la vache qui pise

Master o' Farts

2009-12-10T22:49:00.005Z

One of the disadvantages of being the subject of a photograph is that you can't easily control what the photo ends up looking like. This is the best of an extremely bad bunch. After missing my BA ceremony nine years ago, I'm delighted I decided to attend my MA graduation ceremony. And it was fantastic that my Mum, my Dad and my girlfriend all took time off work to come down to Bristol with me for the ceremony. It was a lovely day - long and rather expensive - but well worth it!

I'm back!

2009-10-27T20:29:00.012Z

You’re probably all wondering - all three of you who still check this blog - where I've been for the past year.

The main reason for my absence was this (and it did a bloody good job of stealing a huge amount of my time over the last 12 months - okay, I wrote it in 2 weeks but I spent at least a year worrying about it):

Luckily, the many months of research proved beneficial and I was awarded a very good mark for my dissertation. I'll be graduating with my masters degree at a ceremony in Bristol Cathedral next month.

Given that I've been preoccupied with my books for so long, and also bearing in mind that I have two jobs these days - I work nine-to-five in the office but evenings and weekends are spent helping Japanese businessmen understand the finer points of the English language - the last year has not allowed me to enjoy the usual number of trips away. The credit crunch and the plummeting pound didn’t help much either.

However, since spending last summer (well, one week last summer, but that doesn't sound anywhere near as impressive) riding around the Dordogne with my flatmate, Dan, supping tannic reds and munching on brie and ham baguettes, I've still managed to get away a fair few times.

First up was a trip to Mexico, and I cannot stress enough how fantastic I found that country. More about that another time though.

A short weekend break to Porto followed smack bang in the middle of essay-writing season. I love Porto wine, and I didn't need any excuse to get involved. Porto itself is a bit quiet - I'm told Lisbon is much busier - but being a fan of fortified wines I loved going from bar to bar trying the different styles. I must have had a little too much though because at one point I stacked it and ended up with a big tear in my coat. Portugal is a strange place for me. Whenever I go to there I come away thinking that it's simply a smaller, quieter, and less exciting version of Spain.

Once back in Blighty I got steadily on with my work, but it wasn’t long before I was looking for another excuse to get away. One of the greatest things on planet Earth, in my opinion, is the Channel Tunnel. The Eurostar website regularly offers weekend train + hotel deals in Brussels (and other places) for as little as one hundred and fifty pounds. And they’re not shabby rat-infested hell-holes either – we stayed in a 4 star hotel near the centre; AND breakfast was included. Too bad I couldn’t eat any of it on the Sunday morning after necking one too many Trappist ales the night before. It was my second visit to Belgium within a year, and whilst Brussels only has short term appeal, I never tire of Belgium or its beer. Once again, I stocked up and carried my body weight in beer back to London.

Too bad I didn't have time to drink much of it since my dissertation deadline was approaching fast. After weeks spent watching Spanish films - hours and hours transcribing dialogue and subtitles and reading about tranvestites and the 1980s movida movement in Madrid – it was now time to actually write something.

I didn't really enjoy the process of writing the damn thing - and the people around me had to put up with several months of grumpiness from me - but when I finally got it done I felt a (massively clichéd) wave of relief wash right over me. Like a tsunami, in fact. In celebration I immediately jumped on a plane to Barcelona where the plan was to unwind, eat and drink and be generally merry. And after watching that bloody film six thousand times, I couldn't think of anywhere more apt to spend a few days.

And a merry old time it was too! I probably tipped the calorie count at 5000 per day for the four days I was there.

Unfortunately, after months spent stressing out over my dissertation, plus too many long hours at the office and too many evenings spent "entertaining” Japanese businessmen, not to mention all the sleepless nights, or failing that, nights with piss-poor quality sleep, my mind and body were exhausted. I decided to take a one-month break from teaching and I didn’t know what to do with myself. Suddenly I was faced with the alien concept of free time. I began to imagine all the things I could do: play guitar, get back into photography, study Japanese, learn Chinese, go running, play cricket, join a dance class (yeah, right!). Well, I didn’t do any of them. Instead my mind and body just decided to shut down for a while and, despite me asking them very nicely not to, they refused to listen to me. So I gave in and accepted the fact that I was going to do absolutely nothing for a couple of months. But then my little cousin gave me his horrible snotty cold and it took me more than four weeks to shake it off. My immune system was that low! At least I didn't catch swine flu though. Meanwhile at work I've had to proofread hundreds of pages of reports on Tamiflu.

By the end of the summer I had recovered from my exhaustion, and thankfully the horrible snotty cold was a distant memory too. I started doing more classes, and I managed to secure new contracts with a company which handles corporate clients from all over the world. So not only am I teaching Japanese businessmen about the finer points of the English language, I’m now teaching businessmen from places like Turkey and Israel the finer points of the English language too. The only bad thing is that they (i.e. people from 外国, aka non-Japan) actually expect more than simple eikaiwa.

The annual trip to Broadstairs took place in September, and like last year we were lucky with the weather! The sun never fails to shine in Kent. It's permanently sunny! And I just can't get enough of the Masterbrew down there either.

So it's nearly November and I’ve still got almost twenty days holiday to use before the end of the year. Next week, then, I'll be heading off for my first trip back to Asia since 2006. I’ll be spending four days in one of my favourite cities - Hong Kong - before heading to Shanghai for ten days to stay with the (more-than-likely) future in-laws. Yes, this revelation might surprise some of you, and rest assured it surprises me too, but it's all true! It's a pity they don’t speak any English though, and I don't speak much Chinese either, but at least I know the most important sentence in the entire Chinese language: ibei píjiǔ (one glass of beer, please). That should be enough for me to get by!

Brussels

2008-10-10T23:58:00.003+01:00

Belgian is famous for three things - Tintin, chocolate and beer. Okay, that's maybe being a little unfair, but there is no doubt that when it comes to beer Belgium is up there with Germany and the UK as being among the world's best producers. There are approximately 125 breweries in the country, producing about 500 standard beers. When special one-off and seasonal beers are included, the total number of Belgian beer easily exceeds one thousand. And all of this - as well as the fact that Brussels is only an hour and three quarters from London - provides the possibilities for a very good (and rather heavy) weekend.

Alicante, Spain

2008-10-10T23:35:00.003+01:00

It's been a while since I posted, and I've been meaning to do so for ages. I just never seem to get the time.

Way back in May I went with my family for a short trip to Spain. We rented a large villa high up in the mountains in Alicante. To reach it we had to climb steep and windy mountain roads, being careful all the time to avoid the deadly drop into the valleys below. I love those windy mountain roads where death is only a bad driving decision away. It keeps you on your toes.

Alicante is a funny little corner of Spain. It is beseiged with British tourists, almost to the point that it has become a bit of a grotty place. Much of Spain depends on tourism, but ironically this is the very thing which is slowly destroying many parts of the country. In the town of Calpe, close to where we were based, I went on a rum-buying mission one morning. Apart from in the shops, in three hours I barely heard a word of Spanish spoken (either Castellano or Valenciano). At least three quarters of the people I saw and heard on the streets were British, and the large number of British bars in the town presumably did a very good trade.

El Peñon de Ifach, Calpe

I spotted a bottle of Havana Club 15 años - a very rare and expensive rum - in one of the local stores. When I asked the shopkeeper for the price - in Castellano - he replied to me in Valenciano. We spoke for a few minutes, me speaking the whole time in Castellano and he in Valenciano. I don't know why he wouldn't switch languages. I could understand him, but it was a little weird and slightly frustrating to be speaking in one language and listening in another - especially one I don't really know. But that's Spain! The rum was priced at 130 euros, a little too expensive. I'm thinking of visiting Cuba in the next year or two so maybe I'll be able to pick up a bottle at a more reasonable price there.

Calpe harbour

Morocco

2008-06-30T20:00:00.003+01:00

Morocco is one of those places where tradition and modernity compete in every aspect of daily life. Images of women in traditional Islamic attire such as hijab, and some in burqa where only the eyes can be seen, contrast with those of young affluent Moroccan girls in the latest fashions of short skirts and low-cut tops. Morocco is a country in transition. It stands at a point in time when modernity is being embraced, but at which tradition and conservatism are still very much at the core.

I visited Morocco in May - my second time in the country. My first visit, several years ago, was to the north. On this occasion, with my good friend Dan, we were taking in Casablanca plus the Imperial Cities of Fès, Meknès, Rabat and finally Marrakesh.

Morocco is an easy country to travel around - the main cities are linked by a good train system, and decent accommodation is relatively cheap and easy to find. The people of Morocco speak mostly Arabic, but unlike in the very north where Spanish is widely-spoken, most people in the rest of Morocco, especially in the cities, speak French as their second language. It is worth noting that tourist-infested Marrakesh apart, English has made virtually little or no impact. Most tourists therefore tend to be French or Spanish speakers. In fact, Marrakesh aside, we saw almost no British tourists, and no North Americans whatsoever.

The food ranges from the cheap to the very expensive but it is generally excellent! Alcohol is available but pricey, and if you're the type who likes a smoke, then be warned, because police informers are apparently everywhere!

The Hassan II Mosque in Casablanca is the second largest mosque in the world. They say it can hold 25000 people, and in the evening light it provided a good opportunity for a photograph. We spent a couple of action-packed days in Casablanca, living the high life, hanging out in upmarket clubs and restaurants, before taking the train east to Meknès.

Meknès is a cool and relaxing city, quite different to Casablanca or its more illustrious neighbour, nearby Fès. We spent our time in Meknès chilling out in the medina, enjoying the good local food and wandering the markets.

The market in Meknès was vibrant and colourful, and we enjoyed haggling with the tradesmen

Moroccan tea, known as thé à la menthe (mint tea) in French, is served in one of two ways. It can be served with mint stuffed into the glass (as above) and poured from a great height, or it can be served with the mint inside the teapot, added at the last stage in the brewing process (as below). Either way it's a beautiful drink, although it can be a little on the sweet side. When I asked a local shopkeeper if the sugar was a necessary addition, she just laughed at me as if I was mad.

Swallows can be found in huge numbers all over Morocco, especially around sunset. The sight and sounds of hundreds of them flying in and out of holes in buildings as they prepare to roost is stunning!

Sheep heads on display, such as on this market in Fès, are a regular site in Morocco. The locals seem particularly keen on sheep soup, and it can be seen on sale in many markets. I would suggest that if you are a vegetarian or of a squeamish nature then Morocco may not be the best destination for you.

Fès has probably the most spectacular medina in Morocco. It is a designated UNESCO World Heritage and is believed to be the largest contiguous car-free urban area in the world. The 11th century tanneries, the oldest in North Africa, where animal skins are treated and dyed before being sold and made into bags, jackets and belts, are its most famous attraction. The skins are first placed in limestone vats where the hair is soaked off in a solution containing sulphur and pigeon dung. Then they are washed and transferred to the dyeing vats before being dried out on the flat roofs of the buildings around the tanneries. The life of a tannery worker can be hard, with earnings as low as £3 per day for backbreaking work.

The Blue Gate is one of the most popular attractions in Fès, and is perhaps the most photographed monument in the city.

The souqs of Fès are a great place to while away the hours

Alcohol is not easy to come by in Morocco and when you do find it it is usually very expensive. Bars and nightclubs are few and far between and cater for a mostly affluent and high-end clientele. As a result, the price of alcohol can be extremely high. In one bar we paid 100 dirham for a 250ml beer, that works out at almost £14 per pint! Spirits were even more pricey, so we tended to have a couple of drinks in the hotel before we went out. Luckily for us, the assumption that Muslims don't drink proved to be a myth, because we had little trouble finding liquor stores with a thriving local custom. We had never heard of Rhum Pecoul, a rum imported from “les îles françaises” but figured it was worth a go! We were pessimistic, but fortunately it wasn’t too bad!

The Old Pascas (an imported rum from Barbados) which we found in Rabat a couple of days later was a better rum than the Pecoul. At only 95 dirhams (around £6) - contrast this to the 120 dirhams we paid for practically alcohol-free mojitos in one swanky Marrakesh nightclub - it represented one of the best purchases of the trip.

As usual, train was the preferred method of transport. We found Moroccan trains - which reminded me of old SCNF trains - pretty decent. Second class was more than adequate, although it must be said that train timetables in Morocco are more of “rough guide” than anything else.

The Hassan Tower in Rabat is an 11th century mosque tower which was never completed. Intended to be the largest mosque in the world, in 1199 the sultan Yacoub al-Mansour died and construction stopped. It is now the number one tourist attraction in Rabat.

The Kasbah Oudayas, on Rabat's Atlanctic coast, is an astonishing place. It was apparently established by Moors fleeing from medieval Spain and the reconquista. As a result, the similarities between this and small towns in Andalucía are striking, and they underline just how much Spain owes to the long presence of the Moors on the Iberian peninusula.

Storks nest on top of the walls of the King’s Palace in Marrakesh. In this photo the male (left) has just climbed off the female after appearing to have his way with her.

Place Djemaa El Fna, in Marrakesh, is the focal point of the city and one of the most spectacular squares you are ever likely to see. Street performers, musicians, dancers and magicians all compete for the attention of tourists and locals, and there is also a huge area dedicated solely to eating where dishes such as lentils or soup with bread can be had for as little as 3 dirham (20p).

Place Djemaa El Fna, Marrakesh

Sparrows were not timid and this one allowed me to get within a metre and a half to take this shot

It had been a while since I'd shaved, so I decided to get a cut-throat shave at a small backstreet barber in Marrakesh. Unfortunately, as is common among the Moroccan working-class and those not involved in tourism, the barber’s French was basic and he totally misunderstood my instructions to shave off everything but the sideburns. Instead, what I ended up with was everything shaved, including the sideburns, except for a little goatee beard which he had carefully crafted around the edges of my mouth. It looked weird – and I felt and looked slightly gay - but within 3 days I was back to normal.

Tajines, a kind of meat stew served with fruit or vegetables, are the national dish of Morocco. Served in a kind of ceramic pot with lid, the fusion of the meat and the fruit, often dates or raisins, is delicious.

We stayed in a variety of hotels during out 10-day trip, ranging from the painfully dire to the semi-luxurious. The Riad Maison Rouge in Marrakesh, which is where we spent our last three nights, was the best of the bunch. However, catering for middle-class weekend easyjetters as opposed to backpackers like ourselves, it had a totally different dynamic to any of the other places we had stayed at. By the second day we were slowly beginning to realize that all the other guests in the ryad were couples on what for them was most probably a romantic weekend away. Quite what the other guests made of two young men sharing a room at such a place is anybody's guess. My newly-styled facial hair would only have enforced the assumption that we were in fact more than just friends. Eek!

After a night out in Marrakesh, which involved visits to a few bars followed by a nightclub (all of which charged extortionate prices for drinks and, in some cases, entry), we stumbled out into the night and began the walk home. Normally we would have taken a taxi, but Marrakesh is inundated with tourists and its taxi drivers have become accustomed to charging them well over the market rates for taxis. As with everywhere, the presence of huge numbers of tourists, especially Brits who flock there in their droves at weekends, is driving the prices of goods and services sky-high! This means getting a good price is practically impossible for non-Moroccans. Therefore, sticking to our principles and refusing to pay inflated prices, we decided to walk most of our time in Marrakesh.

However, on this particular night, we found ourselves on the opposite side of the medina to our hotel, and there were two ways to get there. The simplest way was to circumnavigate the medina, a straightforward but time-consuming route, and the second option was to go straight through it.

We chose option number two.

Big mistake!

We quickly became lost and disorientated, and more than an hour later we were still nowhere near our destination. The roads turned into alleyways. Back and forth we went, going round in circles, delving deeper into the labyrinth, every path looked the same. Soon it was prayer time and hooded figures emerged from the shadows as eerie calls to prayer bellowed out over loud-speakers. We were tired, slightly drunk, and totally lost. It was a weird experience.

"Don't ask me! I have no idea where we are!"

After many more wrong turns and dead ends, we eventually emerged from the medina on totally the wrong side to where we needed to be. We were still at least half-an-hour from the hotel, however this time we decided to walk around the medina, rather than through it, and by the time we reached our hotel more than two hours had passed since we left the nightclub. All this to avoid paying a £3 taxi fare!

A poor attempt at a "we were there" photo in Place Djemaa El Fna, Marrakesh

All in all, a great trip!

Euro 2008

2008-06-29T23:00:00.000+01:00

It's Spain!

¡Hostia! No lo puedo creer.

2008-06-11T23:07:00.005+01:00

It's European Championship time and because they have no cojones whatsoever, members of the England national team are all on holiday in Ibiza and Mallorca instead of playing in the world's best football tournament. Well done lads!

By the way, I'd just like to say that in no way was Ruud van Nistelrooy's goal illegitimate! And while I'm at it I'd just like to ask Fifa to award the tournament next time to countries who are actually worthy of a place - Austria and Switzerland are just plain dire (and how Russia got through ahead of England I will never know, they are woeful too).

Morocco photos coming soon...

Bank Holiday Weekend

2008-05-24T00:05:00.005+01:00

Morocco was fantastic, but barely do I have time to recover and I'm off to Alicante (Spain) for a few days. Amongst other things, it's a good chance to stock up on the rum! See you soon...

The Big Three

2008-05-21T23:38:00.013+01:00

Hakuho, Kotooshu and Asashoryu

The 2008 Summer Basho, Tokyo, has been one hell of tournament!

Bulgarian ozeki Kotooshu, despite being relegation-threatened at the start of the tournament, has stunned everyone by moving into the lead on 11-0 after defeating Mongolian yokozuna Asashoryu (9-2) yesterday.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=D_-DyLKm0Og

Fellow Mongolian yokozuna Hakuho (10-1) is up next. If Kotooshu can win, with only three rounds to go he will be within touching distance of making history as the first European rikishi ever to win an Emperor's Cup.

Live streaming is okay, but it's too bad you can't get sumo on British TV!

**Edit: Kotooshu amazingly beat Hakuho as well to move to 12-0! Incredible!

http://youtube.com/watch?v=htLRD9HqQeg

Maison blanche

2008-04-30T18:56:00.005+01:00

Tomorrow, I'm taking a break from the studies and heading off to a country I first visited six years ago - Morocco - for 10 days of backpacking and "relaxing".

The journey begins in Casablanca, and from there we'll head north by train to Rabat, followed by stopovers in Meknes and Fez, before finishing off in Marakesh for three days of clubbing and other "cultural activities".

See you all when I get back!

Not just a drink for sailors and pirates

2008-04-26T01:00:00.006+01:00

Photo, from left to right: Ron Barceló (Dominican Republic), Rhum Barbancourt 8 years (Haiti), Havana Club 7 años (Cuba), Ron Legendario (Cuba), Ron Pampero (Venezuela), Ron Pampero Aniversario (Venezuela), Ron Zacapa Centenario 23 años (Guatemala), Angostura 1919 (Trinidad), Ron Santa Teresa (Venezuela), Ron Brugal (Dominican Republic), Mount Gay Rum (Barbados), Ron Comandante Fidel (Spain), Ron Cacique (Venezuela).

There are only really three types of alchohol I ever drink. They are beer, wine and of course rum!

Some of you will already have known that I am a fan of rum! I don't drink that much of it, but I do like to have some sitting around the house, especially for when I have people staying over.

The UK is not a major importer of rum and, sadly, most people in the UK know very little about it. In fact, mention the word "rum" to most Brits and they are quite likely to have visions of sailors and pirates, or assume you must be talking about Bacardi, or maybe even Lamb's Navy which you can find in practically every pub in the country (but which practically nobody drinks, and with good reason too). Nowadays UK-based drinks giant Diageo are slowly changing perceptions of rum in the UK through the success of their flagship Captain Morgan's Black Label Rum, but this still unfortunately leaves a lot to be desired (and the fact that it's bottled in the UK should be an indicator of its quality, or lack thereof). Clearly no serious rum drinker would touch the stuff!

So with the rum situation in the UK being rather hopeless, I tend to stockpile every time I go to Spain. And not only are the Spanish big rum drinkers - which means they import most of the world's best rums in large numbers - but the prices in Spain are much cheaper too! Several of the rums in the above photo can cost as much as £30 a bottle in the UK and can usually only be found in specialist import liquor shops, which are few and far between. Fortunately, prices in Spain are generally half or even a third of those in the UK. The most expensive rum in the photo is the Ron Zacapa Centenario 23 años, from Guatemala, which is widely considered to be one of the finest rums in the world. A bottle of this can set you back as much as £75-£100 in the UK, and whilst it is a beautiful rum, I am not quite prepared to pay those kind of prices!

I occasionally carry a camera...

2008-04-20T01:30:00.004+01:00

Wind turbines, Tarifa, Spain

Marsh Frog

The River Thames on a fine day

The River Thames on a rather unpleasant day

Gibraltar viewed from La Linea de la Concepción, Spain

Cormorants

Plaza de Toros, El Puerto de Santa María, Spain

Skateboarder, South Bank

Cyclist, Charing Cross Road

Canary Wharf, viewed from Greenwich Park

London Eye

Red Fox in reeds

Plaza de la Constitución, Almuñécar, Spain

Routemaster

Franco graffito, Spain

Houses of Parliament

Millenium Bridge, upstream and down

Barcelona

2008-03-23T21:30:00.004Z

I spent the weekend before last in Barcelona. It's much more expensive than it used to be - and much more expensive than other parts of Spain - but it's still a great place to visit! It was all about tapas, wine, beer, rum, football and a little bit of sightseeing.

I've been to Barcelona many times, so I didn't go out of my way to see sights such as Gaudí's Casa Battló or La Pedrera, but I was in the area so I felt I really ought to get the camera out.

La Sagrada Familia still shows no sign of being anywhere near completion. Since I first came here in 1995 there does seem to have been some minimal progress, but it's not easy to see where this has been. They say it will be finished in 30 years, but to be fair they said exactly the same thing thirteen years ago. I seriously doubt it will be finished in our lifetimes and unfortunately if you go to see it now, you're more likely to feel you're in a building site as opposed to anything particularly spectacular.

La Rambla, great the first time you go but it's essentially one of Europe's most overrated streets. Beware of pickpockets!

Barcelona has fantastic food, great nightlife, good beer, mostly good weather, brilliant sightseeing and loads to do! All in all a great city and a great weekend! Can't wait to go back!

FC Barcelona vs Villarreal

2008-03-23T21:00:00.000Z

Freezing cold night in Barcelona, Messi injured, Henry and Ronaldinho off-colour, final score: Barcelona 1-2 Villarreal

2008-03-07T00:41:00.005Z

Seems I haven't forgotten all of my Japanese!

Right, I'm off to Barcelona for the weekend! Beer, tapas, rum and football, see you soon!

2008-03-02T14:33:00.005Z

I know it's rather late to be saying this, but Happy 2008 everyone!

Things have been insanely busy for me over the last few months and I haven't had much chance to keep this blog updated. As many of you will know and I am doing my MA as well as working full-time, so these things alone keep me busy enough! But most of you will probably not know that I also have a second job teaching English. I have three students, all Japanese businessmen who are living and working in London. Also, between now and May I have four large translation projects to complete for my masters, so until then things are going to be extremely hectic. In addition to all of this I am still studying (or at least trying to study) Japanese once or twice a week.

Last year was a rather disappointing one for me. However, I am full of optimism for 2008. Unfortunately I have not have much chance to travel since returning to the UK but this is something I definitely intend to address in the coming months.

I already have several trips planned for this year starting with a city break to Barcelona next weekend. My travels will also include backpacking in Morocco in early May, a family holiday in Alicante (Spain) in late May, a beer-guzzling weekend in Belgium in mid-June, a cycling holiday in the Dordogne (France) in August, and backpacking in Mexico in October. I will also try to squeeze in another visit to Cádiz, Spain, at some point.

And I am already making plans for next year too. I still owe North America a visit and if you live in Japan then there is a good chance you will see me in 2009! It's a long way off, but I'm already excited about that!

And for 2010, I'm planning to fulfill a life-long dream by climbing Tanzania's Mt. Kilimanjaro!

Berlin for the weekend

2007-12-03T23:24:00.000Z

To "celebrate" my latest birthday - and officially becoming old - I went with some of the lads to Berlin for the weekend. Beer, sausages and a bit of sightseeing were the order of the day.

Of course I dabbled in a bit of photography too. The Berliner Fernsehturm, known in English as the Television Tower (completed 1969), is one of Berlin's most recognizable sights, so I naturally tried to get it into as many photos as I could. I did contemplate going up it, but after Sears, Hancock, Petronas and Taipei 101, I don't think I was really missing much.

This image just had me thinking of what it must have been like behind the wall in Cold War East Germany. If it wasn't for the brand-spanking new Audi in the shot, it could almost have been 1972.

The German parliament, known as the Bundestag or Reichstag was apparently well worth a visit. Well, we did visit it, but it was freezing and the queue wasn't moving at all so we ditched it in favour of a warm pub. Sightseeing is overrated anyway.

German beers, particularly wheat beers such as Schöfferhofer, are first class!

German sausages - lovely!!

I can never resist the moving tram shot!

Hooded Crows do not occur in London, so it was nice to see that they were abundant in Berlin. Come on, you know I had to get the birds in somehow!!

Saturday night was spent in a cocktail bar! Girly cocktails all round plus a shisha pipe had us entertained for hours before we staggered onto a number of clubs where cheap beers and cute girls (or was it cheap girls and cute beers? - I can't remember) were prevalent. I was accosted by a prostitute at some point, the first time this has happened since my grand journey home last year. I thanked her politely for her interest and sent her packing.

I love Europe!

Cádiz

2007-11-17T13:30:00.000Z

I spent three years in this part of Spain before moving to Japan four years ago. It is fair to say that the laid-back mañana mañana approach to life of the people in this part of the world contrasts hugely with the stressed-out and busy lives led by most Japanese.

La catedral de Cádiz, which was one hundred and sixteen years in construction (1722-1838), is the most notable attraction in the old town of Cádiz.

Cádiz is virtually an island, being almost entirely surrounded by water. As a result it takes a constant battering from the wind and rain swirling in from the Atlantic. The old town is protected by its huge concrete sea defences which are home to hundreds of feral cats.

La Plaza de la Catedral is a relaxing place to enjoy a café con leche or tinto de verano (summer wine).

The chaotic roofs of the old town as seen from the top of an 18th century watchtower

La vieja ciudad (old town) feels like the end of world. Beyond this, thousands of miles of Atlantic Ocean and then, the Americas!

Livin' La Vida Loca

2007-10-16T12:19:00.000+01:00

I spent last week in Andalucía, Spain, and for those of you who don't know, Spain is a country very close to my heart. I first went there with my grandparents in 1985 when I was just seven years old, and since then Spain has been a second home to me.

I decided to move there after university but seeing as I studied French at degree level, nobody could quite understand why I chose to go and live in Spain, and not France. Part of me wanted to try something different, but another part of me felt it was my "destiny" (or something equally cheesy) to learn Spanish, so that was a huge motivation for me too.

I flew to Spain in the year 2000 with Julie, my then-girlfriend, on an EasyJet flight with just a backpack filled with a miserable assortment of clothing and a few text books. Our intention was to live and work in Barcelona, and after completing a TEFL course there we began to search for work and accommodation. I had visions of working a 25 hour week, hitting the beaches in the afternoons, speeding round the city on mopeds and watching Barcelona play in the Camp Nou at weekends. But it was harder than we had anticipated. Barcelona was such a popular place that finding a flat was almost impossible for us, particularly as most of the accommodation in our price range was already taken by students. Add to this the fact that we couldn't speak Spanish (or Catalan for that matter) and you get an idea of the problem.

A few random train and bus rides later and we ended up in Cádiz in the south west of Spain, the complete opposite corner of the country. Renowned for its ship-building, flamenco and world-famous sherry, Cádiz is one of Spain's less affluent provinces where unemployment has been known to hit 40%. The city of Cádiz itself, the provincial capital, is surrounded practically on all sides by water and is home to one of Spain's best city beaches. Its inhabitants are also known to speak one of the most difficult dialects to be found anywhere in the Spanish-speaking world - gajitano - so if there ever was a place to learn Spanish, this probably wasn't it.

However three fantastic years later my priorities in life had changed and I left to go Japan. And now, four years on from that, I find myself rather unexpectedly in London. Julie for her part is still living in Cádiz, only a short walk from our first rented flat in the city. And now that I'm back in Europe on a full-time basis, it is my intention to get over to Spain as much as I can. I already have a trip to Barcelona in March and a family holiday in Alicante in May to look forward to. I also know that I can stay at Julie's in Cádiz whenever I like.

Life moves on and along the way it takes us to strange and unexpected places. Some places you can hardly wait to see the back of whilst others will live long in the memory. Spain, and in particular Cádiz, is one of the special ones for me, like a home from home.

Staying Alive

2007-10-05T23:41:00.001+01:00

I'm not dead. I haven't thrown myself under one of the few Tube trains which actually run. I've just been taking a bit of break from blogging life.

Tomorrow I fly to Spain and it will be the first time I have been outside the UK (and the first time on a plane) in over a year.

It has been a dark, dark time, but things are now looking bright. I have an action-packed programme ahead of me which will include rum, sherry, roadtrips, anchovies and maybe a bit of fried fish.

P.S. To all the Royal Mail workers who have just embarked on a 5 day strike - stop being so bloody selfish and go back to work you lazy b*stards!!

Here's comes the train again - oops, no it doesn't!

2007-09-03T22:49:00.000+01:00

Geeeeeez!! Three days of strikes began today disrupting the whole Tube network and inconveniencing millions of Londoners.

The transport system here is a joke. Not only is the London Underground probably the most expensive subway system in the world, it is also one of the worst. Indeed, there are subway systems in so-called developing countries that are better than London's. Daily line closures, constant delays, signal failures, staff shortages, the list of excuses goes on and on. The Tube is in a dire state - it's overpriced and in desperate need of a major cash injection (hmm, how can this be the case when we pay so much to use it?). What's more, the people who run it seem totally incompetent.

We've heard the excuses a million times, yeah we know it's old blah blah blah. The London Underground might be quaint and charming to the tourists but it's a cruel joke for those of us who have to use it every day.

It'll be the bus to work tomorrow then, along with seventeen hundred other people trying to squeeze onto the same double-decker to Wimbledon.

Ain't No Sunshine

2007-09-03T21:00:00.000+01:00

Notting Hill, made internationally-famous due to the success of the film of the same name, receives flocks of tourists every day. It has gained a reputation as being something a romantic place - particularly as far as foreigners are concerned - although it must be said that the reality is somewhat different. It's a cool place to spend an afternoon, although not for the first time since I came back to the UK I was physically attacked by a local chav for doing nothing more than taking (non-intrusive) photographs with a big camera. Still, I didn't let it spoil my day.

Walk Like An Egyptian

2007-09-02T15:03:00.000+01:00

The 250-year-old British Museum is probably the greatest museum in the world. Remarkably, like many museums in London, it is free to enter. It doesn't matter how many times you go, it's difficult to tire of its amazing range of Ancient Egyptian, Roman, Greek, Mesopotamian, Assyrian, Persian and Babylonian artifacts.

Crowds flock to get a glimpse of the Rosetta Stone, possibly the most remarkable and most important of all ancient artifacts to be found anywhere in the world.

If you only visit one museum in your life, then this is the one you should probably go to see!

2007-08-26T21:52:00.000+01:00

My friend Shannon was in town last week on a well-earned break from her teaching job in Korea. We had a busy but extremely fun few days which involved plenty of sightseeing and several different types of beer and cider.

It's strange to think how much our lives have changed since we were in Japan but life moves on, I suppose.

There were rumours of a re-uniting of the Acoustic Roadshow but this never materialized, much to the disappointment of the band's many UK fans.

If you'd like to see more of what we got up to during her visit, then please head over to Shannon's blog.

Goldeneye

2007-08-20T17:00:00.000+01:00

Goldeneye, Regent's Park

Whooper Swan, Regent's Park

Cormorant devouring an eel, River Thames

Kestrel, Barnes Common

Here Comes the Rain Again!

2007-08-16T18:00:00.000+01:00

It's been a strange summer, not much sunshine but plenty of rain. One morning a couple of weeks ago we found the waters outside our office rising to unusual levels. Luckily we are not based on the ground floor so we escaped damage.

I lost count of the number of times I was asked in Japan whether or not I needed an umbrella when it was barely drizzling. I always laughed and answered "I'm British!" as if the Japanese were supposed to understand what I meant. Well, what I meant of course was that it takes more than just a few raindrops to bother the British. If you gotta cross the road, you gotta cross the road!

Haha! These naughty schoolkids were caught unawares by this fast-approaching van! They got absolutely soaked! Splendid!

Swing Lo Sweet Chariot

2007-08-15T20:00:00.000+01:00

Twickenham, London, England v France

Ben Kay collects on an England line-out

From left to right: Heneganov, Rogey, Robbo, Yang

France win a line-out (left) and David Skrela spreads the play

France clear from behind their try-line

David Skrela converts a penalty for France

Sébastien Chabal goes over for the winning try. Final score 15-21.

Booze

2007-08-14T21:00:00.000+01:00

Last week I enjoyed a beer-filled evening at the 30th Great British Beer Festival at Earl's Court with my friends Dan and Albert, cousin Anna and sister Cat.

Although not to everyone's taste, my multi-coloured-brown-and-assorted-colours-which-really-shouldn't-go-together shirt has proven quite a hit with the ladies!

Dan wasn't too sure about the cherry-flavoured ale - it was pretty disappointing to be honest!

Get 'em down ya!!

The great thing about real ale is that it comes in all different flavours and colours. This one looked a little like brake grease!

The crowds of beer guzzlers enjoyed the entertainment, a David Bowie tribute band

But some of the drunken boozers overstepped the mark slightly by chanting "You're just a fat David Bowie! A fat David Bowie! A fat David Bowie!"

On leaving Earl's Court we headed to Fulham for a bout of late night uncoordinated involuntary movement, otherwise known as dancing...

The next day was hard work.

Parklife

2007-08-13T22:16:00.000+01:00

The BT Tower viewed from Regent's Park

The Long and Winding Road

2007-07-27T22:30:00.000+01:00

It was exactly one year ago today that I left Japan.

Looking back on the last 12 months - which incidentally have been the most difficult I can remember - many things have happened...

Things started well when I completed an amazing overland journey back to London from Singapore, then I moved to Birmingham to be with my girlfriend and promptly left Birmingham when we broke up. I then sank to what seemed like the depths of despair as I found myself homeless and jobless. I stayed at my father's place while I completed the first year of my MA and I slowly tried to get my life going again. I had my photos published on the covers of two magazines before a great opportunity arose for me make the move into London. I quickly found a job in a translation company (using my Japanese no less) and slowly but surely things are starting to look bright again.

I try to be positive at all times - especially on this blog - but I cannot hide the fact that this past year has been largely miserable. I spent my last year in Japan so enthusiatically looking forward to coming back to the UK but the fact that things failed so spectacularly for me in Birmingham has been a hard one to take. It has also been difficult to re-adjust to the lifestyle here in the UK, one which I am familiar with but also at odds with at the same time.

It has been a tough twelve months - a real learning experience - but what's done is done. As disappointed as I am with certain things, I try not to dwell on them too much. In terms of relationships, I prefer to think that one girl's loss is another girl's gain!

Like me, I know that many of you reading this blog are currently embarking on new stages in your lives. Maybe you're moving to a new country or leaving one to go home, perhaps you've recently married or have become parents for the first time? Whatever it is, whether it is planned or unintended, it's never easy moving on to something new. I wish you all the best of luck!

Thanks for reading!

Why does it always rain on me?

2007-07-03T22:12:00.000+01:00

I have got soaked almost every day since I moved into London and I'm beginning to get annoyed.

To paint a picture of how wet it has been here today, Nadal and Soderling were only able to complete 21 minutes of their backlogged 3rd round match at Wimbledon. And with rain having fallen on seven of the eight days so far, the current backlog is apparently the tournament's worst since 1982. I'm glad I decided not to bother buying tickets.

Yes, it has been a truly awful Wimbledon.

I used to think the rainy season in Japan was wet but I am beginning to think that the British summer is even worse! It hasn't actually stopped raining since the beginning of May. That's two months ago! Miserable, just miserable.

Yes, it has been a truly awful summer.

And during a break in the rain yesterday evening I went running with my flatmate Dan. Our usual route takes us up the north bank of the Thames, past Craven Cottage, across Hammersmith bridge and back to Putney via a triangular route - a little over 9km in total - however halfway round yesterday the heavens opened and we were violently drenched. We were forced to complete the back 5km in sodden wet clothes and shoes.

Yes, it was definitely a case of la vache qui pise.

Golden Brown

2007-07-01T17:20:00.000+01:00

It has been an eventful week here in the UK. We got a new Prime Minister, the smoking ban in enclosed public places came into force today, the city of London has been once again targeted by terrorists and the Wimbledon Tennis Championships have been interrupted by the rain three hundred and forty-seven times.

And as I happen to work in Wimbledon the last week few days have been a bit of a nightmare for me travelling to work on the London Underground. With thousands of tennis fans heading in the same direction every morning the trains have been much much busier than usual. However, it has been quite funny to see them all getting back on the train in the evenings looking all bedraggled and disappointed that the rain has once again completely ruined the day's play! I'm actually thinking of going myself this coming week (it's only one stop from me on the Tube) but the weather has been so bad I just don't fancy spending an evening sitting in the cold wet rain in the miserable hope that we might see a couple of hours of tennis.

Anyway, on Friday I was a happy man because I received my first pay cheque in my new job. It's certainly a sweet feeling after all this time and whilst it was only two weeks' worth of salary (well, I only started two weeks ago) it was certainly more than enough to allow me to consume a fair few pints of English ale in Soho without feeling any guilt whatsoever that I was spending too much money! And whilst I don't much like to talk about personal issues on my blog (well, I figure that nobody is really interested in my whining and anyway, one doesn't like to wash one's dirty linen in public in the UK) I would simply like to say that the last few months have at times been pretty tough for me but it's nice to now be finally going once again in the right direction! From here it's onwards and upwards - or words to that effect!

And I'd just like to ask Gordon - who I imagine probably reads my blog on a regular basis - will you please make it one of your priorities to do something about the litter epidemic in this pig sty of a country? The UK is not some third world state, so why do I feel like I'm living in one whenever I walk out of my door?

D'yer wanna be a spaceman?

2007-06-25T22:30:00.000+01:00

When I was young I dreamt of one day being an astronaut and living on the moon. However, the end of the Cold War effectively meant the end of the Space Race too and - unfortunately for me - with it went any (un)realistic hopes I had of ever seeing human beings colonize space.

But even though I am no spaceman I must admit that it is pretty good to be working again! I still don't really know what I am doing yet in my job - or what I'm supposed to be doing - but I'm slowly working it out. Unbelievably - and despite the fact that it is only my fourth language and that I am far from fluent in it - I have been handed the responsibility for the apparently growing amount of Japanese-to-English translation work which comes into our office. Yes, I know this sounds totally ridiculous but it is in fact completely true! I am the designated Japanese expert at my office.

And it's not your average Japanese either - it's medical Japanese - so some of the kanji I have been forced to try and learn this week include such horrors as pituitary gland, cerebellum, medulla oblongata, large intestine, small intestine, pancreas, spleen, eyeball, nipple, haemorrage, white fat, plasma, amniotic fluid, placenta, excretion, submandibular glands, urinary bladder and breast milk, to name just a few.

Luckily I don't have to do the translations themselves - someone properly qualified does all of those (freelancers) - but I do have to check and proofread all the documents once the translators have finished with them. By comparing the Japanese and English texts side-by-side, one of my tasks is to thoroughly read through the texts and identify potential translation errors as well as spelling mistakes, punctuation errors and formatting issues. And with so much of my day taken up with reading through complicated documents in technical Japanese, I have a suspicion that my ability in the language will increase pretty quickly!

So, I may not be a spaceman but I'm pretty happy nonetheless. Life on Earth could be a whole lot worse!

A New Life Sponsored by Tiger

2007-06-17T08:00:00.000+01:00

Although it wasn't exactly part of the plan when I came back to the UK, it has been nice to spend the last few months in Essex. It has given me the chance to take a refreshed look at the county in which I grew up - such things as charming country pubs, two-hundred year old windmills and old medieval churches take on a whole new significance when you no longer take them for granted. As far as I can remember the county of Essex has never looked so good!

However, the bottom line is that my overall plan for returning to the UK did not work. In fact, it failed miserably. Had things gone the way I wanted then I'd be in Birmingham now with the girl I wanted to spend my future with. Instead, I find myself living a life far from that which I had originally envisaged.

So last week I moved to Putney in southwest London. It's a reasonably affluent and charming part of the city very close to the south bank of the River Thames. To be honest it's a world away from Birmingham - in a Japan vs. Cambodia sort of way - and that's something for which I must surely be thankful! It just goes to show that there is always a silver lining when life takes a turn for the worse!

And as you can see from the above photo, I now have a reason to get out of bed on Monday. It seems that things are finally starting to take shape for me as I slowly build a new life out of the ruins of the old one. To say that the "come-down" from my adventures abroad has been a tough one would be very much an understatement. You may think I am being overly-dramatic and you're probably right. After all, how bad can it be? Well, maybe it's just all in my head.

Sometimes life deals you a duff card right at the time when you need it least. But the game goes on. You just have to take it on the chin and hope the next card is a kinder one!

Now I'd better get that ironing board out. I have some shirts to do!

Photographic Fame and Glory

2007-06-11T16:55:00.000+01:00

It's not often you get two of your photos on the covers of magazines in the same month but that's exactly what happened to me in May as both Japanzine (for an article on my journey home from Singapore last year) and Fukuoka Now (for their Dontaku festival special) used my photos for their covers!

It probably won't be happening again for quite some time so I'll try and enjoy my moment of photographic fame and glory while it lasts!

Babies

2007-05-26T11:14:00.000+01:00

Canada Goslings in my local park

A Mallard duckling preens itself

A Coot feeding her chick

Mallard with ducklings

The Secretive Red Fox

2007-05-25T22:26:00.000+01:00

The Red Fox is the only wild canid remaining in the British Isles and apart from at dusk and at night it is rarely seen in urban areas due to its nocturnal lifestyle. This means that photographing it can be particularly difficult. Every time I see one it is generally too dark to even contemplate using a camera. In fact, I usually only see them on my way home from the pub. Although I have managed to take a few shots of foxes in recent months, they have all been poor.

However, imagine my surprise when I stumbled across this individual in a semi-wooded area in my local park in mid-afternoon! The canopy was thick and provided plenty of cover so light was low. And by the time I had got this one shot off and realized that my camera settings were not appropriate for the level of light, he was gone. Unfortunately it was yet another poor photo, but so far this is the best I have managed of this tricky subject. The chance to photograph a fox rarely occurs and when it does, you have to grab the opportunity as you may only have one chance. I failed on this occasion but hopefully I'll get another chance sometime soon.

Some photos from the last few days...

2007-05-24T10:15:00.000+01:00

A friend and I made some Hakata-style ramen with ingredients bought in Chinatown. It was pretty good, it just lacked the negi, the ginger and that slice of fatty pork.

Photography is not permitted on the Underground although that never stops me cunningly whipping out the camera and taking a crafty shot or two whenever a train approaches the station.

The River Thames at Putney is a popular training "ground" for rowers. In the background you can see Craven Cottage, home of Fulham FC, and in the far distance on the horizon you can just make out the faint arch of New Wembley stadium some 12 km distant.

And after seeing a photo of this charming pub on Flickr I decided to try and track it down for myself. Unfortunately for me and after a bit of a hike to get there I entered only to be told by the barmaid that they were closed. This was somewhat bizarre seeing as it was 8pm on a Saturday night and there were other people in the pub. Oh well, I thanked her and left. Suffice to say I probably won't be going back. For those of you who live in London, the pub is the called the Coach and Horses and can be found at 5 Bruton Street in Mayfair W1 but due to this incident the establishment does not carry the Heneganov Stamp of Approval.

Sometimes, words are unnecessary.

Made in England

2007-05-16T11:30:00.000+01:00

Things have been a little busy for me lately. I've been spending a lot of time studying and I'm now pleased to say that I have completed the first year of my MA. I'll start again in October so until then I'll have the chance to take it easy and enjoy the British summer. Now the search for a job really begins - and it has to since my funds won't last me much longer.

I've been spending a lot of time in London where I've been sampling the fruits of some of the capitals many great pubs. London Pride Ale is one of my favourite alcoholic beverages here. I don't drink much except ale in pubs since British lager is generally poor and the selection of rums is usually disappointing. Ale however is not particularly fashionable - most British men, at least in the south, drink lager - but since when have I been anything close to fashionable?

The European Robin, a striking bird with one of the most beautiful songs among British birds, is one of the birds I see most when I'm out with my camera. This bird is not to be confused of course with the American Robin, which is not a robin at all, but a thrush. In recent months I've learnt a lot about birds and it could be said with some truth that I am now what many would call a birder. Rather sad, I know, but there you go!

This field of oilseed rape in rural Essex prompted me to park up and take a few photos. Scenes such as this are typical in rural England during the springtime.

Late-night gridlock on the M25. Approaching the Dartford River Crossing - also known as the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge, an engineering wonder but surely one of the world's ugliest bridges - the traffic ground to a halt and I was left stationary for half an hour. For some reason the bridge was in the process of being temporarily closed and traffic was diverted through the tunnel instead.

Rooftops in South London provide a typical town view, not particularly inspiring but traditionally English all the same. Scenes like this go unnoticed most of the time.

Mountnessing Mill, Essex, is a traditional post mill built in 1807. It's a Grade II* Listed building (which means it's a particularly significant building of more than local interest) and although no longer in use, it has been restored to its original working condition. The mill is owned by the local council and is open to the public on the third Sunday of each month and luckily for me, I happened to be there on one of those days. I spent an hour inside the mill on a small guided tour, talking with the guide about the history of the mill and its importance to local life.

St.Giles Church is one of only a handful of buildings in a small village near Billericay in Essex. It is a Grade I Listed building (a building of outstanding or national architectural or historic interest) which has features that date back to the 12th century and displays re-used Roman bricks and tiles in its structure. The church is apparently well known for its huge timberwork 15th century turret. The nave is 13th century with a 19th century south aisle and chancel. The brick west wall (facing the camera) is dated 1653 and features s-shaped cramps which serve to secure the belfry timbers.

So why am I posting such an odd and unrelated selection of photographs? Well, I suppose it's because when I lived in England before I missed most of this. I used to be dismissive of this country - it is all too easy to see the yobs, the hooligans, the litter, the poor public transport and the crime and forget about all the good things the place has to offer. But when you look beyond all of that England is a lovely country with a rich natural, architectural and historical heritage that can be seen on practically every corner, if you know where to look. There is beauty in the mundane as well as in the extraordinary, and I'm pleased that my eyes are now more open than they were before in order to see it.

"The Long Way Home" in Japanzine

2007-05-09T12:30:00.000+01:00

If you live in Japan then look out for the latest issue of Japanzine, Japan's biggest English-language magazine for foreigners. This month it features an article on my overland journey from Singapore to London which I completed last summer.

The feature, which has also been published on the Japanzine website, includes a detailed write-up of my journey plus a small selection of original photographs from the trip, most of which can be seen in my Flickr set The Long Way Home.

A big thanks go out to all the folks over at Japanzine and especially to Jon Wilks, the man responsible for coming up with the idea and for putting it all together. Nice one Jon!

I'm eagerly awaiting a copy of the magazine in the post!

London's first Chewing Gum Board unveiled!

2007-05-08T19:00:00.000+01:00

Finally, after weeks of extended negotiations between authorities and local community representatives, London's first Multi-Purpose Chewing Gum Board has been installed at a zebra-crossing near Bromley. As reported on this blog on April 10th, local councillors have recently been considering the use of "Chewing Gum Boards" in a bid to encourage wayward kids to stop littering the floor with their sticky, smelly used gum - a problem which is particularly acute in the sweaty summer months when it invariably ends up on the soles of respectable, law-abiding members of the public.

However, despite its apparent small size the designers of the new "board" have clearly outdone themselves by incorporating two completely unexpected features into the unit. As you can see from the world's first photo of this ground-breaking product, not only is London's first Chewing Gum Board fantastically compact but it also cunningly doubles as a zebra-crossing stop-traffic button. That's not all however because its design also allows the top of the unit to be used for waste disposal, with space for up to four empty drinks cans or alternatively five plastic bottles.

Ingenious!

Within seconds of the unveiling a sinister-looking spotty teenager in a hoodie made history by being the first to stick a piece of used gum to the breakthrough product.

Dubbed the iBoard by its creators (i stands for "interactive"), reports suggest that future designs may be disguised as lamposts, trees, roadsigns, telephone boxes, shop windows and even as London buses.

Spotted whilst out and about...

2007-05-07T22:00:00.000+01:00

Greenfinch

Blue Tit

Grey Heron

Eurasian Coots

Black Swan

Dunnock

Ringed Teal

Mandarin Duck

House Sparrow

The Great Dover Quake

2007-04-28T10:57:00.000+01:00

I'll never forget being stuck on the 12th floor of an apartment block when a M.7.0 quake hit Fukuoka. For months afterwards I would constantly feel aftershocks, some real and some merely in my imagination, and even now when I feel the vibrations of a passing truck or train my brain temporarily goes into "Earthquake Defence Mode".

Since coming back the UK I've been regularly checking out a website about recent UK earthquakes. Unfortunately this page does not usually make especially exciting reading as the vast majority of local quakes fall into the pretty insignificant M0.7 to M1.5 range. However, this morning I was surprised to see a M.4.3 quake listed for the Dover Straits (that's the area of sea which separates England and France) and what was most exciting was that it had occurred this very morning!

Now, I thought, an earthquake of such intensity would surely make the news? So, I checked and of course - it was the major headline on the TV news and on the BBC website. The quake, which lasted a few seconds, struck just off Kent and occurred at 0718 GMT. The tremor was apparently also felt in London itself, as well as in East Sussex and in my county, Essex. It was the biggest UK earthquake in five years. If you're interested, you can read the BBC report here.

Did I feel anything? No, unfortunately not. I was fast asleep. Anyway, past experience suggests that an earthquake of at least M4.7 is required to stir me fom even a light slumber, and whilst possibly big enough, the epicenter of this quake was too far away to have disturbed my sleep. I know that M4.3 is a mere sniffle in geological terms - and I know that Japan can quite easily have ten or more such earthquakes in a day without so much as anyone even passing a comment - but for the earthquake-shy British, this is a major event. Apparently the "ferocity" of the quake has left thousands without power - so heaven help us if one day a proper earthquake strikes!

And just in case any of you are wondering, I'm alright!

2007-04-24T10:36:00.000+01:00

Fukuoka Now

2007-04-17T09:35:00.000+01:00

I was thrilled to be asked recently by Fukuoka Now magazine to provide some photos of Fukuoka for their 100th anniversary issue. In addition to printing a few small-size images along the headers of several pages of the magazine, they also printed a larger size photo of mine of the Mitsukoshi building in Tenjin (page 4).

I was really pleased to see my photos in print and big thanks go to Inge for the request and also for sending me a couple of copies of the magazine.

I'd also like to thank my friend Joanne whom I remember dragging down with me to photograph this scene whilst multitudes of salarymen and giggling schoolgirls walked past giving us odd glances!

"The most beautiful of all seasons"

2007-04-11T07:30:00.000+01:00

Spring in the UK is not quite as beautiful as it is in Japan. As we all know, in Japan the spring is undoubtedly the most beautiful of all seasons. I was told this many times by my Japanese colleagues and friends and I cannot help but agree with their assessment. The British spring is not quite as visually spectacular but the flora and fauna explosion which accompanies it is still rather impressive.

I have recently been drinking rather a lot of Pomegranate Juice. It is an excellent juice and I heartily recommend it. Very healthy too!

This is a hoverfly, apparently one of around six thousand known species of syrphid flies (but don't ask me to tell you which one this is!). The fact that it hovers made it surprisingly easy to photograph.

Talking of spring, one rather bizarre fact about the English is that as soon as the sun comes out they tend to dress for the beach. Now this would be no problem if they were actually going to the beach but this, sadly, is not always the case. Now I understand that when it's warm and sunny it might be rather nice to put on a pair of shorts and remove one's t-shirt in the garden - but why on earth should we have to put up with bare chests and tattoos in the BP garage and the local Tesco supermarket? Surely there is a time and a place for that kind of thing and the vegetable aisle is not it!

The same goes for the female of the species - I still can't get over how much cleavage is displayed here. I obviously spent a little too much time abroad because whenever I see overbearing cleavage - which is every two or three minutes - I wince internally and mentally utter "Oh please, put it away!" And don't get me started on the visible thongs and other classy undergarment displays!

Moving on, this rather disturbing episode sums up what it must be like to be a female mallard (bottom of the pile). Acosted, chased down, overpowered and...well, you can guess the rest - you can be sure there'll be plenty of chicks hatching sometime soon!

So the clocks have gone forward, the evenings are getting longer and the football season is nearing its climax. The cricket world cup is now over half-way through and the Aussies, the Kiwis, the South Africans and the Sri Lankans are looking like the main contenders for the top prize. Unfortunately England look like they'll be eliminated soon and Canada lost all three of their games and were sent home early (in case you are wondering). Before we know what's hit us it'll be summer, Wimbledon and Henmania will be upon us and every other man in the local high street will be walking in and out of shops and estate agents naked. What a lot to look forward to!

I really miss ice coffee and ice tea - it's just so hard to get decent iced drinks here.

I went with a friend to the London Aquarium recently where we saw this rather small starfish clinging onto the glass. I expected big things from the aquarium since the reports I'd found on the internet spoke very highly of it. However, whilst I must admit that it was pretty good, it was nowhere near as good as I'd hoped (especially considering the price - although I am a student these days so you can bet your bottom dollar that I'm making full use of a whole range of student discounts whenever and wherever possible).

For those of you who know me well, you'll know that I occasionally watch football. It's the quarter finals of the Champions League this week and if there is only one reason why I'm happy to be in the UK and not in Japan, it's that I don't have to get up for ridiculous 4.45am kick-offs anymore!

Okay, to finish off this rather multi-themed post - and inspired by similar "guess what" competitions on a couple of my friends' blogs recently - I've decided to lauch my own silly photo competition. So, starting with the above photo, the task is simple...what is it? The answer will be revealed in May and the person who comes closest will receive no prize but nevertheless plenty of glory.

Be cool! Use a Chewing Gum Board!

2007-04-10T15:31:00.000+01:00

A recently-proposed initiative to tackle the problem of gum littering in a nearby town had me chuckling the other day. Town councillors in the town of Basildon, known around these parts as Basildump, are sick and tired of youths using the floor to dispose of their used gum. You can't blame the townsfolk for wanting to do something about it but - rather than introducing stiff fines like in some parts of Asia - their proposed solution seems to defy logic.

They have suggested the erection of "chewing gum boards" on walls around town where youths will deposit their gum once they've finished chewing it.

Oh, great idea! Why didn't we think of this ground-breaking solution sooner? (he asks sarcastically).

What makes anybody think that a kid who routinely throws his gum on the floor is going to go out of his way to be a conscientious young citizen and dispose of it in a responsible manner on a chewing gum wall? The problem is that this kid, just like thousands of others up and down this "great" country, does not give a flying monkey's toss about anything other than himself. He knows full well that he is not supposed to put his chewing gum on the floor but he nevertheless does it anyway. He is probably the same kid who graffitis the bus shelter, smokes dope on his school lunch break, throws his Big Mac wrappers into a local lake containing thousands of forms of wildlife, gets hammered on vodka before his fifteenth birthday, pushes past old ladies going in and out of convenience stores and swears and shouts abuse at basically anyone who dares to do anything which causes him even the slightest inconvenience.

No councillors, the problem is not that there is nowhere for kids to put their chewing gum, it's more a problem of you lot having raised a generation of hoodlums, yobs, chavs, hooligans and scumbags.

Okay, rant over.

A rubbish question?

2007-04-09T19:00:00.000+01:00

Why use a dustbin when you can simply use the floor of the train?

Life through a lens

2007-03-31T17:30:00.000+01:00

With the murder of a young British woman in Tokyo (the second British woman to be murdered in Japan in seven years) and the controversial detention of fifteen British Navy personnel by Iran after their boat allegedly entered Iranian waters, the newspapers have not been short of a headline or two this week. I could get all excited about it and write an indepth article about the dangers of being a foreigner in Japan or maybe even go on a tirade about what would happen should the British capture an Iranian vessel in UK waters, but I won't.

Instead I'll just inform you that after a saga lasting an amazing 144 days, my 17-35mm lens is now repaired and back in my possession!

Life just got a little bit sweeter!

Fukuoka Then

2007-03-31T10:00:00.000+01:00

The above photo is posted in response to a similar one I saw the other day on my friend Johnson's blog.

Oh happy days, where did it all go wrong?

Under 16s drink more than ever!

2007-03-31T09:00:00.000+01:00

The more time I spend in the UK the more I am forced to accept that this is a nation of yobs, hooligans and drunks. Or maybe I'm being a little unfair? However in the last 24 hours I've witnessed three incidents of aggressive drunken behaviour (including one directed at me) which is three times the number I saw in three whole years in Japan.

I wonder where it all went wrong?

Oh yes, education!

It's cricket Jim, but not as we know it!

2007-03-30T22:39:00.000+01:00

The Cricket World Cup has been keeping me thoroughly entertained over the last three weeks. For those of you who don't know what cricket is (and if you're at all interested) then please take a look here. Most of you reading this blog will no doubt have little idea about cricket, just like the confused Austrian guy I met in the pub last night. I tried my best to explain to him the subtleties of the sport but it was to no avail as I merely left him even more confused than he was in the first place.

Unfortunately the World Cup has been marred by the murder of Pakistan coach Bob Woolmer in Jamaica. He was found dead, apparently strangled, following Pakistan's surprising first round defeat to Ireland which ensured Pakistan's early elimination from the tournament. The cricket world has been shocked by the tragic news, however, the show must go on...

In the opening week of the tournament South African batsman Herschelle Gibbs made history by being the first man to hit six sixes in an over of international cricket (an over constitutes six balls and a six is the cricket equivalent of a 'home-run') in South Africa's easy win over the Netherlands. This was an incredible achievement even in spite of some rather poor Dutch bowling. The tournament has also seen the World Cup's fastest ever century as well as the largest ever winning margin in a World Cup game.

But for me the most impressive achievement of the competition so far belongs to Sri Lankan fast bowler Lasith Malinga (above). This week he became the first bowler in the history of international cricket to take four wickets off four balls in Sri Lanka's match against South Africa. A hat-trick (three wickets in consecutive balls) is very rare in cricket, but four-in-four is almost unheard of. It was awesome to watch Malinga as he single-handedly destroyed the Saffa tail-enders and almost win Sri Lanka a match they seemed to have long since lost. And for a split-second it looked as if his fifth ball was going to hit the stumps too, but it just missed by a whisker. Five-in-five would simply have been too much! (Photo BBC).

On a lighter note, the most entertaining moment of the tournament so far has to be the superb diving catch made by 20 stone (127 kg) Bermudan policeman Dwayne Leverock to dismiss Robin Uthappa in Bermuda's predictably heavy defeat to India. The big man, not surprisingly a cult-figure in his native Bermuda, showed amazing bird-like agility as he dived full-length to make one of the catches of the tournament. As he hit the ground an earthquake measuring 5.5M on the richter scale was detected off the coast of Indonesia. Seismologists say the two events may be related. (Photo PRAKASH SINGH/AFP/Getty Images).

How I spent an afternoon

2007-03-13T10:29:00.000Z

London, England - HIV infection rates have reached record levels, gun crime is at an all time high and the public transport system is in complete disarray. It is indeed a worrying time for Londoners. Luckily, one can briefly escape all this mayhem with a visit to one of the city's finest open areas, Regent's Park.

I had not been since I was a child so my memories of Regent's Park were somewhat vague. However with the park's website claiming an annual list of an incredible 114 species of birds, it seemed like it might be a good place to while away an afternoon.

And so it turned out to be, for as well as being home to London's largest Heron colony, the park hosts a bewildering number of waterfowl species, most of which I had never seen before. Many other birds, such as sparrows, finches and tits, were very hard to spot but I consoled myself by spotting my first ever Green Woodpecker!

After strolling around the park for a few hours a hunger had well and truly built up inside me. While contemplating how to address this most basic of needs I realized that I was having a distant but strangely familiar craving - for ramen. Now, there are apparently plenty of ramen shops to be found in London, if you know where to look, but I don't so I opted for the popular ワガママ (Wagamama), a well-known Japanese food chain.

The menu boasted around ten different ramen dishes but no tonkotsu, unfortunately, so I went for the miso ramen. And of course I ordered a bowl of Japanese-style rice (their words, not mine) to go with it and a cup of complimentary green tea to wash it down. I then made the observation that the the Eastern European waitress who brought me the spoon and fork with which to eat my rice needn't have bothered.

My rice arrived before my ramen and I excitedly tucked into it. And what a disappointment it was! It was the worst rice I had ever tasted, far too sticky, dry and completely tasteless. When I first went to Japan I couldn't fully understand the Japanese appreciation for rice - to me rice was just rice - but if there was ever any convincing still required that good and bad rice are worlds apart, then here it was. Nevertheless I was hungry, so I ate it all anyway.

When the ramen arrived, I dived in. I expected to see pork, wakame, copious amounts of bright pink ginger and lots of sesame seeds (and perhaps an egg or something), but instead there were just a few bean sprouts and a few large pieces of chicken. This was a far cry from the ramen I was used to. And the broth was too salty and generally lacking in taste other than its saltiness. Very disappointing. And the "green" tea was about as green as US environmental policy. Enough said.

In other events, the Cricket World Cup starts today (if you don't know what cricket is, please google it). Sixteen teams will meet to battle it out in the Caribbean for what promises to be a fantastic festival of sport! England has a relatively easy group from which they are expected to qualify without too many problems, with New Zealand the only team in the four-team group likely to provide tough opposition for the English. The other two teams in the group are Kenya and...wait for it...Canada!! England go head-to-head with the Canucks next Sunday in a game which England would be expected to win with their hands tied behind their backs and their legs tied behind their ears.

Ostriches

2007-03-12T22:03:00.000Z

The other night, on my way home from the city, a rather large and rowdy group of young men dressed as Red Indians (oh, sorry, native Americans) stumbled onto the train. They had obviously consumed large quantities of lager and their consideration for other members of the general public was temporarily non-existent.

I cannot stand men-behaving-badly in public and the behaviour of these particular men was causing my blood to almost bubble. Then the train broke suddenly and one of the girls who was with them fell down onto the floor right next to me. Her top rode up and revealed a nice tattoo spread across her lower back. In rather fancy writing it read "Little Miss Attitude". Classy!

One of the guys in the group then took a cigarette from his pocket and put it in his mouth. I thought to myself that if he lights it then I am going to go mad! But he did light it and my blood almost reached boiling point.

Now, what does one do in this situation? A large group of drunken trouble-makers is one thing - most British people will tolerate it for fear of causing a scene or a confrontation - but this guy was smoking on a train. He was crossing the line. This idiot clearly did not give a monkeys.

The general British attitude towards trouble-makers is cowardly. When somebody misbehaves in public or does something which clearly goes against society's rules, such as jumping a queue, being unreasonably disruptive or dropping litter, most Brits will try to hide or adopt the ostrich approach. On trains they will bury their heads in their newspapers and pretend it's not happening rather than actually do something about it. It really annoys me. So, rather than join them in their ostrichness I decided to wander up to the offender and try to make my stand.

I had a serious look on my face - it was clear I meant business. I took a deep breath and ordered the lout to extinguish his cigarette. He was surprised and looked at me as if I was being unreasonable. I ordered him again to put it out. He had a drunken and glazed look to his eyes which worried me slightly, but I held firm. Time stood still as the confrontation could have gone either of two ways, peacefully or aggressively.

But nobody supported me. Everybody else on the train maintained their typically-British default ostrich position.

Damn you cowards! Back me up!

A friend of the offender then turned to him and said "he's right, mate, you should put the fag out". I continued to stare him down as he eventually conceded defeat and stubbed his cigarette out on the window. When satisfied the cigarette had been extinguished, I walked away and sat down whilst a fantastic sense of victory swept through me. It felt like good had emerged victorious and evil had been defeated.

I know the British public don't like confrontation, but if more people stood up to trouble-makers we might succeed in making this country a better place to live in.

I won't count on it though!

Some photos from the last seven days

2007-03-09T09:02:00.000Z

Black-headed Gull

Sunset colours

Notice in a train toilet - this is practically the only Japanese practice I get these days!

A couple stop to enjoy last weekend's lunar eclipse in Soho

Male House Sparrow in flight

Toru (bassist of Fukuoka band The Routes) and I pose for a cheesy tourist photo in Chinatown. We had consumed several pints of ale by this point so it seemed like a good idea!

Long-tailed Tit

A wasp relaxes in the spring sunshine and a Black-headed Gull in summer plumage perches on a post

Female House Sparrow chilling out

Report

2007-03-04T12:50:00.000Z

Goldfinch

Some of you have been wondering why I've not been posting anything much on my blog in recent weeks. Well, it's simple really, I have nothing to report. Limbo is not all that exciting - it consists of making speculative job applications and the occasional visit to the bread shop. Oh...and trips to the park to take photos of birds.

In fact the last seven days have been a record-breaking week for me as I have spotted and photographed almost thirty different bird species, six of which, like the Goldfinch above, I'd never seen before!

The Goldcrest, Britain's smallest bird, is another first for me. It's pretty quiet and spends most of its time in dense conifers which makes it very hard to spot. The low light within the dense branches make the Goldcrest extremely difficult to photograph and of all the birds I've ever attempted, this is probably the toughest.

A Black-headed Gull in flight. Some of you might wonder why he doesn't have a black head like the name suggests, but this is in fact because the species is still in winter plumage (as summer draws closer the head will become gradually covered in black feathers).

The Eurasian Coot, a ferocious and aggressive little nipper, likes nothing more than to steal eggs from other birds nests. With this chap around, most other nesting birds on the lake cannot afford to relax even for a split-second.

This odd-looking Long-tailed Tit left me completely flummoxed. I had no idea what it was and had to rush home and consult the internet for an ID.

Blue Tit (left) and Chaffinch, two common sights in parks and woodland areas.

This female House Sparrow allowed me to get to within three metres of her and was quite cooperative with her pose!

A Drake chasing a female Mallard - if you knew what's in store for her when he catches her, you'd sympathize with her need to escape!

Black-headed Gulls relaxing on a spring morning

The Mute Swan, one of the most majestic birds in the world, is protected in the UK and remains the property of the crown. Apparently King Henry VIII liked swans so much he "protected" them so he could eat them all himself. At the time they were considered one of the best game birds and were offered at the tables of all the finest houses and establishments. Nowadays you can't eat swan (not legally anyway) which is a pity because I would love to try Swan Breast in Black Pepper Sauce or better still, Swan Teriyaki.

**Okay, so one of the reasons for all the bird photos is that my main lens is still in the repair shop (I only have the use of my telephoto). Since Konica Minolta sold out to Sony last year there has been a worldwide shortage of certain essential KM parts, and my luck would have it that the small part required to fix my lens cannot be acquired at this time in the UK. So Sony UK are currently trying to get the part from Sony Japan, but I'm not holding out much hope of this happening. I have already been without the lens since early November and I'm becoming increasingly impatient for this issue to be resolved. Until that happens you'll all just have to put up with a lot more photos of birds!**

Photography is "not permitted" on the London Underground

2007-02-25T11:46:00.000Z

I spent yesterday in the city armed with only my Sony Cybershot, or as I often call it, my Sony Cybershit. Still, with a bit of imagination it's possible to take a few nice shots. The image-quality is poor though, especially when you're used to using a big, chunky DSLR.

2007-02-25T10:38:00.000Z

This photo is for all those of you out there who regard England as a charming place full of picturesque little villages with quaint sixteenth-century pubs with warm fireplaces and obscure ales on tap. Well, it is kind of like that. This is The Three Greyhounds pub in Soho, a traditional English pub which always seems to be busy regardless of the time of day.

Lan Kwai Fong

2007-02-22T16:02:00.000Z

It's not unusual for me to receive emails from individuals requesting the private use of one of my photos for non-commercial purposes. This is usually from friends or contacts, for example for their websites, blogs or homepages, but this is not always the case as I quite often receive requests from unknown people from a variety of countries around the world for all sorts of reasons. And I am generally happy to allow most of them to use my photos for nothing, provided that they give me full credit and do not make any financial gains themselves out of my work.

However, it is rare for me to receive a request from a commercial organization, and when I do, such cases have to be considered each on their own merit.

So, yesterday I received an email from a marketing company which is involved in the worldwide promotion of festivals. They have requested to use one of my Flickr images of Lan Kwai Fong, Hong Kong's famous entertainment district, for their new website. The photo in question (see below), which before now I considered to be a fairly unremarkable and not-particularly-interesting shot, was taken last summer during July Fest, one of Hong Kong's biggest and most popular festivals. As it turns out, finding good photos of July Fest on the internet is a difficult task.

On reflection, my image captures not only the feel and atmosphere of Lan Kwai Fong, but also that of July Fest. The colours are sharp, the composition is good and the image-quality, even considering the fact that it was taken at night and in difficult conditions, is very high. Even the full-size image looks crisp and clean. And after spending an hour searching both Flickr and Google Images I was unable to find a photo of similar photographic quality which better encapsulates the essence of the Lan Kwai Fong district or of July Fest itself.

In fact, to get a better image you would probably have to pay a professional photographer or, failing that, buy a stock photo from an agency. Either way, you would be unlikely to get a shot of such high-quality for nothing.

I'm not saying this is the world's most amazing photo but then again it depends on who you are and what your point of view is. After all, it's not as if you can just take a photo such as this at any time of the year - it has to be taken in July, effectively during July Fest, when the streets are at their fullest and when the July Fest beer stalls are clearly visible. All of these combined factors make my bargaining position even stronger.

So, what do you think? Should I allow this company to use my photograph for nothing? Well, personally I don't believe I should! Having said that though, I am more than happy for them to use my photo if they really want to.

The question is, how much is the photo worth and how badly do they want it?

新年快樂！

2007-02-19T20:16:00.001Z

Happy Chinese New Year everybody (especially to those of you - maybe all one of you - who are actually Chinese)!

Not surprisingly, London's Chinatown was absolutely rammed yesterday but it was pretty cool wandering around amongst the crowds.

Apart from celebrating the start of the year of the boar (or is it a pig?), I don't really have all that much to report at the moment. Life in limbo is going just about as well as life in limbo can be expected to be going. It's not all doom and gloom though because despite my main lens being away at the repair shop (it has been broken since November, forcing me to make do with just my telephoto and my Cybershot) I have been taking a few photos...

The man inside the dragon

The art of the direct translation, Chinatown

Religious mumbo-jumbo in a train loo

Just a few weeks spent in the UK will convince you that those running the nation's rail networks are complete incompetents! Considering the high cost of travel here, it's laughable how shockingly bad the rail services are!

Faces of London

The Gherkin, one of London's most iconic buildings, rising from behind buildings outside London's Liverpool Street station

British nature

2007-02-19T08:10:00.000Z

A Great-crested Grebe tending its nest. This bird was almost hunted out of existence in the British Isles in the 1800s mainly because hats incorporating the bird's head feathers were considered to be the height of fashion. By 1860 there were less than 100 birds remaining in the UK but thankfully it has made a successful comeback.

European Robin, a typical sight in towns and rural areas

Black-headed Gull (a seriously aggressive little tyke!). They have been known to attack babies and small children.

Pied Wagtail (this shot was the 20,000th photo I have taken with my DSLR - since buying the camera 402 days ago I have now taken 20,130 photos, averaging out to 50.07 photos per day!)

梅ですか？でも、日本じゃない、、、イギリスです！

2007-01-30T10:56:00.000Z

This is not a rabbit, but a hungry grey squirrel. They are a common sight in the south-east of England, a successful invasive species from North America which has displaced the indigenious red squirrel in almost every part of England. It has been nearly twenty-five years since I last saw a red squirrel in the wild in the UK, but now if I want to see one I have to go to a small solitary island off the south coast of England (where grey squirrels have not been able to penetrate) or to Scotland. Still, I don't hold it against the grey squirrel, life after all is a game of survival of the fittest, and their aggressive nature and superior size means that they are more competititve than the red. Hardly their fault!

I went down to the local park to feed them some nuts, but this was just really a crafty way of getting close to them so I could take photographs.

In any case they are not shy, in fact when they discovered I had nuts one or two of them decided that the best way to get at them was to scale my legs and body!

And here's a smaller red squirrel which I spotted last year in Finland, thankfully still going strong in other parts of Europe!

2007-01-24T21:50:00.000Z

So much for the mild weather! Winter finally came today...

2007-01-23T19:13:00.000Z

Great Tit

2007-01-21T22:45:00.000Z

The European Robin, also known as the Robin Redbreast, is one of Britain's most iconic songbirds. I spotted this one this morning and its sweet song was the perfect medicine for my Sunday morning hangover. It also gave me a great excuse to get my camera out, something which has been all too rare of late. I am trying to get back into taking photos but I've been seriously starved of inspiration lately and the UK is simply not as camera-friendly or, dare I say it, photographically-stimulating as Japan. If there's one thing I do know though, it's that there a few better sights in the world than a beautifully-breasted bird, wouldn't you agree?

Racist Britain?

2007-01-19T14:10:00.000Z

Fierce storms have battered the UK in the last couple of days. Trees have fallen over and everything. The country is in the grip of crisis as trains are cancelled and people are blown over! No seriously, eleven people have died, mainly as a result of shoddily-built walls and roofs collapsing.

Introducing Shilpa Shetty

But aside from storms of a meteorological kind, Britain has been gripped these last few days by a storm of an altogether different sort, namely the racism scandal of Celebrity Big Brother. The nation is currently locked in a heated debate over the treatment of a glamorous Indian actress by three of the British female housemates. Even Tony Blair has become involved.

Shilpa Shetty, 31, a sophisticated and glamorous Bollywood actress has been on the receiving end of what the general public has regarded as racist bullying at the hands of fellow housemates Jade Goody, Danielle Lloyd and Jo O'Meara.

Jade Goody, Danielle Lloyd and Jo O'Meara

Goody, 25, who apparently rose to fame in the non-celebrity version of Big Brother four years ago and who is now a reality TV queen and darling of the tabloids, has received the most criticism. Lloyd, 23, a former Miss England and current girlfriend of footballer Teddy Sheringham, and O'Meara, 27, former singer and actress with S-Club 7, make up the troublesome threesome.

In what some view as racist behaviour and others more as the cultural ignorance of the British "underclass", the three British girls have been seen to continually bully and gang up on Shetty. All three of them have been seen making fun of Shetty's accent, claiming she can't speak English properly and making explosive remarks about her.

Trouble first brewed when one culturally-ignorant housemate, Jackiey Budden (ironically Goody's mother and no, I haven't misspelt her first name, it really is spelt like that), constantly referred to Shetty as "the Indian" and asked her "Do you live in a house or a shack?"

Later O'Meara suggested that Indians were thin because they are always ill as a result of undercooking their food. The trio also complained that Shetty had touched other housemates' food with her hands and then began poking fun at her accent and questioning her hygiene. The fact that Shetty is more articulate and has a better command of English vocabulary and grammar than all three of the British girls in question (even in spite of English being her second language) seems to have escaped their attention. Then O'Meara and Lloyd, showing their wide cultural knowledge and tolerance of others, asked each other whether or not people in India always ate with their hands. Or was that in China, they wondered? O'Meara added that she didn't care and that she just didn't like that sort of thing because "you don't know where those hands have been."

In the latest row Goody told Shetty to "go back to the slums." Danielle Lloyd, just out of earshot of the actress agreed by saying "I think she should go home." And yesterday, unaware of the controversy and outrage going on outside the house, Goody yesterday referred to Shetty as a "poppadom". When asked by Big Brother to explain her statement Goody claimed that she "didn't say Shilpa Poppadom in a racial way".

As of Friday afternoon a record 38,000 complaints have been made to Ofcom, the national TV regulatory body, and thousands more to Channel 4, about the programme. No other TV show in British history has recorded anywhere near the same number of complaints. The issue was then raised in parliament after MPs received complaints from their constituents.

The furore then saw Prime Minister Tony Blair, Chancellor Gordon Brown and opposition leader David Cameron being drawn into the row, whilst thirty-five MPs have signed a motion condemning the programme.

Blair told the House of Commons that although he had not seen the programme "we should oppose racism in all its forms". Tory leader David Cameron urged viewers to switch off in protest and Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain said the attacks on Shetty were "grubby, racist behaviour".

Chancellor Gordon Brown, currently on a potentially problematic visit to, guess where, India, condemned anything that went against British "tolerance". MPs have speculated that the row could cause serious damage to foreign relations, and Brown was expected to apologise on behalf of Britain when he met the Indian prime minister, Manmohan Singh, in New Delhi yesterday. There has been widespread uproar in India with Channel 4 effigies being burnt in streets. Ads have been taken out in Indian newspapers inviting "Jade Goody and friends" to come over to India and enjoy the county's "healing nature".

UK political debate programmes have been dominated by the controversy. BBC Question Time, a high-brow political show where members of the public are given the chance to grill the nation's political figures on the day's burning issues, last night featured outspoken former Health Minister Edwina Curry. She labelled the three bullies "slags" and got huge applause when she called them "witches with a capital 'B' !" On another programme the situation was described as "three thick girls ganging up on a glamorous lady from India".

Trevor Phillips, chair of the Commission for Equality and Human Rights, said "What we are seeing is a noxious brew of old-fashioned class conflict, straightforward bullying, ignorance and quite vicious racial bigotry. It is outrageous, and it is unpleasant."

As a result of the row Danielle Lloyd has lost a six-figure modelling contract whilst high street retailer The Perfume Shop has withdrawn Goody's fragrance from its shelves. For Goody, who shot to fame in big Brother four years ago, the irony could be that the programme which made her could also be the one to break her. I won't cry if that happens.

To make matters worse, and in a twist of fate that not even the most evil script-writer could have dreamed up, Goody is up for eviction from the house tonight with...yes, you guessed it, Shilpa Shetty!

Let battle commence! Goody vs. Shetty

The two go head-to-head in what promises to be compulsive viewing. If Goody loses, she will come out to a hostile public and the prospect of her career in tatters. And due to what they call "heightened feelings", for the first time in Big Brother history Channel 4 bosses have announced that there will be no crowds waiting outside the house for tonight's eviction.

In the extemely unlikely event that Shetty should be evicted, Great Britain will have to take a seriously long look at itself in the mirror. The treatment dished out to this beautiful and intelligent woman, whose only crime is to be different, has been nothing short of scandalous. We have seen three ignorant, spiteful, and culturally-unaware British girls showing a side of British character which is all too common. Shetty has represented her country admirably and she has maintained her dignity and integrity despite the abuse she has received. The same cannot be said of Jade Goody, Danielle Lloyd and Jo O'Meara, who have not only embarrassed themselves and done probable harm to their careers, but they have also embarrassed the nation and damaged our reputation.

And just out of interest and for my north American readers, Americans Muhammad Abdul Aziz, 53, better known as Jermaine Jackson, brother of Michael, and former A-Team star Dirk Benedict (the actor who played Templeton "The Face" Peck), 62, are also among the show's participants.

Click here to see a BBC report on the scandal.

¡La nueva Betty!

2007-01-18T22:54:00.000Z

The new "Ugly Betty" and the original "Betty La Fea"

Almost eight years after the first airing across the Spanish-speaking world of Belly La Fea, a hugely successful cult telenovela from Colombia, the programme has been re-made in English for the American market. The new show, Ugly Betty, has already proved a success in North America and since January, in the UK too. And whilst it doesn't quite have the same character and appeal as the original, the new version has been pretty good fun so far! The new Betty isn't as ugly as the old one of course, well, you can compare for yourself above. I remember watching in Spain back in 2002 the last episode of the original when Betty has a complete make-over, has contacts fitted and her braces removed. And how do you think she looked?

Absolutely gorgeous!

Slide to unlock

2007-01-18T22:50:00.000Z

A big thanks to everyone for all the supportive messages and emails I've received over the last few weeks. I can't stress how much I appreciate the kind words.

Right, let's get on with things then. The new iPhone, unveiled by Apple CEO Steve Jobs at last week's Macworld 2007, has met with a mixed reaction here in the UK. Some newspaper columnists have predicted it to fail, lambasting it as a jack of all trades and a master of none. And without having seen anything of the new device I had almost been duped by the press into believing that it was nothing more than a gimmick. In fact I wasn't in the least bit interested in owning one on the basis of press and news reports I had seen.

However I stumbled across the video of the iPhone presentation on the Apple website and I changed my mind. Literally minutes into of Steve Jobs' demonstration I was sold and by the end of the presentation my head was spinning just thinking of the possiblities that the iPhone offered. You probably don't need me to tell you about the tech specs or the iPhone's capabilities. It is quite simply one of the coolest pieces of kit ever built!

The iPhone may or may not sell well, I don't know. My inkling is that it will. I mean, it is that cool and that far ahead of anything else on the market that it cannot fail to take off. In the very least the iPhone is going to radically change the face of the telecommunications industry as we know it, especially as other companies battle in vain to emulate some of the iPhone's features in an attempt to retain their market positions.

I can't wait to get my hands on one!

2007-01-04T00:17:00.000Z

If the world was your oyster, how would you eat it?

As we all know, despite the best of intentions things in life don't always go according to plan. And for me that has certainly been the case recently. Anybody who knows me will know how much I was looking forward to going to Birmingham and making a new life there after my three years in Japan. Unfortunately however, due to reasons which I don't really want to discuss here, my time there has come to a premature end.

They say that the best things in life come to those who wait but I'm not so sure. Leaving Birmingham after only three and a half months is not something I ever envisaged and the hopes and dreams I had for my new life there just didn't happen. I feel like I've spent a year searching in dense rainforest for the fabled City of Gold only to arrive and find it ruined and treasureless. That's life I suppose, I'm not going to complain or winge about it, I just have to get on with it.

So, I have left Birmingham and the world is once again my oyster. I can go anywhere I want. Nothing is holding me back. Should I stay in England and build a future here, for example in London? Or should I go back to Spain? Maybe I should try pastures new such as Portugal, India or Singapore? Or maybe even return to Japan? Choices, choices, choices.

If the world was your oyster, how would you eat it? I suppose the beauty of this particular oyster is that everybody eats theirs in a different way. Maybe I've been eating mine the wrong way? Perhaps I just need to find a new eating technique? If I do, then maybe my oyster will begin to taste sweet again!

2006-12-31T09:30:00.000Z

Multicolour Subway, Taipei, Taiwan

What with all the excitement of Saddam's execution and the fact that Romania and Bulgaria will join the European Union tomorrow, I'd almost forgotten that today is actually the last day of the year. 2006 has been a great year for me, full of adventure, fun and lots of great memories, and 2007 is already shaping up to be another action-packed year. In fact, there have already been a few developments regarding my future which I will share with you all in due course.

Meanwhile I wish you all a happy new year and I leave you with a small selection of my favourite twenty photographs out of the twenty thousand I have taken over the last twelve months.

See you in January!

Just After Sunset, Hong Kong

Hanoi Scooter Life, Hanoi, Vietnam

Trans-Mongolian Railway, Mongolia

Smile, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

Beijingzhan, Beijing, China

Burnt-out Lada, St.Petersburg, Russia

Ginza Girl, Tokyo, Japan

The Crossing at Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan

Apple Crossing, Fukuoka, Japan

Magic, Fukuoka, Japan

Girl in Hakozaki Shrine, Fukuoka, Japan

Nakasu Nightlife, Fukuoka, Japan

Fukuoka By Night, Fukuoka, Japan

Fukuoka Tower, Fukuoka, Japan

Bank of China, Hong Kong

Taipei 101, Taiwan

Old homeless woman carrying rubbish, Irkutsk, Russia

World of her own, a bar in Moscow, Russia

Sparrow at a water fountain, Zürich, Switzerland

Sunday Breakfast

2006-12-10T14:07:00.000Z

My breakfast habits are not particularly British, perhaps not surprising considering the different places I've lived in. But whilst the traditional British fried breakfast is sometimes pretty good (and even the traditional Japanese breakfast of fish, miso soup, rice and raw egg isn't too bad either), my favourite has always been the continental European-style breakfast. This morning I added a slight twist, mixing English with French and German products. And my, it was jolly good! To see an annotated explanation, just click on the photo. For 日本語 click here.

2006-12-04T20:24:00.000Z

This week after months of dilly-dallying the government finally confirmed the date of 1st July 2007 as the day when the new anti-smoking laws will come into effect in England. Under the new legislation all bars, nightclubs, restaurants and other businesses will be forced to operate under a strict no-smoking policy.

The new proposals have encountered resistance not least because many smokers believe it they have a right to smoke in such establishments. Until a few years ago this was undoubtedly the view of most people, smokers and non-smokers alike, however things change and the last few years have definitely seen a shift in public opinion regarding this matter. First of all, there can be no doubt that such a law can only be a good thing for the health of the general public. That the smoking minority will be forced to relinquish their hitherto unquestionable right to smoke in bars and clubs is hardly a concern. For the well-being of the overwhelmingly non-smoking majority, and also for that of the smoking minority, the new legislation can only be viewed as a positive step.

2006-11-27T23:47:00.000Z

You know the scenario, you're sitting at home or at work bored out of your mind, aimlessly cruising along this thing they once called the information superhighway da-di-da when, having exhausted all the sites you usually visit during the course of a day, you pop back onto my blog hoping that I've maybe updated it in the forty-five minutes since you last checked and thus provide you with a brief couple of minutes of fun and entertainment, perhaps even a tiny chance to escape, albeit momentarily, from this horrid world and the shameful lives that we all lead, when you discover that I have once again failed to upload anything at all so you jump to someone else's blog and find nothing new there either at which point you decide it might be a good time to check your email for the seventh time today, and it's not even lunchtime yet, but to your dismay your inbox is still empty so you go and make a cup of tea or something maybe a little stronger if you're that way inclined before settling back down and repeating the whole process again and again only to discover that there's still nothing new on here and you ask yourself "what is that lazy so-and-so doing? he hasn't posted anything for five days".

Sound familiar? I know this scenario because I experience it almost every day with blogs. And I know some of you do too. Whenever I view the statistics for this page (which is rare but today is one of those days) I see some mind-boggling pieces of information. I can often deduce, for example, who some of my regular visitors are thanks to information such as user-location, access time and visitor's ISP and OS language, all of which are recorded by my sitemeter.

So in the interests of entertainment I'd like to spoil you all with a brief awards ceremony, kind of like the oscars. All the following statistics were taken from the last 100 visits to this blog and basically cover the period of time from Friday lunchtime to Monday night. There are the three hotly-disputed categories, which are as follows:

Most visits by country
Most visits by a single person
Longest visit by a single person

First of all, Most visits by country:

Perhaps somewhat unsurprisingly the clear winner here is Japan with 47, followed by the United States on 19, the United Kingdom 8, Australia 7, Spain 6, European Union 3 (?), Canada 2, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Korea, Norway and Switzerland 1, Unknown country 1

I can't explain the three visits from the EU, especially as I know the person in question is based in Newcastle, UK (therefore the UK should really read 11 visits and not 8). As for the sole visitor from the Unknown Country, well that's even more of an enigma. Could it be Kazakhstan? Or maybe Bhutan? No, probably not.

Just for the record, notable absences in the last few days include visits (or should I say a lack of visits) from Italy, Portugal, Finland, Sweden, Jamaica, Malaysia and Thailand, all countries which usually account for their fair share of visitors.

Okay, let's move on. Here is the award for Most visits by a single person:

Discounting visits made by people in Fukuoka (which because of their large number are more difficult to analyse and I don't have the time or the inclination to rake through the data), a total of twelve were made by two different Mac users, one most probably a tall chap in North Carolina and the other more than likely a Japanese living in Sydney, Australia. Both share the crown for having made six visits each. Well done! Notable mentions also go out to the guy who should have been studying in New York State and the girl who should have been preparing her lessons in Cádiz, Spain. You know who you are!

The final award, the one for the Longest visit by a single person, was a close one. The eventual winner, who managed an impressive seven minutes and forty-four seconds, appears to be a Japanese salaryman who was recorded enjoying my site whilst at work last Friday afternoon in Tokyo. However this is mostly speculation and it may equally have been a foreign tourist whiling away the hours in one of Tokyo's many internet cafes.

Could this have been you by any chance?

Getting paid to gamble?

2006-11-22T19:07:00.000Z

My hot vein of virtual football form has continued with another rather fortuitous occurrence. Mistyping ten pence in haste saw me inadvertently place a bet for ten pounds at 4-1 which, would you believe, miraculously won! This made me very happy indeed. I'll let you guys work out the maths.

In addition to this I've been keeping myself busy on the spy trail. I have now completed five spying missions on top British retail outlets. And my secret agent skills, not to mention my secret agent charms, are skyrocketing!

Today I had two such missions to two separate branches of the same chain. It was a chain, no less, of bookmakers. My mission briefing was to place a five pound bet in each store on a horse or greyhound race to be run whilst I was in the shop. I was also on the look-out for a whole host of secret things during my visits but, for reasons of secrecy, I cannot reveal what they were. Of course my two five-pound bets will be refunded with my pay, however the appeal of these missions was that should I win, I get to keep the winnings. I figured this was a good deal for me because whichever way I looked at it, this was a win-win situation. Hence I chose two missions rather than just one (and I would have accepted more had there been more missions available within walking distance of my house. As it was these two missions were miles from my house and miles from each other. And I did it all on foot. And in the rain).

Now despite getting wet all of this was made much nicer by the fact that, due to an amazing display of mystical talent, my horse in the first shop came in first, at 5-1. What can I say? Twenty-five pounds in my pocket, thank you very much! Unfortunately I didn't win in the second shop but I'm not complaining.

Getting paid to gamble? What is this world coming to?

2006-11-13T17:00:00.000Z

I spent the weekend battling with a gruesome translation on Catalan politics and now I'm happy to report that I've finished and submitted it. This makes me very happy.

It has been an action-packed seven days. I completed my first week of work, a whopping 28 hours of teaching (which is a lot in the TEFL world), but if anything it was good to be working again. Finally things are beginning to click into place for me here.

And it was good to see Asashoryu get off to a winning start in the Kyushu Grand Tournament. However, despite my best efforts I was unable to find any online bookmakers prepared to accept bets on sumo. So I put a few pounds on the football instead, well, virtual football to be more precise. I went to lay 70 pence on Virtual Reading at 4-1 to win away at Virtual Arsenal, however in my haste to make the bet before the rapidly-approaching kick-off time I crucially mistyped and actually put down seven pounds instead of seventy pence (7.00 as opposed to 0.70), with no way of reneging on the bet. This was a double-disaster as I only had a little over seven pounds in my account and Reading had virtually no chance of winning the game either. So I cursed my luck and berated myself for throwing away seven pounds and went to make a cup of tea. Imagine my surprise then when I returned to find that Reading had upset the odds by romping to a 0-3 victory! Of course this would not happen in the real world but I'm not complaining. The surprise did wonders for my account balance as it ballooned from just a few pitiful pence to a marvellous ₤35 (€52, ¥8000, US$67) in the blink of an eye. Fantastic! Not bad for a mistake eh? And pretty awesome when you haven't earned any money for five months!

Of course, it goes without saying that I do not condone gambling in any way, shape or form.

2006-11-07T19:12:00.000Z

On Sunday night we watched Sayuri, better known to the western world as Memoirs of a Geisha. It had been sitting there on my hard drive since my friend Johnson illegally downloaded it and installed it onto my computer back in June, so it was about time we watched it.

And despite the thoroughly annoying fireworks outside (Sunday was Guy Fawkes Night) we rather enjoyed the film, even the really silly bits (the portrayal of Americans at the end was funny and so true). But we just couldn't get our heads around the fact that Sayuri had blue eyes. In three years in Japan I never saw any Japanese with any eye colour other than "black", and a certain Japanese person I live with hasn't either, so we couldn't quite work that bit out. Anyway...

I started work this week. It's a hard thing to do after 105 days off, but what can you do? To my surprise two of the other teachers at the school have also worked in Japan, one at Nova in Hokkaido and the other at the Yokohama branch of the school I am now working at. Green tea at morning break is not what I had in mind when I speculatively applied for this job but I'm not complaining.

And it just occurred to me that we're only a few days away from the start of the Kyushu Grand Tournament. Last year was awesome and I'm definitely going to miss it this year.

I think I'll put a few quid on Asashoryu. If I can find a bookmaker prepared to accept the bet, that is.

2006-11-03T18:51:00.000Z

Well, I should have known better than to talk about religious issues on this blog. Whilst I wasn't meaning to offend anybody it seems my last post ruffled a few feathers. I'll steer clear of such topics in future.

Now a few of you might be wondering where I have been over the past ten days or so. Contrary to popular belief I haven't been chasing earthquakes in the North Sea (there hasn't been any since last week's Thornhill quake incidentally), I have just been very busy. I'm now rather up to my neck in a despicably difficult Spanish to English translation of a journalistic text on the Catalan Statute which is causing me no end of pain and grief. Why oh why did I decide to go back to school?

In other news, I am no longer an unemployed English teacher, I am an employed one, well part-time anyway, or at least I will be from next week. The money is not that good and the hours depend on how many students the school has at any given time, but it's flexible and it's a hell of a lot better than sitting at home waiting for the phone to ring. If nothing else it will bring in a bit of money and steady the ship.

Anyway, last weekend I went under cover on a rather different job! Yes, in true James Bond style I went on a veritable spying mission. Let me explain. A few weeks ago I saw an advert on a website for part-time casual work. Thinking that this might be better than a kick in the head from a horse I applied for it. The job in question was as a mystery shopper, a person employed to go into a specified store on a specified day and secretly rate it on a number of previously given criteria, such as cleanliness, product availability and customer service. For obvious reasons, due to the top-secret nature of this work (and due to the fact that you never quite know who's reading) I cannot divulge the name of the company I was asked to spy on but suffice to say it was a major UK retailor. For simply going into the store and ordering an item from the patisserie section, I was paid a whole six British pounds. Sounds wonderfully easy doesn't it, six pounds just for walking into a shop and ordering a cake? You might even say a cakewalk, haha! However, once you've taken into account how long it took me to read the mission-briefing, pass a quick online test to prove I had understood it fully and then actually walk to the store, not to mention the length of time needed to fill-out the online questionnaire once I got home, it didn't seem so great. All in all it took up at least two and a half hours of my time. Worth it? Not on your nelly!

2006-10-25T15:13:00.000+01:00

After getting over the excitement of a magnitude 1.2 earthquake early this morning in Thornhill, Scotland, I set about getting on with my day in a positive frame of mind despite the heavy autumn rain.

And after yesterday, which was one of my best days of recent weeks, I feel in quite a good mood. I've just received the results of my first assignment and was pleasantly surprised with my marks. So far the studying is going extremely well and all I need now is a job.

Meanwhile I received a visit from the Jehovah's Witnesses. Now I'm normally up for some "stimulating" religious debate with them but this time the guy surprised me by merely thrusting a leaflet into my hand and telling me he'll be back another time to discuss it. I read the leaflet (as I usually do) and laughed as I realized it was nothing more than a stinging attack on homosexuals, describing them and their sordid activities as "immoral". Seriously though, where do these missionaries and do-gooders get off trying to tell the rest of the world how to live?

According to the Jehovah's Winesses there are only something like 144,000 places available in heaven and these places curiously enough are reserved only for them. The fact that the official membership of the organization currently stands at over six million doesn't seem to faze a group which clearly doesn't consider mathematics to be one of their strong points.

On a similar theme despite the presence of protesters the Scientologists opened their new HQ in London this week. This got me thinking back to a few weeks ago when I had a bit of a run-in with them in Birmingham. They gave me a stress test before telling me in no uncertain terms that I was a failure of a human being who required immediate help. They then tried their best to endoctrinate me before my patience snapped and I had to stop being nice. All I can say about Scientologists is that they are best avoided.

And to completely change the subject, I came across an article on the BBC website this week which claimed, according to a survey, that one in five British children could not find the UK on a world map. It also stated that several children in London did not know that they lived in the capital. Unbelievable! If you're interested you can see the full BBC report here.

2006-10-23T15:50:00.000+01:00

Ever since Sunday 20th March 2005 things haven't been quite the same for me. On the morning of that day I was caught on the twelfth floor of an apartment block as a magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck Hakata Bay. The violent movement of the building, designed of course to sway to and fro in such circumstances, threw me all over the place and temporarily turned my world upside down. For a brief second I thought my time had come. Consequently my mind and body have become super-sensitive at detecting slight vibrations in the earth and buildings, so much so that even now I'm back in the UK every single vibration (such as a passing truck, for example) causes the earthquake alarm bells in my head to start ringing. Then I remember of course that I'm no longer in Japan and I can breath a sigh of relief and relax again.

In Japan I used to keep an eye on the earthquake situation on a weekly, if not sometimes daily basis. If there was a small M4.2 earthquake in Hokkaido, there was a good chance I knew about it. Likewise if there had been a M2.1 earthquake in Fukuoka, too small for most people to have felt, I would probably have known about that too.

But when I left Japan I thought my earthquaking days were over. After experiencing dozens of mostly small-scale quakes and a couple of big, scary ones in Fukuoka both my friend Shannon and I knew exactly what was happening when a suspiciously long tremor (which after a bit of digging around I discovered measured a rather sizeable M5.9) struck just off Taiwan whilst we enjoyed a Starbucks in the city of Taipei only the day after leaving Japan.

But what about in the UK? Surely I've got nothing to worry about here?

In fact some of you may be surprised to know that there have been nine recorded earthquakes in the UK in the last thirty days but, before you throw your arms up in horror, don't forget that Japan regularly has twice or three times that number in the space of a single day. At the time of writing the last one in the UK was recorded on October 17th at 6.47am about 90km east of Lerwick, a town on the Shetlands, in the North Sea. At a depth of 13.9 km it measured a whopping M2.3. However anybody in Lerwick awake at the time would probably have had about the same chance of feeling the vibrations of a sheep farting on mainland Scotland, some 160km away.

But curiously enough the Lerwick earthquake has been the stongest one recorded in the UK in the last thirty days. The other eight quakes during the same period all weighed in at the following impressive magnitudes (in reverse chronological order): M1.3, M0.9, M1.4, M1.2, M1.2, M1.3, M2.1 and M1.1. Crazy stuff! I pity anyone who got in the way of the M0.9!!

But although these quakes are all very small, I won't be lulling myself into any false senses of security. Dudley, a area of Birmingham only a few kilometres from where I live, was the epicentre of a M4.8 quake just before 1am on September 23rd 2002. Of course there were no major injuries and damage was only minimal but local police did report twelve scared people in nightclothes walking into their police station in the middle of the night! The quake made the BBC news as 'frightened' local residents were interviewed by reporters.

All in all it turns out that between 200 and 300 quakes occur in the UK each year, but only about 10% are strong enough to be felt. And that got me wondering, what's the strongest quake ever recorded in Britain?

Well, thanks to the wonder of the internet I was able to discover the answer to this question pretty quickly. According to various online resources it seems that there have been three major events in recent (geological) history which are worthy of note. The first - and it's incredible that they know this - occurred at 3pm on 21st May 1382 in the English Channel. Although the quake struck at sea the effects were felt over hundreds of kilometres in all directions and was such a major event at the time that it was recorded by numerous sources in three different countries, England, France and Belgium. For history buffs out there King Richard II was king of England and he had just recently crowned his queen, Anne of Bohemia, and had the year before been forced to withstand the effects of Wat Tyler and his legendary Peasant's Revolt. The tremors from the 1382 quake were felt strongly in London and were reported to have interrupted a sitting of parliament as well as bringing chaos to a trial of heretics and causing damage to St.Paul's cathedral. In Flanders several buildings collapsed in Bruges, severe damage occurred to buildings in Liege and chimneys were brought down in Gent.

The other major event, which is apparently more well-known, occurred in the north sea between Suffolk and Holland at 6pm on 6th April 1580. According to www.geologyshop.co.uk there were several serious injuries and deaths as well as what sounds like a killer tsunami:

"Sections of wall fell in Dover, including the loss of a piece of the cliff and castle wall. At Sandwich people reported hearing a loud noise, which seemed to come from somewhere in the Channel. A gable end fell from the north wing of St Peter's church, four arches cracked in St Mary's church and part of a chimney fell down. In Calais, clearly the worst affected town in France, the tremors lasted for about a quarter of an hour with damage caused both by the earthquake and by a tidal wave which engulfed the town and surrounding countryside. Several people and a large number of cattle were drowned. Part of the town wall and several houses collapsed, killing and injuring several people and animals. The watchtower split and half of it fell, the keeper and his wife having to be rescued from the remaining half. A great sea swell arose in the Channel sinking 25 to 30 British, French and Flemish vessels. A passenger on a boat from Dover reported that his vessel had touched the sea bed five times and that the sea had risen into the air more than 15m higher than his vessel. About twelve hours later, on 7th April, between 4 and 5 o'clock, some 30 houses fell down near Dover and a second deluge was reported to have drowned 120 people. There is a report of 120 vessels being lost off the English coast, with a further fifteen near to Mont St Michel."

In more recent times the most famous UK geological event on record is the M6.1 Dogger Bank Earthquake of 1931 which occurred just off the east coast of England (see satellite image below). The quake caused widespread damage to chimneys as well as creating a tsunami which ultimately led to the deaths of millions of shellfish.

Location of the terrifying 1931 Dogger Bank Earthquake which measured 6.1 on the richter scale

So, next time I feel the beginnings of faint vibrations from what I assume to be a passing truck, maybe I shouldn't be so sure it is what I think it is!

2006-10-21T21:15:00.000+01:00

As I sit watching The Firm, another, ahem, Tom Cruise film, fireworks have been going off all night outside and I'm getting a little tired of the noise. Just out of interest, the film happens to be on terrestrial TV and I'm only watching it because somebody else in the place where I live, who isn't me, wants to. And even then I'm only watching it with one eye.

So what's with all this noise? The upcoming 5th November, known as Guy Fawkes Night (also known as Bonfire Night and Fireworks Night) is a festival commerating the failed attempt by the Catholic baddie Guy Fawkes to blow up parliament and kill the protestant King James I in 1605. Every year on and around the 5th November there are huge public fireworks displays (similar to those in Japan during the hanabi season) with people organizing their own private displays in the weeks leading up to the event.

Then there's Diwali, a large hindu festival I'd never heard of until a week ago and which is apparently well-observed in cities with large south-Asian populations, such as Birmingham. And would you believe it, it's today, 21st October! And seeing as there are thousands upon thousands of south-Asians living in Birmingham it looks like we might be in for a long and noisy night.

And reading around I struck upon some rather interesting facts. Letting off fireworks is permitted in the UK on any day of the year until 11pm. On Guy Fawkes Night that deadline is extended to 12 midnight. Then there are three days of the year when this limit is extended further until 1am. The first is New Year's Eve and the other two, bizarrely enough, are on Diwali and Chinese New Year.

2006-10-21T01:42:00.000+01:00

It's 2am and I'm sitting at my computer with a can of Boddingtons Draught by my side listening to unsigned bands on myspace.com. Normally I only write my blog when I have something meaningful or interesting to write, however right now I have the urge to do a bit of freestyle blogging and see where it takes me.

So, what interesting anecdotes can I offer you at this late hour? Let me see. Oh yes, tonight I watched Vanilla Sky, the entertaining sci-fi adventure film starring recently-much-maligned Scientologist Tom Cruise. Now I don't care much for the man as an individual (he proposed to Katie Holmes at the top of the Eiffel Tower for goodness sake, fromage) but he does make good films. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that I've never known him do a bad film. Just off the top of my head I can think of Top Gun, Cocktail, The Firm, Rain Man, Born on the Fourth of July, A Few Good Men, Mission Impossible, Jerry Maguire, Minority Report, Magnoilia and Eyes Wide Shut, all of which I really enjoyed and some of which (one or two of you might find this funny) I've seen more than once! Yes, I have in fact seen some films more than once and some, such as Magnolia, as many as three times! However, Last Samurai isn't one of them. In fact Last Samurai isn't a film I've seen even once because I've never seen it all. And some people think it's weird that I lived in Japan for three years and haven't seen the most famous Japan-related film of recent times.

So, as I said, tonight I watched Vanilla Sky. For the second time. And I quite enjoyed it. For the second time. However it was almost really my fourth time because I'd seen Abre Los Ojos, the Spanish original, twice when I lived in Spain. So, which one's better I hear you ask? Good question. Everyone says that originals are always better than the remakes but is this really true (it's like that thing about the book always being better than the film - has anybody ever thought the film was better than the book?) Anyway, in this case whilst I liked Vanilla Sky, I thought Abre Los Ojos was better. In fact I thought Abre Los Ojos was awesome when I saw it for the first time. And the second. But to be fair to Mr.Cruise, I don't think he did a bad job.

Now while we're on the topic of films let's get back back to Japan-related movies (I use the word movies reluctantly here to avoid an awkward repetition) and the other recent famous one, Lost in Translation. It's strange to think that I've met so many people who consider it to be one of the best films ever made. So often after I've been forced to mention in conversation that I've been living in Japan within twenty seconds we're talking about Lost in Translation. If nothing else the film has exposed more and more people all over the world to the beauty and mystery of Japan, not to mention being at least partly responsible for a whole new generation of nihon-otaku (Japan geeks) coming to the fore. Anyway, whilst I enjoyed some parts of the film (I'm a fan of Bill Murray) for me it was a film based in a Japan which I could hardly recognize. Like a Japan in a parallel universe. Unrealistic and forgettable. Unlike the real Japan, which of course I'm unlikely to forget in a hurry.

People ask me 'What made you go to Japan?' 'Was it the food, the manga, the nihongo, the green tea and onsens?' Well, no, it was none of those things (and let me categorically state right now that it had nothing to do with green tea and onsens). No, the reality is much duller. Despite what people tend to think, I am no otaku with a secret passion for ikebana, anime or cosplay. I had no ulterior motive. I had no desire to 'deepen my understanding of one of the most fascinating cultures in the world'. And unlike some I wasn't looking for a Japanese girlfriend. No.

I just went because I could.

2006-10-19T17:15:00.000+01:00

It's amazing the things that can change in the space of a few years.

I went to a local pub last night to watch the Champions League match between Chelsea and Barcelona on Sky TV (incidentally when I last lived in the UK all CL games were free and on terrestrial TV but that's another story). The last time I watched Chelsea on television in England was at least seven seasons ago, probably during the 1999-2000 season. In those days Manchester United were European champions and Chelsea were nothing more than a top six team, the previous season having finished a respectable fifth, a whopping twenty-five points behind champions Manchester United.

Now I don't really want to bore everyone with a load of football statistics because I know the majority of people reading my blog live in countries where baseball is more popular than soccer so I apologize (but evidently I'm not going to stop). Anyway, fast-forward to the 2006-2007 season and Chelsea is the richest team in the world and winners of the last two Premier League titles. Why? It would be fair to say that the money of Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich probably has a lot to do with it. However, despite their recent success and as someone who's never been particularly fond of Chelsea I've always held the belief that the time will eventually come for them to go back from whence they came. After all, what goes up must come down, so to speak.

Manchester United and Liverpool are traditionally the two biggest and most popular clubs in England. They are pretty much the only two English teams that command support from all corners of the country, and even the world. Most other teams only command local support. For example, the team I supported as a boy, West Ham, despite being a Premier League team are only really supported by people living in London and the surrounding areas. This is typical of most teams in the world, give or take a few (Juventus, Milan, Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich) which contradict this pattern. Anyway, I'm going off on a tangent.

So when Chelsea played Barcelona last night and although the pub was packed (due to the game being available only on Sky, presumably), imagine my surprise when the whole bar erupted in loud celebration when Chelsea scored a goal! What on earth was going on? I asked myself. This is Birmingham, not West London. And anyway, a decade ago I never remember Chelsea having that kind of support even in the south. What has happened while I've been away?

Well, I should have known. Money, brief popularity and some hitherto-unknown Chelsea success has seen a whole generation of armchair football fans jumping onto the Chelsea bandwagon. It turns out that supporting Chelsea is fashionable.

What is this country coming to?

2006-10-17T21:00:00.000+01:00

It has been a funny old last week or so. First of all, my attempts to find work have been valiant but unsuccessful. Secondly, I've realized I must be allergic to ale because every time I drink it I seem to wake up with a strange and rather unpleasant feeling in my head.

On Saturday night I was persuaded to go to the centenary concert of a local carillon school. You may wonder what a carillon is, and so did I, but rather than me describe it, I'll let wikipedia:

"A carillon is a musical instrument composed of at least 23 cup-shaped bells played from a baton keyboard using fists and feet. Carillon bells are made of bell bronze, approximately 78% copper and 22% tin. Carillons are normally housed in bell towers. The carillon has the widest dynamic range of any mechanical (non-electric) musical instrument."

Now as you can imagine, since a carillon is usually housed in a bell tower you can't just play a full-sized one whenever the fancy takes you. If you do you'll annoy thousands of people within a five kilometre radius, such is the range of the instrument. So instead they have special clavier-style versions for practice which are about the size of a piano. The carillon used at Saturday's concert was one such practice instrument and was given to the school as a centenary gift.

I wasn't expecting a great deal from the concert and I was a bit surprised to arrive and find myself sitting in a church. Then one glance at the programme schedule, which indicated a two-and-a-half hour long time-table broken up by one fifteen-minute interval, gave me cause for concern. At that point I had the distinct impression that it might be a long night!

Distinguished classical musicians and carillon experts had come from all over Europe including France, the Netherlands, Belgium and as far away as Russia, to play at the event. And as well as the new carillon clavier two magnificent grand pianos sat just off the altar and these would be joined by oboes, cellos, old-style claviers and later, the church organ. And after the opening piece, on which all the guest musicians played together, I realized this might not be so bad after all.

Over the two hours they belted out arrangements of various well-known classical pieces by the likes of Mozart (it's his 250th annivesary year, didn't you know?), Beethoven and Rachmaninov. But for me the highlight was an eight hands on two grand pianos (ie. four people playing together on two pianos) contemporary version of themes from Bizet's Carmen. The finale, Stauss' Blue Danube, a tune which everybody knows, involved all the evenings musicians playing on both grand pianos, church organ, cello, oboe and carillon clavier, and was a great way to finish.

Despite my earlier reservations it was a really good evening and I'm totally glad I went!

2006-10-16T22:23:00.000+01:00

2006-10-09T09:30:00.000+01:00

Being unemployed gives you lots of time to do things you wouldn't otherwise have time to do. The only drawback is you don't always have the money to do the things you otherwise wouldn't have time to do, but anyway...

Some of the many jobs I have applied for in the last week include such things as Mystery Shopper, Retail Assistant and Fluent Spanish Football Researcher. The last one obviously sounds the best but I've heard nothing back from them yet! I've also enquired about jobs in English schools, camera shops, passport agencies and zoos. So far very little has come of any of it.

So in order to rid my mind of all this job-search malarky I took the bus down to London for the weekend to see my good mate Nick (a regular face on this page) who is also trying to adjust to life back in the UK after five years in Japan. It was his birthday and we were joined by a whole group of other ex-JETs as we enjoyed a fine evening of beer, tapas and expensive nightlife in south London. Among them was my old friend Chandan, who I studied with eight years ago in France and who finished her three years on JET in Nagasaki the same month I arrived in Fukuoka. We haven't seen each other for about four years so it was a rather pleasant surprise!

The three-hour bus ride also gave me time to reflect on things so far. I've been back in the UK a month now and I'm slowly beginning to get back into the swing of things. I can't say I like the filthy litter-filled streets, the inefficient public transport or the widespread bad habits of the general public (particularly when it comes to litter, mobile phones and mp3 players), but then again there are plenty of good things to be said about living in the UK. I did notice however that the Christmas lights are already up in Birmingham (although not yet illuminated) and this served to remind me of the forthcoming horrors of the run-up to the British Christmas. To illustrate the hype which surrounds Christmas here I took the following photograph in an Birmingham pub on September 17th, a full one hundred days before December 25th.

2006-10-09T09:15:00.000+01:00

Even ignoring the missing pronoun, is this notice suggesting that anybody caught using drugs on the premises will be magically turned into a medieval singer of ballads by the pub's staff?

2006-10-04T14:30:00.000+01:00

Last week I started an MA in French, Spanish and English translation. Luckily I've been studying languages for a long time so I already have a lot of the reference books I need but there are still a few more I need to get on Amazon. However, after completing my BA six years ago I promised myself I would never again return to university study, but here I am ready to go for another two years of hard work. I must be mad!

As well as all my reference books I have another gadget to help me through the course. It's a super-duper all-singing all-dancing electronic dictionary which I bought in BIC Camera just before leaving Japan. It supports three main languages, Japanese, Spanish and English, with dictionaries in every direction (Japanese-English, English-Japanese, Japanese-Spanish, Spanish-Japanese, English-Spanish, Spanish-English) plus monolingual dictionaries, a katakana Japanese dictionary and loads of other stuff too. It cost four man yen so I earned about 9000 yen worth of points when I bought it with which I added French too (on SD card) to make a total of four languages. But on a continent where electronic dictionaries never ever arrived and where everyone still uses the paper form, I'm pretty sure I'm the only person on my course with such a cool toy!

2006-10-03T22:53:00.000+01:00

This is my new mobile phone.

For the third country in a row I've opted, wisely or not, for a Vodafone. Unfortunately despite looking very similar to a Japanese keitai (which is quite rare for a UK phone) it's not really much like a Japanese keitai at all. The cameras, both still and video, are not very good and the camera-screen itself doesn't flip around, making it difficult to take self-portrait photos and videos. And you can't easily prise-flip the phone open with one hand either - this requires two - and is a serious design fault in my opinion. Anyway, what am I complaining about? At least it can make phone calls and receive messages (albeit not e.mails, rather the more antiquated SMS), and that's the main purpose of mobile phones, isn't it?

2006-10-02T22:30:00.000+01:00

This is one rather special postbox. Apparently there are only 161 regular-sized pillar boxes with the Edward VIII cypher left in the UK and this example is one of only two in the city of Birmingham. I stumbled upon it by chance yesterday whilst walking home from Birmingham bus station.

Edward VIII had one of the shortest reigns in British history. He ascended to the throne on 20th January 1936 and due to his reluctance to give up his love for American divorcee Wallis Simpson, he abdicated less than twelve months later on 11th December of the same year. Because of his short reign there were only a limited number of these postboxes ever made and, seventy years later, even fewer of them now remain.

I knew that these postboxes were rare but I'd never seen one before now and when I saw Edward's royal cypher on this box yesterday with its roman numerals VIII separating the initials ER, I thought I was imagining it. The ER stands for Edward Rex (King Edward, in Latin). Modern postboxes carry the present monarch, Queen Elizabeth's cypher, which is also ER (Elizabeth Regina) but obviously with a different number, in her case II.

Anyway, this is one of the things I love about the UK. There's history everywhere you look, if you know what you're looking for.

2006-10-01T22:20:00.000+01:00

This weekend I went to Norwich, a lovely city in the east of England. As well as being one of the most historically important cities in the United Kingdom (it was founded in the mid-seventh century and boasts an eleventh-century cathedral and twelfth-century castle which are still standing), Norwich is also home to the University of East Anglia, which happens to be where I studied.

I started my degree there in September 1996, exactly ten years ago this week. To celebrate the occasion a group of us got together on campus this weekend for a quiet drink. It was my first time there since graduating six years ago and because it was also the first drinking weekend of the new undergraduate semester there happened to be hundreds of paraletic young freshers staggering around drunk and falling over each other in their own vomit. Splendid! It actually made me feel quite old because that used to be me asleep in the gutter with vomit dribbling down my chin.

Anyway, I won't bore you with photos from the reunion itself, mainly because I didn't take any, so instead here's a few photos of the university, a place which holds many special memories for me...

The UEA Square on Sunday morning is littered with debris such as beer bottles and plastic pint glasses from Saturday night. When I was a student it was lovely to sit out here in the early-summer enjoying a pint of cheap beer instead of being in lectures

The Street, the main pedestrian area of UEA, has changed somewhat since my time. For the benefit of fellow UEA alumni reading this blog (I know there are at least two or three of you out there) a new stylish coffee shop has been added to the street as well as a new concrete walkway above. Also the Union Bar is now twice its former size having swallowed up that awful restaurant Breakers.

The Arts Building is where I spent many a hungover morning struggling through seminars on such subjects as the medieval Catalan Empire, the Napoleonic Wars, the Third Reich and French Philology.

The LCR (Large Common Room) is a gig and event venue which attracts top bands and plays host to the debaucherous and much-frequented student union disco every Thursday night. Oh, happy days! It looked a mess on Sunday morning after the previous night's mass drinking binge.

The UEA, having been built in the sixties, was somebody's concrete vision of the future. Its architectural monstrosities include Blade-Runner style suspended walkways and buildings, such as the library visible in the distance, made from brutal concrete megaliths. I quite like it actually!

The listed ziggurats of Norfolk Terrace are some of the most amazing examples of student accommodation anywhere in the UK. I lived in this building in my final year of study.

Goodbye Waveney Terrace! The residence where I spent my first year was allegedly based on a Swedish prison-block but has recently been demolished and replaced by modern student accommodation with rather less character.

I had just enough time to have a quick walk around Norwich city centre whilst waiting for my bus back to Birmingham. The old city walls, dating back to the fourteenth century, still stand in some parts around the city

I raised my camera to the sky to see fourteenth-century stone walls competing with twentieth-century concrete architecture

Great Britain is full of history and examples of it can be found on almost every corner in a city like Norwich

The city centre on Sunday morning is a quiet place with most people probably sleeping off hangovers. The twelfth-century stone keep is just visible in the distance at the far end of the street (immediately behind the lamp-post).

Well, it was nice to be back in Norwich albeit for only a brief time! It brought back a lot of good memories!

2006-09-28T10:30:00.000+01:00

Switzerland was fantastic! For me it proved to be a lovely break from my miserable existence of daytime TV and unemployment.

We flew from Birmingham International Airport to Zürich, Switzerland's largest city. The flight took less than two hours and followed the path of La Seine, one of Europe's most glorious rivers, from its mouth in the English Channel (La Manche pour les francophones, not sure why we name after ourselves) on the extreme right of the above photo, towards Paris.

I got my 75mm-300mm out to photograph the Swiss Alps as we approached our destination

On the first night Jun and I stayed with one her friends, Sabina, in Zürich and we took a walk around the beautiful centre of the city in the evening. This is Grossmünster, the city's most famous building

A chess match in downtown Zürich

This clock on this church is apparently the largest in Europe, even bigger than Big Ben's in London!

I ate a big fat greasy Swiss chopped sausage with sauerkraut and pommes frites. Fantastic! Jun and Sabina (extreme left and right) enjoyed a dish of veal and rösti, a traditional Swiss recipe made from potato.

My big fat greasy Swiss chopped sausage

A speeding tram action shot

I was really impressed with Zürich. It's a beautiful city with charming narrow streets, stylish boutiques and gorgeous old churches. In fact it has all the things which remind me of what a city really should be, a million light years away from Birmingham. It was also fun speaking German there, although it must be said that my German ability is almost woefully inexistent.

The Zürich skyline taken from the top of Grossmünster

In between all the sight-seeing I let the girls slip away to the Freitag store while I enjoyed at long long last a decent ice-coffee, the first really good one I've had since leaving Asia

This shot of a sparrow at a water fountain is one of the most satisfying photos I've taken in a long time. What a beautiful bird!

On the second day we did a bit more sight-seeing in Zürich before taking the short train-ride west to the capital, Bern, in the afternoon. There we met up with our friends Rie and Miwa from Japan, and also Miwa's Swiss boyfriend Francis. We all stayed at Francis' place in the city and had a jolly good time. He rustled up some fantastic stuff for dinner, slices of carved moose/elk/deer (we couldn't agree on the translation) served with an unknown rich brown sauce, accompanied by roasted horse-chestnuts, a Swiss pasta-like side-dish and a dollop of a mystery red cabbage-like vegetable. Unfortunately we never actually really agreed on how to translate any of these things into English but I must say they were all extremely good! Francis also had Singha, an excellent Thai beer, in his fridge that I did a good job of finishing off after the meal!

On the third day the five of us got up early to go on a roadtrip. We drove south in the direction of the Alps, in the process taking the car onto a train to go through very long a tunnel drilled through a huge mountain.

Rie smiles as the car-train heads towards the tunnel

The train took fifteen minutes to get through the tunnel and once on the other side, and after a twisty-windy experience up and down Switzerland's rugged landscape (which prompted one female member of our crew to vomit), we arrived in the small resort town of Leukerbad. There we visited a spa which was kind of like the Japanese onsen experience but without the nudity. Or the small towels. Or the hot water. Or the segregation. Actually, it wasn't really very similar to the onsen experience at all except for the fact that both the Swiss spa and the Japanese onsen have water in them. It was nice though, relaxing in the warm-ish outdoor pool with the mountians providing a spectacular backdrop behind.

Leukerbad

In the afternoon we took a rather expensive cable-car from Leukerbad up to the top of a mountain where we had some well-earned refreshments. I opted for a bowl of soup of the day followed by, once again, a big Swiss sausage and pommes frites. I caused consternation among the staff of the restaurant by asking for mayonnaise to go with my pommes frites, which apprently isn't done in Switzerland. After that we had a stroll around the mountain-top and tried in vain to spot the Matterhorn in the distance but, alas, it was just too hazy to see any more than a mere few kilometres in any direction.

After a frenzied photo-session we made our way back down the montain and before long we were back on the road, winding our way down through steep vomit-inducing inclines and thunderous U-shaped valleys (carved out presumably during the last glacial advance) on our way towards the town of Sion where Francis had reserved us a table for dinner at a rather special restaurant, Château de Villa.

On the way there I had the strange sensation of something having changed with regard to the local landscape but I couldn't quite put my finger on what it was. I subconciously began to understand a lot of the words I saw on roadsigns, shop-fronts and billboards and it wasn't until a few minutes had passed that I asked myself hang on a minute, how come I seem to be fluent in German now? The reality was that my German was still shockingly bad, but without any of us realizing we had in fact passed into French-speaking Switzerland where a smile came over my face as I realized I was back in the world of a language I could speak! Parfait!

Not that Swiss French is not without its quirks however, the words septante, huitante and nonante (seventy, eighty and ninety) bizarrely replacing the more conventional-but-admittedly-rather-less-logical soixante-dix, quatre-vingts and quatre-vingts-dix from standard French. But still, it was nice to be able to communicate and interact with the world again!

So, we were in Sion to sample raclette, a rather cheesy feast and one of Switzerland's regional specialities. Five local cheeses, all expertly melted by the grumpy cheese melter (with, lo and behold, completely incomprehensible French), were accompanied by boiled potatoes and an array of cured hams, cornichons and pickled onions, washed down with a bottle of lovely local white wine. Splendid! It was a lovely restaurant, very classy, in fact too classy for me to even consider getting my DSLR out.

After dinner we hit the road again and it wasn't long before we'd crossed back into German-speaking Switzerland, returning to the realm of eins, zwei, drei and understanding very little, ja. Once back in Bern I was exhausted and went to bed pretty quickly as the next morning Jun and I were up at the crack of dawn to catch our flight back to Beautiful Birmingham.

All in all it was a lovely four days. I wonder how long it will be before I go abroad again?

2006-09-21T08:48:00.000+01:00

Well, life back in the UK is certainly proving to be interesting. It's funny what changes when you spend a long time away. Today I went to the bank and the ATM was out of order (just out of interest I've seen more out-of-order ATMs in ten days in England than I did in three years in Japan). No problem though, I went inside knowing that I could probably withdraw money over the counter. I thought it would be a simple case of giving the bank teller my account details and him just giving me the one hundred pounds I wanted, but no. "Pop yer card in there then" he said. Er...in where? Oh...the electronic thing, okay. Now, how does this work? I contemplated it for a couple of seconds before having to confess, rather embarrassingly, that I'd never used one of these things before and I didn't know which way to put the card in. The bank teller was a little surprised and thought I was some kind of ********* (insert your own word here) until I explained that I've been living away.

And many of the things I took for granted in Japan are beginning to annoy me in the UK by their absence. The biggest thing I miss is good old quality customer service. I know, everybody who has lived in Japan complains about this when they go home but come on, how difficult is it really? To put it mildly, customer service is terrible here. I never used to think it was but really, it is. Not only is it bad, but the staff are often impolite and unprofessional. It's pretty frustrating but I suppose at least it's better than in Russia so that's something to be thankful for.

How I miss Japanese customer service. Oh, all those little mini-skirt-clad cuties squeekily bleeting high-pitched sumimasens in Tenjin Core, please bring them back into my life!

And I kind of forgot (or never fully realized) how vulgar the British sense of humour can be. I was in the loo the other day at St.Andrews, Birmingham City's football ground, when I spotted a small 10cm by 5cm advert from BetFair, an online betting (gambling) company, inside the urinal. It said "What you're doing to this advert is what we do to betting odds."

"What???"

How can you put that on an advert?

It did make me laugh though!

Anyway, I've only been back a couple of weeks but I'm already going away again...I'm off to Switzerland for a few days!

Football, football, football

2006-09-19T15:00:00.000+01:00

So Birmingham, in case you didn't know, has a fair few football teams. Aston Villa, the best of them, are currently sitting comfortably in the top quarter of the Premiership but the city's second team, Birmingham City, along with local rivals West Bromich Albion and Wolverhampton Wanderers are now languishing in the Championship, the English equivalent of J2 (only much much better of course).

This past weekend Nick Canning, a former JET and good friend of mine who has featured on this page once or twice before, popped up for a brief visit to Birmingham. It was his first ever trip to this fair city but surprisingly he didn't come for Birmingham's sophisticated nightlife or amazing aesthetic beauty, but rather for Ipswich Town's ding-donger of a battle with local boys Birmingham City. Another friend of ours Smithy, himself a JET until only a couple of months ago, came along as we all piled down St.Andrews for an afternoon of rip-roaring Championship action. Just for the record Nick is an Ipswich fan, Smithy supports Birmingham and I was there simply to keep the peace.

It was my first English professional football match in at least eight seasons and my initial impressions were that nothing much has changed! It has been said (albeit not by me, of course) that the average working-class football fan has an IQ of about 6 and a beer belly the size of Canada. Not to mention an amazing appetite for rancid hot-dogs and minging meat pies plus a vocabulary consisting of about forty-three words, three quarters of them vulgar. Whilst I think this assesment may be a little harsh one can't deny that there may be some truth in this. The language spewing from the mouths of some supporters, with children present I might add, was quite disgraceful.

Hooligan?

Mikael Forssell of Birmingham City and Finland was not so long ago a player with immense potential as a teenager at Chelsea. Now 25 and with a couple of career-threatening knee injuries behind him, he is not the player he might have been, unable to even get a place in the starting XI of a Championship side

After a dire first-half the match finished 2-2 so we all went away happy. After the game we had a night out on the Brummie tiles which ended, as nights invariably do in Brum apparently, with the Broad Street experience (quite possibly the most awful street in England). The clothes worn by some of the women there absolutely blew me away, and it wasn't because they looked good, let me assure you! Some girls have no shame, absolutely shocking!

Canning, Heneghan and Smithy enjoy the game

Welcome to Birmingham!

2006-09-18T09:28:00.001+01:00

Selfridges, the symbol of the modern Brum

A gritty, working-class city and one of the birthplaces of the industrial revolution, Birmingham, known affectionately as Brum, suffers somewhat of a bad reputation. In fact it is not uncommon to hear Birmingham being described in such terms as a dump or even a sh*thole. That might be a little unfair as the city doesn't seem to be the same grimy cesspit it once was, but there is nevertheless some truth in the notion that it is not exactly the world's prettiest place. And despite being long regarded as England's second city many southerners, among others, would never dream of going anywhere near Birmingham unless absolutely necessary.

But now I live there!

It's only a hundred or so miles from London but don't let that fool you, the reality is somewhat different. Actually the distance could reasonably be said to measure in light-years rather than in miles. But a city of only a million people cannot of course be fairly compared to London. In fact, one of London's supreme disadvantages, its immense urban sprawl, contrasts with Birmingham's more compact and less intimidating size. The centre of Birmingham is quite managable on foot and this is something of which I'm a big fan.

So it's not all doom and gloom then! Birmingham is also said to be the most diverse city in the UK. According to statistics the city has the largest non-white population of all major British cities (29.6%), even greater than that of London (29.0%). Just out of interest and as a kind of pointless comparison to where I've just come from (Fukuoka, Japan), the ethnic mix in Birmingham is as follows: 70.4% White, 19.5% South Asian, 6.1% Black, 0.5% Chinese, and 3.5% of mixed race or other ethnic heritage (great if you like diversity, not so great if you're a member of the racist BNP, the British National Party). This means Birmingham is quite the cultural melting pot, the exact opposite of Fukuoka.

The city suffered heavy bomb damage during the second world war and partly as a result of this the centre was extensively re-developed during the fifties and sixties. Many hideously grotesque concrete office buildings, ring-roads and pedestrian subways were constructed with Birmingham subsequently gaining a reputation for ugliness, frequently being described as a concrete jungle. Whilst the city seems in better shape today the scars of the concrete age are still plain to see all over the city.

Birmingham's Central Library was once described by Prince Charles as "looking more like a place for burning books, than keeping them". But far from being a concrete monstrosity which should be demolished the library seems to be a bizarre source of local pride as far as the people of Birmingham are concerned.

And as well as not being the most aesthetically pleasing of British cities the inhabitants of Birmingham carry the unfortunate distinction of speaking with one of the most annoying regional accents found anywhere in the known world. Okay, as an English teacher I know I should really embrace regional accents but there's no denying that Brummie, as it is known, in its most potent form is truly awful. Hideous even. Walking down the street you hear a exotic mix of Indian and other south Asian dialects, along with plenty of Mandarin and Cantonese, surprising amounts of Polish and other Eastern European languages and then, of course, you hear Brummie. At times I understand the Mandarin better than the Brummie! In fact between all these Asian languages and the Brummie an hour spent in Tesco will leave you feeling like you're actually living abroad in some far off place where English is only sometimes spoken and, when it is, only excrutiatingly horribly. Okay, maybe I'm being a bit harsh on the people of Birmingham, but I wish I could understand what the hell it is some of them are talking about!

One of Birmingham's biggest tourist attractions, if you can call it that, was this medium-sized ferris wheel. Too bad they took it down last week! Now there's one less thing to photograph in an already photogenically-challenged city!

The Town Hall in Victoria Place dates back to the mid-nineteenth century. Local hoodlums like to pour bubble-bath into the fountain so that it fills with foam and this apparently never stops being funny regardless of how many times they do it!

The Town Hall in b&w

Not sure what this building is but it looked kind of interesting and inspired me to get my camera out

Anyway, for good or bad here I am in Birmingham and for the forseeable future, here I'll stay. I fully expected to be living abroad for at least ten years (probably longer) so to be back in the UK after only six years away could be said to be going somewhat against the plan. However, I have come here with an open-mind and I'm determined to make it a successful stage in my life.

I'm not sure how long I will call Birmingham 'home' but while I do, I might as well try and enjoy it!

Final Stage - Stockholm to London

2006-09-09T16:49:00.000+01:00

Home at last!

Zipping down through Sweden overnight and then rushing through Denmark, Germany, Holland, Belgium and France, five countries in less than twenty-four hours, followed by a quick dash through the Eurotunnel to Folkstone, it was nice to finally arrive in London.

I enjoyed a can of Swedish beer before boarding in Stockholm, a decision which may have come back to haunt me had there been no loo on the bus!

In fact the bus to Amsterdam was pretty comfortable and I had two seats all to myself which allowed me a good night's sleep.

A rather interesting aspect of the journey was crossing the 16km-long Oresund Bridge linking Malmö, Sweden, with Copenhagen, Denmark (photo shows Malmö not long after dawn, looking back from the bridge)

The 45 minute ferry-crossing from Denmark to Germany will be remembered, at least by me, for the high cost of the breakfast in the ship's cafeteria which I couldn't afford but sooo badly wanted!

I had a two hour stop-over and bus change in Amsterdam which, due to the inconvenient location of Amsterdam's international bus terminal, was rather unfortunately not long enough to sample the delights of the local coffee shops. From Amsterdam the bus was full but at least the aisles were free unlike the horror-bus-from-hell I had to endure from Vientiane to Hanoi earlier on in my journey.

I had visions of returning to England being greeted by the wonderful sight of the White Cliffs of Dover but these images quickly faded from my mind when our driver informed us we'd be going through the tunnel

It took over an hour to get into London due to the fact that we entered during the rush hour

London at last, this is the Tube

Somewhat surprisingly there was no great fanfare or welcoming committee to greet me on arrival in London. In fact there was nobody. My father was supposed to come but he was tied up with work so my arrival was a rather mute and typically anti-climactic affair.

Trying to sum up six weeks of travelling is quite difficult so I'll try to do it in a rather different way with the help of some no-nonsense statistics:

No. of days on the road: 38

No. of kilometres travelled: around 16,000

No. of countries traversed: 15

Northernmost latitude visited: Helsinki, 60 15 N

Southernmost latitude visited: Singapore, 1 17 N (Fukuoka = 33 30 N)

Longest single journey (time): Irkutsk to Moscow, 77 hours

Longest single journey (distance): Irkutsk to Moscow, 5185 km

Most time spent in a single country: Russia, 8 days and three hours

Least time spent in a single country: France, less than two and a half hours

Most populous capital city visited: Beijing, China, 12.03 million

Least populous capital city visited: Vientiane, Laos, 442,000

Most expensive beer purchased on a night out: Moscow, 210 RUB (916 JPY) for a 350 ml glass

Least expensive beer purchased on a night out: Beijing, 2.5 RMB (37 JPY, yes, thirty-seven!!) for a 640 ml bottle

Country with the worst English: Russia, closely followed by China

Country with the best English: Finland and Sweden, in no particular order

Country with the most beautiful women: Russia

Country where I was most times propositioned by prostitutes: Singapore

Country where I felt safest: Finland

Country where I felt the least safe: Mongolia

No. of photographs taken on journey: 6069

Items lost or stolen on journey: Gillette shaving foam

No.of euros over budget for entire journey: about 250

All in all a magnificent success!

Now what should I do?

2006-09-05T09:18:00.000+01:00

Stockholm is a beautiful city. Narrow, medieval streets, charming buildings and stylish eateries, it's the kind of place you should take your girlfriend, rather than being alone. But at least I have my camera for company!

Tonight I take the 36 hour direct Eurolines bus service from Stockholm to London, via Copenhagen, Hamburg and Amsterdam. After crossing the Channel early on Thursday morning I shall arrive in London around 8am. My journey is almost over, but this 36 hour bus journey has the potential to be the worst part of the journey so far! I'm in Europe but all of a sudden I still feel a long way from home!

Stage 13 - Helsinki to Stockholm

2006-09-04T12:49:00.000+01:00

Sixteen hours on a cruise ship can't be that bad, can it? Nightclubs, discos, bars, restaurants, live music, the eleven-deck Viking Line's Gabriella had just about everything. The only problem for me was that, because it was too expensive for me at the end of my long journey, I was one of a very small minority of people without a cabin and was in store for a long and uncomfortable night! My friend Lee suggested I "make friends" with one of the many drunk Swedish girls on the boat in order to snag a bed, but of I of course dismissed that suggestion as pure fantasy. On reflection though, after spending the night tossing and turning on the cold, hard floor of the 6th deck, it might not have been such a bad idea after all!

Passengers enjoying the splendid view as we leave Helsinki harbour

The only direct way to Stockholm from Helsinki, other than flying, is to take this ship. Hundreds of Finns make the journey over on it every day, many on what is known as a booze cruise, going just for the beer and the cheap duty-free, and some of them never even make it off the boat. By 3am there were plenty of drunk people running around and with the noise it was not quite so easy to sleep on my 6th deck floor.

Before that I was hoping to see a bit of quality live music during the evening but the live musician in the ship's pub was pretty not-that-great considering the level of talent usually found on cruise ships. He whacked out a load of cheesy Irish songs and the occasional cringeworthy British cover and I know it's not his fault - he probably has little choice over what he can play - but I've heard better versions of Wonderwall at karaoke. Strangely enough, the crowd loved it.

Duty-free beers plus iPod equals better entertainment than what was on offer in the ship's pub, for me at least

The approach to Stockholm was lovely

Now I have a couple of days to relax here in Stockholm before the final leg of my journey back to London. Unfortunately, due to time constraints and the fact that I must be back in the UK before this weekend, I have had to scrap my plans to visit Amsterdam and Brussels. The reason for this is that there are far fewer buses out of Stockholm than I had expected and, as I'm not prepared to pay the higher prices for the train, my journey has been delayed for a few days. It's strange that I can travel ahead of schedule all the way from Singapore to Helsinki, through some of the most difficult and awkward countries of Asia and yet, only in wonderful, fantastic, efficient and fully-developed Europe do I encounter my first delays. And in Scandinavia of all places, which is supposed to be the height of civilization!

2006-09-04T11:58:00.000+01:00

It was my first time in Finland and apart from being avery good alternative to going through Belarus, for which I didn't have a visa, my friend Lee (a friend from university) has been living in Helsinki for a few years so it seemed like a pretty good idea to spend a couple of days there.

To my surprise since I last saw him Lee has married his Finnish girlfriend, Päivi, (they tied the knot in the amazing church above) and they've had a lovely baby boy, Samuel. In stark contrast to his university days the Ford Focus parked outside Lee's house underlines his rather un-bohemian lifestyle, but he seems quite happy to be a part, in his own words, of a middle-class suburbia with wife, child and four-door estate. Maybe that's the key to happiness after all? A wife, a child and a four-door estate!

They have a lovely flat about a half-an-hour's drive from the centre of Helsinki and I stayed with them for three days. I felt a little bad getting under their feet when they were so busy with their baby (still only about 6 months old) but they went out of their way to make sure I had a great time while I was there. Lee was very keen to show me some of his favourite aspects of Finnish culture and this included a visit to a sauna which, as some of you may already know, is an essential part of any visit to Finland.

The sauna we went to is the only surviving traditional log-heated public sauna in Helsinki (the rest are all electrically heated). The whole thing was in many ways similar to onsen in Japan. You go naked, shower before you go in and then enter with a towel. Unlike the Japanese onsen, which involves bathing in hot water, a sauna involves sitting in a large oven. Water temperatures in Japanese onsen regularly reach 40° C, which I find tough on the skin, but the air temperature in our sauna was a whopping 85° C! As soon as you walked in the heat hit you like a bomb blast, then as soon as you sat down you began to slowly cook and sweat out all your internal organs.

After about thirty seconds I was already hurting but I battled on hard so as not to embarrass myself. I lasted about five minutes before I had to go outside. At the world sauna championships (yes, there really is one!) the best competitors are apparently capable of withstanding temperatures of over 120° C! How is that possible? At 85° C I could hardly breath, my face and ears were burning and I could almost feel my blood slowly start to bubble.

The thing to do after a sauna is to go outside and drink beer. Armed with just a towel, Finnish men (and women too) sit outside semi-naked in the street and drink beer. I couldn't quite understand what the point of it all was but Lee explained that the sauna experience is simply a case of "out with the bad, in with the good". However, on viewing all those people intoxicating themselves in the street between spells in the oven he revised this by saying that "maybe it's more a case of out with the bad, in with the bad!".

And that's exactly how I felt. Bad! We made two more visits to the oven (in with the good, apparently) in between which we drank more beer (the bad, of course). The second visit was one of the most painful five minutes of my life. I thought I was going to die. I only stayed as long as I did because I didn't want Lee or anyone else in there to think I was a pansy. The third time was a little bit better but I still felt like I was being roasted in a blast furnace.

The other thing Lee was keen on showing me was the local food. Nowadays I think I'm pretty open-minded when it comes to food so when he mentioned reindeer soup I was obviously excited. We had some on my third day there at a house-party for one of Lee and Päivi friends and it was excellent! The meat tasted a little a little like beef, only tougher. I also found in the supermarket some salami made from pork, reindeer and horse, which went down rather well too in a sandwich!

Reindeer soup, which kind of resembles a beef stew, washed down with a can of Finnish beer

Lee, Päivi and Samuel, thank you very much for a lovely few days!

Stage 12 - St.Petersburg to Helsinki

2006-09-01T13:19:00.000+01:00

The six hour run from St.Petersburg to Helsinki was one of the easiest stages of my journey so far. It was an early start but I had a whole cabin to myself so I could strech out and relax. After the compulsory dilly-dallying on the Russian side of the border, where security officials quizzed me on the routes and durations of my journeys around the country, they carried out an unnecessarily thorough inspection of the electronic equipment in my luggage.

An hour later we were crossing into Finland. Finnish border security was quick and without any of the palaver I've experienced countless times in Russia and in other countries on my journey so far. One quick look at my European Union passport was all it took, no questions, no stamp, no rigmarole. And as we crossed into the EU I was hit with a huge tsunami of relief and excitement. I'm still 2000 km from my final destination and I've never ever been to Finland, but in a way I was already home. It's funny how I can consider 'home' to be a country I have never visited, but you'll only understand what I mean if you're European. The European Union is without doubt one of the greatest things on Planet Earth.

It's good to be back!

2006-08-31T14:50:00.000+01:00

The Church of the Saviour on Spilled Blood, St.Petersburg

St.Petersburg is a strange melange of an elegant and gloriously sophisticated history mixed with the harsh realities of modern urban decay. At times it seems like a beautiful city and at other times a dangerous hell-hole. The city's police force is corrupt and racially motivated attacks are common here. I felt particularly uneasy walking around alone after dark.

After everything going perfectly to plan from Singapore to Moscow, everything went wrong for me in St.Petersburg. I had a throughly miserable time and buying my onward ticket to Helsinki was an absolutely nightmare. I would have to say that, whilst one should never really generalize, Russians are perhaps the most miserable, rude and unhelpful people I've ever come across. You go into a shop and they almost complain when you actually try to buy something.

The hostel I stayed in was full of mammoth-sized mosquitoes, the weather was atrocious and I got soaked twice (all my clothes and belongings got drenched), my 7-Eleven umbrella, which had been with me since Hong Kong, completely broke in the gusting wind and is now unusable and all the city's ATMs refused to accept my bank card because I'd already used it once earlier in the day (I'd miscalculated the amount I needed before and it seems that Russian banks limit you to one card-use per day), so I had no money to do anything in the evening. On top of that everything I touched I broke and everything I picked up I dropped. It was one of those days where absolutely nothing goes right.

And it's just so hard to get anything done in Russia with its petty beauracracy and inefficient service industry. It's also the most tourist-unfriendly place I've ever visited. For example the subways here (St.Petersburg has the world's deepest subway, incidentally) have no maps in them! And they don't even list the names of any of the stations clearly in the stations themselves. If you miss or don't understand the Russian announcement you just have to guess which station you're in. And everything is written in cyrillic only. Nightmare! And then when you do ask for help, in Russian of course, you're greeted with a flail of the arms, a loud huff and a how dare you trouble me, a subway employee no less, for help in using the subway!

Roll on Finland! Roll on the European Union!

Pedestrians crossing in front of the Kazan Cathedral

I grabbed a quick bite at Subway, one of my favourite franchise eateries

Of all the hundreds of ladas I've seen in Russia, this one is in by far the worst condition