Hurricane names...

Mon, 20 Aug 2007 18:06:54 +0100

I note that Hurricane Dean is currently ripping up coastal areas around the planet with reckless abandon. Really, it’s about time that the accepted methodology for naming hurricanes was changed. If they can’t come up with something more formidable than “Dean” then someone needs to take charge of the situation.

I know about the structure of it all (they start at “A” at the beginning of the year and continue on through the alphabet), but “Dean”? Come on. What next, Hurricane Sharon? Hurricane Dwayne? Hardly befitting of something as awesome and destructive as a Hurricane, is it?

They could have easily called this one Hurricane “Destroyer” or Hurricane “Danzig” - Far better in my humble opinion. Still, Dean it is, and hopefully Dean will puff himself out before hitting land again. It’s bad enough having your house ripped up, flung into the air and deposited in a pile 3 miles down the road, but to have to tell people that “Dean did it” makes it far worse.

*With apologies to those named Dean out there - What on earth did you do to deserve it?

Blowing open the whole Japan thing

Sat, 18 Aug 2007 18:57:06 +0100

This is going to be a really long post, so if you reckon you’re not up to it then by all means ignore it.

OK. I’m going to get this out of the way now as I am sure that it irritates the tits off of anyone who knows me that I keep banging on about it. I’m a Japanophile. I love Japan. I love the people, the food (well, OK, some of it), everything. In particular, as much as I love Japan as a country, I can’t escape the fact that Tokyo is what really pushes my buttons.

I first went there on 26th November 2002, and from the moment I got off the plane at Narita Airport I knew I was going to love it. Everything just seemed different and new. As the bus pulled away from the terminal, a polite but official female voice came over the PA and requested that we not use mobile phones “as it annoys the neighbours”. Genius. I recall watching the landscape slide past and feeling that I was suddenly in a different world. For a start, it doesn’t look like anywhere else I’ve ever been and there’s just so much of it that is alien at first that it’s a bit difficult to take in all at once. As the bus lumbered into Shibuya we stopped at some traffic lights and I could see into the 1st floor of an “English Tea Room”. It was done up like something out of Sherlock Holmes - Mock Victorian, and full of old ladies (obachan) sipping politely from little china cups. Was this what the Japanese thought all English people did?

With the flight arriving about 10am I had a day to wander around Shibuya and check it out. It was awesome, in the real sense of the word. Whenever they have something about Tokyo on TV they usually trot out a bit of footage of Shibuya crossing. It’s a Barnes (scramble) crossing where all of the traffic is stopped simultaneously, allowing masses of people to cross the street all at once like some amoebic blob, and with 5 or 6 crossing points it looks almost choreographed, especially if you view it from your hotel window 24 floors up. The problem is, if I describe everything that is visually stunning about Tokyo I’ll be here all night so you’ll just need to check some pictures out yourself (or better yet, go there), but take it from me that when it comes to cities there is nowhere in the world quite like it. The neon alone makes Times Square and Piccadilly Circus look like nothing more than a rather poor effort and the first time you see a video screen on the front of a 20 Storey building playing a music video you realise that these guys never do anything by half.

Since that trip I have never tired of Tokyo, or Osaka, or Kyoto or any other place in Japan I have been. Osaka, in fact, seems to have an even more insane love for neon than Tokyo does although it’s pace is much more relaxed and I find the people similarly laid back. I don’t know how many trips I have made to Japan now, but I think it’s about 8 or 9 and yet I on every occasion I still feel like I am going to experience something new. This has borne itself out to be true.

If someone were to describe a city to you that was a technological powerhouse, a cutting edge ultra-modern metropolis that had a ridiculously low crime rate, where the trains run on time and are all meticulously clean, where everything is run with natural efficiency, where most of the population are polite and friendly and would never dream of being “anti-social”, where seeing litter or vandalism or graffiti is a rarity rather than the norm, where you can walk around at any time of night and feel pretty safe and where you can still have a fucking good time if you want, you’d think they were describing a dream world, if not Utopia. Well, wake up to reality - That place is real and it’s called Tokyo. People bang on about how “fast” London or New York are but if you want to see a futuristic city operating at light speed then Tokyo is the only place to go, and I find it deceptively easy to get caught up in. Walking around Tokyo or Osaka at night I feel like Deckard from Blade Runner.

And yet, it’s a city full of opposites and contradictions. You can get some quick noodles in some little side street place, or a beef bowl (gyūdon) at Yoshinoya, a 24 hour fast food chain whenever you like. You can drink until the small hours and party as hard as you like then pass out on the pavement until the morning without fear of being robbed, you can pick someone up in a bar and go to a love hotel and get friendly in a giant cocktail glass together (note to self: Must try that one day, as long as the glass is clean...). You can buy magic mushrooms in a shop, legally, because they forgot to criminalise them and you can pay for sex, specifically selecting the particular acts you wish to perform from a machine which prints out a receipt that you later take to the girl of your choice, but the cash machines mostly adhere to bank hours so you’d better get your money out before you start to party, and you don’t cross the road when the little red man shows, even if there’s not a car in sight. You queue politely in a line marked on the platform to get on the train and it’s not polite to use your ‘phone or fill your face with food in there either. If you want to eat in a more traditional Japanese restaurant then you’ll probably have to take your shoes off at the door, and when you need to go for a slash you’ll have to put on slippers to do so. If you try and check into a capsule hotel for the night you will not be allowed in if you have a tattoo. It’s all so incongruous, yet it just works. The way that Japan has managed to marry tradition, history and heritage with technology, rampant commercialism and radical vision is staggering and should make many countries ashamed of how messed up their societies are.

The Japanese seem to have created a country where they take what they like from Western culture and then integrate it into their lives in a way that they are comfortable with and that’s what I love about them. That, and the fact that almost every Japanese person I have ever spent any time with has been genuine and incredibly hospitable. Japan has retained a really strong culture, and the people there do everything their own way but still integrate global brands and trends into their society. They never seem to just like something, or feel reasonably enthusiastic but instead are totally into it, and almost obsessed with it. You’d think that in Japan Sony would own the MP3 player market, even if they don’t own it anywhere else, but instead the iPod is still #1 by a country mile. On one occasion I was taken to a Beatles bar called “Abbey Road”. The resident tribute band (The Blue Parrots, I think) were frighteningly good. As anyone who knows me is aware, I hate the fucking Beatles (I much prefer the Stones) so to me an evening of their hits being played by a Japanese cover band wasn’t something I was relishing. Instead what I saw was pretty fascinating - Japanese guys, all having done themselves up to look like their respective member of the Fab Four, banging out all the classics note for note in an authentic scouse accent! I mean, it doesn’t get much weirder than that, but I had a wicked time and as much as I can’t bear the Beatles, I had to concede that these guys were fucking brilliant.

Of course, not everything is perfect in Japan, but since this is a piece about why I love Japan going into that wouldn’t really fit. Besides, my negative experiences have been very few. For those of you thinking I have a rose tinted view of the place, I don’t think I do, I just recognise somewhere special when I see it. Anyone I ever meet who has been there just loves it; it’s like the best kept secret ever and frankly I don’t want anyone else to find out about it. Generally it seems that most Westerners who go there gravitate towards Roppongi, an area famous for it’s radio tower (an almost exact copy of the Eiffel Tower, but painted red). It’s full of bars, clubs, restaurants and hookers, and is a bit like a Soho although much bigger. It does have some good places to go, but you’re more likely to come across a couple of wankers in England shirts getting lary there than anywhere else. Then there’s Shinjuku which is pretty cool (and was the first place I went to in Tokyo) but from what I gather it is becoming riddled with Yakuza (Japanese organised crime gangs), and has become a bit edgy, although I don’t know how true that is.

So, I stay away from Roppongi and Shinjuku and try to drink where the Japanese drink, and eat where they eat. Of course, it’s advantageous to have friends there but you definitely get a much more intimate and realistic view of the place. I always cringe with disappointment when I pass a McDonalds and see tourists in there; I mean, who’d go half way across the planet and eat that shit? It’s bad enough to do it at home, but doing it in a city where you can probably get every kind of food imaginable (if you look hard enough) is just unforgivable. You see “Irish Pubs” full of Brits with pints in their hands and bowls of BBQ chicken wings on the table - It’s just ridiculous. I’m by no means a foodie, and Japanese food is so totally different to what I am used to at home that I can’t always eat what I am offered, but I try to make an effort within the boundaries of what I like. I do draw the line at raw chicken & raw eggs, and some sushi dishes are a bit extreme for me (fish eggs, eel, abalone and sea urchin particularly) but much of the Japanese grub is fantastic. Curry noodles are just amazing and good Shabu Shabu (I stress the word GOOD) is delicious. Last time I was there I had the most incredible beef - Just peppered and cooked until pink, then served sliced.

The Japanese don’t fuck about when it comes to food - It’s got to be ultra fresh and I suspect that the concept of a microwave being used to heat foil packed dishes in a restaurant kitchen would be something that would horrify any Japanese restaurant owner or chef, yet here we know full well that in your average high street eatery you’re bound to encounter some pasta dish or deep fried scampi that was frozen or pre-packed.

One thing that intrigues me most about Japan is the language. English is really not spoken by many people, and often those who do speak it find it pretty difficult. It’s not surprising when you think about how much of a bastard English really is. We throw slang around like nobody’s business (“nobody’s business” - Imagine trying to explain that) and it’s full of words that originated somewhere else and rules that are frequently broken in order to make a sentence sound right.

I feel pretty guilty going to someone’s country and expecting them to all talk to me in my language, but so far I’ve found Japanese so incredibly confusing and impossible to learn that I fear I’ll never master it, so I am forever doomed to just be able to utter a few badly pronounced phrases and words. That said, I am determined to learn some, even if it is just enough to order a meal or make the conversations I have with my Japanese friends a little easier for them. In my experience even just one or two words spoken will bring about pretty enthusiastic praise and appreciation that you made the effort. Maybe they’re just humouring me, the stupid clumsy gaijin (foreigner, although it goes a bit deeper than that), but I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt. Last time I was there someone mentioned how they were impressed at how adept I was with chopsticks but that I did hold them like a girl. I’m not quite sure if that was a compliment or not...

For a couple of years I have been curious as to what it would be like to live in Tokyo and on my last trip I started asking people what a place there would cost. The answer was pretty frightening. £1800 a month basically gets you a tiny, 3 roomed apartment in the centre of Tokyo with not enough room to swing a cat and all the soul of a police cell. Land there is hideously expensive and if you want a 2 Bedroomed, spacious apartment there along the lines of something you’d see in London Docklands you’re going to need to find a lot of bread. If you want a house with a garden then you’re looking at silly money - There are very few in the centre of the city itself and one or two that I saw in Shibuya must have cost millions to buy.

So maybe living there is a pipe dream. Besides, my friends and family and of course Epping Forest are all here; I could hardly just leave all that. It would be pretty cool to live there for 3 or maybe 6 months though, just to really get a better understanding of the country and the people. There’s always the fear, though, that I’d have been there for a month and suddenly I’d decide that it wasn’t for me, or maybe I’d end up not wanting to come home. Still, who knows? Maybe one day I’ll get to find out for myself. I do plan to go back and take my bike at some point as there is some killer riding to be had within 2 hours of Tokyo, and I’d like to stay at a mountain spa for a night too. Seeing some more rural areas and doing the Fuji climb are also on my list.

In the meantime, I can only recommend that you get yourself over to Tokyo for a week or two and immerse yourself in it. Take plenty of money and enjoy the place, but please - Just stick to Roppongi....

Shocking....

Thu, 22 Feb 2007 16:38:49 +0000

With eyes like that I’m surprised he could even see a fucking bike.

It sucks to be old...

Thu, 13 Jul 2006 15:34:27 +0100

For quite a while now there’s been a British Blue (at least I think that’s what it is) that sits on the pavement in the street my parents live in. It always looked a bit old, but I saw it recently and it’s really looking a bit manky. Frankly, the picture flatters it. Stroking it reveals that it is literally a bag of bones, covered by some rather patchy fur. It didn’t bother opening it’s eyes - Perhaps it couldn’t, or maybe it just gave up using them since they didn’t work anyway. Getting old is a miserable and slow process, particularly if you’re a creature that was once lithe and agile, and you’re now decrepit and ratty. Despite all this, this is a really lovely cat, so I snapped a quick picture on my ‘phone. Hopefully it won’t be the last.

Matthew’s Blog

Hurricane names...

Blowing open the whole Japan thing

Shocking....

It sucks to be old...