the other day when I figured out the keyboard short-cut for format painter. Woah nelly, some pretty heady days, some good good times.

But this takes the biscuit. I once appeared as a walk-on, fill-in for a part. They needed a staff member from the National Archives to push a trolley of old books and documents (Meiji era stuff), and to wear white gloves. No-one from the NA wanted to do it, so I got the call. I never saw that one though- the AD was a bit of a frosty character, the story the Director had was falling apart as he went along and there wasn't such a healthy production relationship.

This, though, this was my speaking debut, and we got a DVD of the show through just fine. I was Local Gib Driver No. 1 and I nailed it in 2 takes. Tony the cameraman said I was a natural. The guys in Japan put a Japanese voiceover mine. The works, the whole 9 yards.

I tried to take some screen shots, but I guess the DVD is protected somehow, or you can't take screenshots from DVDs, or I'm just doing it wrong, cos all I got was the image above. Sorry folks.

Instead, I ripped some pictures from the net of the programme my speaking debut features on (Unbelievable):

CAPELLO:CARL FREDRICKSEN

Art?

I don't know much about art. I know nothing about art. At school I got stuck at Rothko. My A-level teacher, Mr. Box, tried to explain it all to me. I couldn't understand why such massive blocks of colour are held in such high esteem. I didn't get it, I was frustrated, there wasn't a ready solution. I quit art soon after.

During art I had learned one important lesson about the gap between what you envision and what you produce. Sometimes it's a gulf. I've learned that lesson again and again since the art room: I've learned to avoid recipes with photos (that just plants pictures in your head to measure up against), although I'm invariably drawn to them. I've learned that words and stories don't always come out how you'd read the script in your head: sometimes, by some happy accident, things will turn out differently, but just as good as you'd envisioned. Mostly this doesn't occur though. It takes time and skillful execution to pinch the gap between the images in your head and the thing in your hands or that come hurtling out of your mouth.

Work is research and research lately has been art. Find some new art. Something that translates fluently to television, to Japanese television. It's not as easy as it might seem, especially when you consider what kind of art people produce nowadays- conceptual art, found art...how do you explain that?

Not much on TV is new. Most of it has come from other TV, or at least other media. It really does just feed into itself. Another research topic for another channel and another programme at the moment is art. 'Trick' art. Optical illusions and anything remotely related. The illusions have a charm to the eye all of their own. An illusion to demonstrate Four Stroke Apparent Motion has really got Japan stumped though- they keep asking, how does it work? They keep asking, but why?



Deconstructing optical illusions, penetrating the jargon and the theory for condensed, soluble blurb to translate into Japanese and then easily into the mind of the producer in Japan requires care, and it reminds me of the task I and Mr Box faced up to and failed.

Rule number 7 of a Top 10 Problems Within the Art World list reads:

7. Press Releases and descriptive, explanatory texts next to pictures.
We shouldn’t need words to understand or access a work of art anymore than we need art to understand a film or an album cover to listen to music. They are extra, they can bring you to a greater comprehension of an artist – but if they are necessary then the artist has messed up. If they are not necessary, then don’t display them next to the work. If one watches an audience go round the Tate they spends as long reading the small print as they do looking at the work. Additionally poor artists use these explanatory texts to justify obtuse obscure work, or banal conceptual pieces – the writing often eclipsing the art in eloquence and expression.

I don't need any notes, or chats with Mr. Box or any other art authority to understand Rothko these days. In fact, I'd even venture to say he's one of my favourite artists (without wanting to appear like someone who knows anything about art). What I do know is that I know what I find appealing in his art. The size and depth of colour, especially in person and in close consultation for a prolonged period, is nothing short of mesmerizing.

With this in mind, I wanted to share some art work I've come across at work. (With no more explanations.)

Andreas Gursky, Blu, Anne Hardy.

RESULTS

The results for the inaugural Fund-Raising Dog House Pub Quiz (+ prizes):

1. Quiz Eubank and the Long Shots (a flagon of Old Navy Rum).

2. The Quiztal Malaise (a signed Jimmy Carr DVD).

3. Pirates of the South London Pacific (a fully PAT tested electric vegetable steamer tower).

4. Quiz in my Pants (a quarter bottle of French red wine).

5. An Ode to Guy: Ultimate Quizbee (a jar of mint humbugs).

6. Quiz Team Aguilera (some 'Free Tibet' stickers).

7. Stepfathers because we beat you and you hate us (AWOL at prize-giving?).

7. Let's Get Quizical (a toy water pistol).

9. Quizzie Rascal (a Cafe Nero loyalty card with 5 stamps).

ISO 800

Last night I ate this with Hannah, who agrees that composition can really make up for a lack of any photographic ability or technical expertise.

The Most Beautiful Tree In All Of Gunnersbury Park

HOW TO BLOW AN INTERVIEW

Things were going badly until one of the interviewers started asking questions in Japanese. Actually, he only got through one question before he abandoned it completely. Thereafter, things nosedived sharply.

This was my shot at the big time. No more car crash clips. No more dancing dogs, or interminable searches for third-party rights holders to nature documentary footage. This was a job in news.

There was a quiz to kick things off. Just to get started. Amongst others, I couldn't answer who the current Prime Minister of Japan is. I went with cheek, charm and humour instead: 'There have been so many changes recently, I've lost track'. Yes, Guy. You might not know the answer, but you bloody well know the background to it!

The English interviewer scanned through my answers and said not to worry, there were only a few he'd be really worried if I'd gotten wrong. 'Actually', he said, looking closer at my answer script, and frowning slightly.

He didn't wave me off at the door, returning to his desk instead and leaving me to gibber through some small talk with the two Japanese interviewers, in pigeon Japanese.

I left the building and started walking with no direction whatsoever. At first I felt giddy that at least I had a story to tell, but when the full weight of what I'd just tossed away came to bear, a different kind of feeling sank and settled.

It might not look like much

CARROT AND ORANGE SOUP

Snowdon

I don't think I've ever travelled by National Express before. I've never had to- there's always been a train or a car or even a plane going where I want to go, but Friday I took off from work and headed straight to Victoria coach station. Destination: West Country.


Next morning, doorstop bacon sandwiches dealt with, Paul and I made our way up to Snowdonia to meet Si, who had slept in a tent in the rain the night before. The sunrise had made it all worthwhile.



Half an hour or so later, hail hammering down and wind blasting indiscriminately, we were facing down Crib Goch (one of the tougher ridge ascents of Snowdon). We decided against the route and took an easier way, along with everyone else climbing on the day.



The hail continued for a while and we trudged on, hooded and bowed. At one point I wondered aloud what we were doing it for. People climb mountains for different reasons: to get to the top, for a nice view, for the air, for the exercise, some even climb them just because people climb mountains. Others climb simply because the mountains are there. I hadn't even envisaged climbing Snowdon when I planned this trip- I was interested in seeing some of the autumn colours. We had settled on hiking Snowdon almost without discussion.

My Boss.

Weiwei

Guy says:

20 October 2010 at 07:31

I loved the exhibition- I too appreciated the thoughtful layout of objects nearby paintings containing them, as well as the objects themselves: call me a philistine, but I had no idea Gauguin had been such a talented carpenter. I went on a Friday evening, expecting it to be extremely busy but it was by no means heaving and I didn’t have to wait too long at any point to steal a look at something that caught my attention.

However -at the risk of straying from the topic- I also went in great anticipation of the new Turbine Hall exhibition. Just before I left work for Tate, I saw an article saying it was now an off-limits exhibition, due to health concerns about dust.
I have to say, I was extremely disappointed when I did finally lay eyes upon the latest, sterilized addition to a series that has as it’s hallmark interaction and social immersion. It wasn’t the fact that you had to view the artwork from behind a tape-barrier, it was that earlier during the week you could trample all over it: knowing that this was not how the art was originally conceived to be detracted from the experience significantly. And from an artist who typically takes a pugnacious attitude to authoritative dictums. I would have gladly worn a respiratory mask if it meant I could enjoy the art as it should be enjoyed.

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Another opinion:

Letters

Sunflower Seeds at Tate Modern – health and safety gone sensible
(3)

The Guardian, Monday 18 October 2010

Article history
Your article on Tate Modern's decision to stop visitors interacting with Ai Weiwei's Sunflower Seeds installation misses the point (Keep off the art: dust puts sunflowers out of bounds, 16 October). It consists of a series of quotes from people complaining about "health and safety gone mad". They, and you, have thoughtlessly failed to consider the people who will be most affected by the large amounts of ceramic dust that was being created as people interacted with the exhibition.

While the health and safety of the general public is important, it will be Tate Modern staff who will suffer from prolonged exposure to such dust. That is why many of them quite rightly refused to work on the exhibition, supported by their PCS union reps, and ensured that management took their views seriously.

My partner works at the gallery, and my son and I are glad that she was part of this refusal. The disappointment of a few visitors is surely a better outcome than long-term, and possibly fatal, health effects for her and other workers at the gallery. Despite the decision, people can still view the work in the same way they would almost every other piece of art – by looking at it.



Matthew Cookson

London

• Tate Modern seeds? Ceramic dust? Sounds like a good use for stockpiled swine flu masks. Kind of makes it more "art", though not sure how.

Shetland Pony Attack

Running

I've been doing a lot of running recently. The idea is to get a good base level of fitness ahead of some serious marathon training from November or December onwards..

Mostly I've been running in the mornings. Once on the weekend, a few times at night. Any time of day I run, it takes a certain degree of willpower to get outside and start. Actually, it takes a lot of willpower. In the mornings, there's always a warm bed between me and the cold morning and weak light outside. If I run in the evenings, I can't shake the thought of the run for the duration of my commute home and my mind tests my resolve, turning over all kinds of excuses- I won't have time to make dinner if I run; it'll already be dark when I get back, I won't see my feet or be able to judge the camber and roll of the pavements; I have other things to do (I don't, really).

Once I'm outside though, once I've stepped out of the door there's no turning back. Once I crawled back into bed instead of running, crying heavy legs and convincing myself a day's rest wold do me good. So long as I make it downstairs to the front door I'm ok though. All I have to do is trick my mind, or sabotage my natural thought-processes long enough to get there, stamp my feet into my trainers and slam the door behind me.

A good year for apples, Sheep on Cleeve Hill, Dog hair basket

Near Wormwood Scrubs

After you've watched 67 horse and gun trot and trundle past, the rest of the morning just kind of pales in comparison.

Perfect Start

To the day, to October

WELCOME, ARABELLA

i don't go south of the river

It's beens just over a year since I got back from Japan.

I have lots of memories- good, bad, evocative, cherished, distant. Some memories are sharpening, brightening, calcifying. Others I'm losing. Still more have gone without me even realising, surely. Nostalgia has become habitual. For me, the grass will always be greener. I came across an interesting definition of nostalgia last night that strikes a chord:

'Nostalgia, psychoanalysis teaches, is always neurotic: an imaginary-hallucinatory-attempt to recover a lost past, but one doomed to fail because it ignores or forgets the present that was the essential component of the lost time.'

Ignore the 'pschoanalysis' bit. That's never really been my bag.

I know I'm not the only one with such nostalgic feelings for where I was, what I was doing, that's the thing. Thanks to social media, I know other friends that committed to a transient stay in Japan feel like returning too. Turn the thought over of someday going back. Maybe starting up in another part of Japan.

When I was 19 I travelled to Japan on my own and went from Tokyo to Kagoshima and back. I distinctly remember wandering around Tokyo, all of it, thinking, 'What a cool place to live'. Thinking, 'Wouldn't it just be incredible to live in Tokyo one day'. But part of me knew I wouldn't, that I would go back to England and get on with the business of growing up in Europe. To me, at that time, it seemed hallucinatory to consider living in Tokyo. 5 or so years later I proved myself wrong, and I did it. I made a life there, and I never want to forget that.

Part of the fun of living abroad in such radically different circumstances was reflecting upon my own language, national character, my own upbringing, daily habits, surroundings from another space, from the other side of the line. It threw everything that had come before in life into sharp relief- suddenly I inhabited a position far removed on a scale of comparison. Someone once said, 'The unexamined life is not worth living'- and the converse is just as true.

It can be as simple as the embrace of national stereotypes: kicking more footballs, lauding a capital city I'd never spent longer than a month, sending for brown sauce. Or it could be rejoicing in the aisles of the foreign food store. Or much more: reflecting on all the ambiguities and miscommunications between native speakers of a common language, acknowledging they occur much more than I had previously registered, realising this thanks to all the frustrations of trying to communicate in a language I hadn't yet learned.

It's all quite complicated, and difficult to express. But returning to the green grass on the other side, I give you Guardian journalist Scott Murray's live text-update introduction to the New Zealand innings against India back in March 2003:

'Preamble

It's really simple: India are already through, New Zealand have to win.

Meanwhile, have you ever thought WHAT SORT OF LIFE IS THIS AND WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING BOARDING A TRAIN FOR MOORGATE AT 6.30 IN THE MORNING AND THEN STANDING AROUND FOR AGES WAITING FOR A TUBE WHILE STARING AT A SIGN TELLING YOU THAT IF YOU WAIT FOR FOUR MINUTES YOU CAN BOARD A TRAIN TO UXBRIDGE I'D RATHER WAIT FOUR HOURS FOR A JOURNEY WITH THE GRIM REAPER QUITE FRANKLY AND THEN YOU GET TO WORK AND THEN THERE'S THIS AND I KNOW THE CRICKET'S GOOD AND ALL THAT BUT I'VE GOT OUT OF THE WRONG SIDE OF BED THIS MORNING AND IN ANY CASE IT'S NOT AS IF I'LL WRITE A CRACKING MATCH REPORT AND THEN GET REWARDED BY BEING SENT ON A WONDERFUL ASSIGNMENT AROUND THE WORLD BECAUSE I'LL BE VERY SURPRISED IF ANY OF MY BOSSES WILL READ ANY OF THIS LET'S BE HONEST THEY WON'T ALTHOUGH ON THE OTHER HAND THAT'S PROBABLY JUST AS WELL HEY I WOULDN'T BE ABLE TO GET AWAY WITH TYPING THINGS LIKE THIS KIqL!UYS^%$DFLI ZSDSAFC SFE4O92 )(^(*^o"$ bBLKU E875O3 96*&^%o*"$ogb LOOK I'M SORRY THIS ISN'T EXACTLY THE SORT OF QUALITY EDITORIAL COPY YOU EXPECT FROM THE GUARDIAN BUT LOOK AT THE FACTS I'M ADRIFT IN THE MIDDLE OF ONE OF THE WORST CITIES IN THE WORLD SITTING IN FRONT OF THE SAME COMPUTER SCREEN I FACE DAY AFTER INTERMINABLE DAY HELL I COULD BE WAKING UP IN SAY THE MALDIVES OR SYDNEY OR COPENHAGEN OR A CROFTER'S COTTAGE IN SKYE AND GOING FOR A WALK IN THE CRISP MORNING AIR?

No? Only me then. Good.

The pitch

There are a couple of big cracks in the pitch which may open up later in the day...'

Ah, Royal Mail

AT THE CHAMBERLAYNE ROAD/KILBURN LANE INTERSECTION

Cars 2 - Bike 0

A friend came from Japan. I took Tuesday off and we went around town. It was nice to have someone to show off London to, and do half the things I'd love to do. She'd been to the two best galleries the day she arrived, and I eventually ran out of ideas so I took her to the pub.



Throughout the week we spoke in Japanese, we spoke in English. Since I left Japan, all those words and radicals and kanji I got to know have retreated to higher and higher shelves, out of reach of my mind's grasp. Phrases don't come easily any more. I need to think through grammatical structures before speaking them. Whole tracts of vocabulary are gone, just gone. But hanging out with Ran, bits came back, of course. All the parts of the language are still sitting waiting on shelves, somewhere in my mind, just buried in dust but within fingertip grasp.

The funny thing is, looking back, I can't even remember if we spoke in Japanese or English for most of the conversations we had. It's only been a few days. The message is there, and I know what we talked about, but I just don't remember.