Festive Food

Christmas is rapidly approaching and mince pies take a minimum of a week to make properly, so yesterday I made this year's mincemeat. Some people seem to think that this is harder than it is, so I thought I'd stick the recipe down here to prove that it's probably as easy as buying the stuff in jars.

You will need the following things:


Now quantities are always vague, but I work on a ratio system. I think that a lot of recipes care a bit too much about exactly how much to use, and I usually go on this sort of vague 'one of these for two of those' system. It seems to work! Anyway, going through the photo from top left we have:

• 2 x good quality minced beef.


• Small pot of mixed glace peel.. about 'half' in our ratios


• 1 x (by weight) rum, brandy or a mixture of both


• Ginger in syrup, about the same weight as the peel


• 1 x beef suet. Your local butcher will have this


• 4 x single eating apple


• 1.5 x ground almonds


• 1 x single grated nutmeg


• Mixed spice, about twice as much as the grated nutmeg


• 2 x dried fruit. I've used half currants and half raisins here.


• 1 x single lemon


• 1 x single orange


• 1 x soft brown sugar

Making the mincemeat is easy - just chop everything that needs chopping into small pieces and mix together! You'll probably want to peel and core the apples, and the skin of the lemon and orange needs to be grated into the mixture and the remaining fruit squeezed.

You should end-up with something like this:


Whack it into some old jars and keep it for at least a week. It will then be ready to fill some pies. Yum!

Green Christmas

So December is upon us... so soon! Winter is a challenging time to stay green, and I'm finding it increasingly difficult to make it through all of 2007 while remaining carbon neutral. With this in mind I've started thinking about Christmas, and how I can green it up a bit.

Firstly, trees. A few years back I read a vaguely convincing article about how the greenest choice of tree is an artificial one. This is based an several assumptions, the most important being that the tree is reused for several years and recycled at the end of its life. If this is done then the benefits supposedly outweigh the fact that it is made of petrochemicals in China. However, is this true? Having looking into it a bit it seems that artificial trees are very hard to recycle since they are mostly made of steel and PVC. PVC can't easily be burned due to the emissions given off, while it's difficult to remove the steel without doing this since most trees are made by twisting the steel and PVC strands very tightly. One must also be realistic about how long trees are kept. My parents are probably reasonably unusual in that we had the same (aluminium) tree for about twenty years and it never seemed to get more scrappy, but how many people lose bits, buy a different size, or whatever? The sheer amount of artificial trees sold before Christmas at DIY centres suggests that people don't keep them forever.

So what about real trees? Some of the bad press they have received about their green credentials has been based on historical figures of imports. There was a time when the majority of trees were imported, but most are now British-grown, thus reducing the fuel used in transport. However, fuel is still used - there are the carbon costs of preparing the fields, planting the trees, the pesticides/herbicides used for growing, then transporting the trees afterwards. If the trees are grown in place of an older wood then there's also the impact of destroying the existing trees, which as a worst case could be an ancient oak forest. Plantations of Christmas trees do not lend themselves well to biodiversity, although of course they provide more cover for animals than bare ground.

So the best choice for a new tree is still not clear. I think that in the worst case for the real tree, such as one that is imported, grown on cleared deciduous woodland, heavily sprayed, and so on, an artificial tree may still be the best option. This is even more true if you can find a PVC-free, easy to recycle tree that is made locally. That is if those exist, of course.

It goes without saying that the greenest option is not to get a new tree at all. Use a living tree, or just buy a second-hand artificial tree (an easy way to recycle them!). You could also consider one of the cute 'grow your own' kits. These are all zero-carbon options, and you end-up with a tree that's just as fine. It's also a little reduction on the mad consumerism of the season of course, which is something we should all take some time to think about.

Now as for when to put the tree up... well, that's another kettle of fish!

The Future of Genomics

On Thursday evening I was in Bristol for a public debate on The Future of Genomics at Expore@Bristol. It was a special event to mark the opening of the new 'Inside DNA' exhibition they have there, and since I've always been interested in genetics I thought I'd go along.

Sir John Sulston kicked-off with a half hour or so talk about the state of play in genetics research, then the floor was opened. The lovely Alice Roberts (yes, her from off the telly) handled the session. The audience was filled with several experts on genetics and the ethics behind it, and some of the questions were quite good considering that it was a public event. Given current events there was some interest in biometrics and ID cards (which are all pointless as well as scary) and databases, plus genuinely interesting tidbits.

Interesting tidbit example - they think they now know why we're seeing a rise in peanut allergies, something that concerns me as I have one. It's possibly because creams containing peanut oil were used to treat eczema in the 70's and 80's, and the proteins being absorbed through the broken skin provoked the intolerance. This explains a lot - I had eczema as a child, so it all fits. They discovered this through the 'child of the 90's' study which is taking place in Bristol. It's the most detailed study of its kind in the world and has provided a lot of information so far, so yay for Bristol.

The exhibition is well worth checking out, as it all of @Bristol, of course. It's a shame that they closed the iMax though - hopefully it will reopen one day.

Routemasters and Shibboleth

I was in London over the weekend for a birthday party. A friend was 30 and hired a Routemaster bus to take us (along with a large amount of champagne) to watch the fireworks at Blackheath, then back to Victoria again for a slap-up feed at a Mexican restaurant. Much fun was had, and I don't think I've had quite so much champagne for some time!

Thankfully champagne doesn't seem to give me much of a hangover, so I didn't feel too bad on Sunday. I took the opportunity to catch-up with some friends while at the same time check out Shibboleth by Doris Salcedo at the Tate Modern. I must say that we were slightly underwhelmed - I expected something a bit wider and deeper I suppose, and while it was certainly long and looked strange in such a large space, it was less impressive than I thought it might be. Still, it was pretty busy so lots of people were obviously interested. In fact the whole place was probably about the busiest I've seen it.


After looking around at a few other things that were new since I was last there we headed off for lunch at Tas at The Cut. It's the second time that we've tried to get in to The Anchor And Hope (which is meant to be one of the best gastropubs in London) but had to go to Tas instead, but hopefully I'll get to try it one day...

Bath Film Festival

Today is the start of the 2007 Bath Film Festival, and for the next eleven days there are some quality films. Some caught my eye.

Beautiful Young Minds, an interesting looking documentary about a maths competition (well, I think it sounds interesting!) on Saturday. Rescue Dawn is another film about Vietnam, but most importantly it has Christian Bale in it. Has he ever been in a bad film? I don't think so. The Yacoubian Building is a film about life in central Cairo that looks good and is being shown on Sunday. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Monday) is the story of a man who suffers a stroke - sad, but it looks quite inspiring. Taxidermia appeals to my surreal side (just look at plot outline!) and is on Monday. The Killing Of John Lennon looks interesting, as do The Band's Visit and The Aura. I'd also like to catch Hearts and Minds, an Oscar-winning documentary about the Vietnam war which is still pretty relevant. There's also an evening of locally made short films on the 11th which looks good.

So, lots of films to see, or potentially see anyway. There are some others that I wanted to list but I don't want to just reel-off films as much as bring attention to the festival. It's all good!

Running madness

So I might well have gone a bit mad, but I have entered the next Bath Half Marathon. Considering that I haven't really run around much since school (where, let's face it, I was forced to.. usually by a rather insistent Brother James) this might seem like a slightly foolhardy step. However, I do have until the 16th of March next year to get ready for it, so it's not insurmountable.

Where there's a difficult looking task, there's a gadget to help. In my case I plumped for a GPS watch that I can plug into the computer to see my route and stats on Google Maps. This is sufficiently geeky to inspire me to actually do some exercise, so while some may say it's a bit pointless, if the end result is that I run 13 miles I reckon it's pretty good value for money.

So why run the race anyway? Well, I guess everyone has their reasons. I could certainly do with being fitter, and I could certainly be slimmer. In the end though, I think running a vaguely serious distance is something that I've always felt I should do at some point. Now seems a good time, and charity will even benefit a bit with sponsorship and so on. However, I am weak! I know this, so I need all the incentive I can get to see this through. Registering for the race was a start, but I intend to put my progress up on my web site. This way, any improvement (or lack of it) will be visible for all to see, which will in turn spur me on a bit. Hopefully.

Festivals Ahoy

On Saturday I was in London for the Field Day Festival. The weather was perfect, and after a slightly delayed train journey I was still in London in good time. We met up and made our way to Bethnal Green, the nearest tube for Victoria Park.

None of us had been to Victoria Park before. It's actually quite nice and seems to be divided into two by a road. One part has a nice lake with plenty of birdlife hanging around on it, and is quite nicely landscaped. Over the road is the part of the park where the festival was being held, which was a much more straightforward green space with a few trees, along with some big monument thing. The festival was close to this, enclosed in a 7 foot fence.

The queue to get in was minimal, although for some reason that was never quite clear they divided people into male and female queues. I assumed that this was something to do with searches, but nobody was being searched anyway. Weird. All that it meant was that there was a lot of people hanging around just in the site waiting for their opposite-sexed friends. The rather overly-keen security staff were also taking food and drink, including water, away from people. This seemed a bit mean on such a hot day.

The site itself was quite small - apparently the capacity was 10,000, although I don't think that it got close to that while we were there. We grabbed some food (no queues for that) and had a wander around. This was fairly on in the day and the queues for beer were quite large, so we thought we'd wait and go later. That was our main mistake! As the day went on, beer queues grew and grew. There were only two bars for all 10,000 people, and it was taking literally hours to get served! Needless to say, we didn't bother. We stick with the rather strange cider-based 'Sungria', which we manged to get without much queuing early on. That was about the only alcohol we got all day though, thanks to the mad queues (which were nothing, compared to the toilets!). The lack of thought that had gone into bars and toilets was fairly amazing, and there were many disgruntled people. The music was pretty cool though, if hampered by a weedy sound system, so the day was still good overall. I just hope that next time the organisers try to decide how many toilets 10,000 people need when drinking they come-up with a number greater than 30.

After the festival we went to the pub for a few drinks, then onto a new sushi place in (I think) Kensington High Street, that was pretty good. After another few pints in the pub we called it a day.

On Sunday we went to see The Walker, which was actually very good. Woody Harrelson is a great actor - has he ever been in a bad film? Anyway, he was very good in this as a gay 'society walker' in Washington. I must admit that it's a career I have never really thought about, but it makes for an interesting film, and it's interesting how his 'society ladies' react to the events. Worth a go anyway. Now I just need to catch The Simpsons!

V Festival this weekend - I hope it stops raining! I've had enough of muddy festivals this year!

Glastonbury Roundup

Well, I'm back from Glastonbury in one piece! You may have heard that it was a bit wet this year, and it was. Wetter than 2005 I'd say, but the new drainage stopped the flooding. It didn't stop the mud though! Anyway, more on that in a bit.

Our bus was due to go at 8:45 on Wednesday morning, but I got a text on Tuesday evening saying that it had been changed to 2pm. Slightly irritating, but that would mean getting on-site by 3pm or so, which isn't bad. We got to Bath coach station around 1:20 and settled in to the short wait, only to discover that the buses were rather disorganised. Our bus got gradually later, as did everyone else's. There was one guy from See Tickets (who were running everything, supposedly) and he was being mobbed by the 200 or so people waiting, but didn't know what was going on. He did have all of the tickets in a carrier bag though, and the first few people who asked got their tickets and made their own way. This got the guy a telling-off from his bosses though, so he soon stopped that. Time ticked on and the police turned-up as they didn't like 200 increasingly-annoyed people hanging around the coach station. There wasn't much they could do though (apart from telling people off for drinking), so everyone sat around getting frustrated for a few hours. Some reporters from the local paper turned up, but the only real story was See Tickets being inept.

Anyway, our coach finally left at around 6pm, and we were on-site by 7. Despite my earlier lofty plans to head for Dragons Field, we set-up in Woodsies as usual - it's a good spot, especially when rain is expected as it doesn't get too muddy. Even better, it's right next to gate A where we came in. Having set-up the tents we headed into the markets to look about. Foolishly we thought that the solstice was on Thursday night, not Thursday morning, so we missed all of the celebrations at the stone circle. Bah! Still, we grabbed some food from the excellent Garlic Kitchen (this guy is also a fan), then after a bit of wandering around went up to the cinema tent to watch Serenity. After that it was back down into the markets for a bimble about, then back to the tent for a relatively early one. Little did we know that it was the last time we'd see much on the ground other than mud.

It rained on Thursday, quite a lot. However, when it finished the ground didn't seem too bad. We did some things, but also drank quite a lot so I don't remember much about it. We spent some time in Chai Wallahs drinking their rather excellent chai, doing some wheatgrass shots, and listening to some of the guys from One Taste, including the really, really good Jamie Woon. Not only is he a great singer/guitarist, but he does a very impressive local loop one man band thing. You really have to see it. I can't remember anything else we did, but we were in the Leftfield drinking quite a lot.

On Friday the ground had got pretty muddy, but it was still just about ok in the morning. The bands had started of course, and we all had timetables in mind. First on my list were Flipron on the Avalon stage. I'd convinced Nicole that they were worth seeing, and I think she was convinced. They're always great and it's just a shame that the set wasn't longer. It was getting muddier all the time though, and after Flipron it was getting to the point where moving between stages had to be carefully considered as it took so flippin' long. More beer seemed to help my balance though. I caught Rory Motion and '4 in a Field' in the cabaret tent, although I only really laughed at a couple of the comedians (Sean Hughes was good, and Ed Byrne was a good compere). We caught Rufus Wainwright and Arcade Fire on the Other stage. I didn't bother with the Arctic Monkeys, but I probably heard most of Bjork as I was stuck in the human traffic jam heading towards the Pyramid stage.

Saturday was even wetter. The rain not stopping had got less funny, but it wasn't going to stop us! The mud gave it a good go though. We poked around the Green Fields, then spent a very enjoyable (and dry) afternoon in the cabaret tent watching Nina Conti, Simon Munnery, Paul Nathan, Murray Lachlan-Young, Jeremy Hardy, Rhythm Wave, Marcus Brigstocke, Phil Kay and Mitch Benn. The highlights were Jeremy Hardy and Marcus Brigstocke, but it was pretty much all good. I'm not sure what it says about me that the main thing I wanted to see on the day was comedy though! Anyway, after that it was off to the John Peel stage to catch 'Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly', then back to the cinema tent to catch Hot Fuzz, although we gave up before the end (it was cold, and I've seen it before... it's good though!). Oh, and we got into the Guardian photo montage thing, around about the 1:20 remaining mark. That's us, in yellow ponchos!

My main objective for Sunday was the Leftfield. We saw George Monbiot talk about his environmental ideas which are always very insightful. Eric Faulkner (yes him, from the Bay City Rollers) then played two guitars at once, which was very impressive. Then there was a debate called 'Another World is Possible' with Tony Benn, George Monbiot, and some union people. George Monbiot got very angry about the Iraq war and made some very good points again. The next act was Marcus Brigstocke again, with a reduced (but slightly different) version of his set from the day before. Still funny. Then Ed Byrne did a really funny set, Tony Benn talked about nuclear weapons and Trident, Shazia Mirza did her 'angry feminist Muslim' thing, then Mark Thomas did his funny (yet alarming) mass lone protest thing, ending with the good news that Gordon Brown has suggested that he'll scrap the restrictions on protesting near parliament. After that we hoofed-it up to the Avalon stage to catch Billy Bragg, in great form as ever. Sadly, far too many other people wanted to see him too, so we were stood some way outside the tent. Still a good gig though - he's always great to watch. After that we went back to the Pyramid stage and caught a bit of the Manics, but then gave up and went to Chai Wallah's again instead to drink chai and catch more Jamie Woon.

And today.... dear God, the organisation! Or lack of it. Our bus was due to go at 8am, so we were up early putting our tents away in the rain (it had rained all night), and trudged over to the site bus station. Of course, none of the buses were working and nobody knew what was going on. The mud was the deepest at the festival, and it actually came over the top of my boots for the first time all weekend. We gave-up waiting where we were meant to as it clearly wasn't going anyway, and went and stood near where the buses were coming in. It was very wet and windy, and some people were clearly very cold, despite the foil heat blanket things that were handed out. A bus for Bath eventually turned up at around 10, and about five coach loads of people tried to get on. We were lucky and made it in, but a lot of people didn't. I dread to think how long they had to wait. Urgh. So I got home just before midday, cold and wet, but overall happy.

It has easily been the wettest and coldest Glasto so far - even the floods of last time went away by Sunday, and it was sunny then too. This time the rain was just relentless, and the mud. I won't forget that in hurry. As for my highlight... Jeremy Hardy? Not very rock'n'roll, but there you go. And Billy Bragg from a musical perspective I suppose, but then I know all of his songs and agree with his views, so I probably got more out of it than the other guys. Jaime Woon was good too, and I intend to check him out...

Hot Vegans, Almost

This weekend was really hot. I was in Bristol on Saturday, and when I left my house in the morning it was a bit overcast so I put some jeans on. Big mistake - by the time the train got to Bristol the sun was out and I was already overheating. Still, you have to make the most of these things, so buy combining the powers of ice cream and beer, I got through the day.

We went to the Glass Arcade in St Nicholas Markets for lunch where I tried some Caribbean 'Ackee and Salt Fish'. Tasty, although the women running the stall did her best to warn me that I wouldn't like it (nobody there, including her, liked it). I thought it was pretty good though - it sort of melts in your mouth. In a nice way.

We checked-out 'Encounters', a Manuel Vason exhibition at the Arnolfini. Despite the clever walk-activated lighting stuff, it rather suffered from a lack of context, but hey, it was suitably disturbing in parts to tick the right 'art' boxes! The Arnolfini do struggle to run their bar very efficiently when it's busy though, and it does get pretty busy on summer days.

During the afternoon we went to Brandon Hill and Cabot Tower. I don't know why I haven't been up it before, but I did this time. A great view is to be had from the top of it, and we had fun squeezing past the fat people on the thin spiral staircase. The tower is nice and cool when it's hot and sunny outside, so it was a bit of a welcome respite.

There was an intention to catch Puressence at the Vegan Fayre (the worlds biggest, no less), but a few drinks in the sun sort of messed-up our schedule. Still, we sort of heard the end of the set from the other side of the fence!

As I type this I'm watching Mick Jagger prancing about on stage singing Sympathy for the Devil at the Isle of Wight festival. He's not doing too badly for a pensioner! A few of my friends were there, and with the great weather and lineup, I'm sure they had an excellent time. My own festival excitement is for Glastonbury of course, but it has been ever so slightly tempered by the awkward Wednesday morning coach we are forced to get. Not so much a problem for me as a couple of the guys I'm going with, so hopefully it will turn out for the best.

Spiderman, Goya and Leaves of Glass

It has been a busy few weeks since my last post. Sadly my trusty Mazda 323 badly failed its MOT and had to be scrapped. It was a good old workhorse, so it's a bit sad. Still, everything dies in the end, so we should not mourn!

Over the Bank Holiday weekend we went to Dizzy's birthday party. It was nice to catch-up with people again, and we couldn't have asked for better weather. There were lots of familiar faces, and it's always nice to meet new unfamiliar ones. Photos on Flickr, as usual.

Last week we went to see Spider-Man 3. It was... ok. Much too long, and not nearly as good as the last two. In retrospect I'm not sure it's worth seeing, although it did have its moments.

Last weekend I was in London to visit Dave, and we managed to fit quite a lot in despite the Circle and District lines rather irritatingly taking the weekend off. On Saturday afternoon we caught 28 Weeks Later at the Odeon on Tottenham Court Road. It was pretty good, although not as great as the first one. We had a few pints in random Soho pubs, then met-up with Helen for dinner at an 'smokehouse' place called Bodean's on Poland Street, Soho. They do some great barbecue-style food, including 'pulled pork', which is a bit like how you get duck when you order duck and pancakes at the Chinese. It's really good, and the prices are pretty good too. After that we went to see Leaves of Glass at the Soho Theatre. Not really an uplifting play, but it was well done. To cheer ourselves up we headed off to Sloane Square for Gerry's sister's 21st, which was good fun - lots of drinking and dancing, and everyone had a great time.

On Sunday the rain was appalling, so we sat it out and had a leisurely start watching DVDs and recovering from hangovers. After that we headed to the Science Museum, and we actually got to see quite a lot of it! In fact I don't think I've managed to see quite so much of the place in one day before - I usually get there only to find it's about to close! We met Frances for some cake in the cafe and then wandered around looking at science-y things. When we'd had enough of that we walked back through Hyde Park and grabbed a bit of food at Gourmet Burger in Bayswater before I headed home on the train. A rather busy weekend, all in!

On Monday I was hosting a CouchSurfer called Chris from California. We met in the pub after work and went for some food at The Salamander before heading back to mine for some geeky gaming on the PS3. On Tuesday I was hosting again, this time a student from Indiana called Emma. She 'enjoyed' a rather random evening of helping to push-start cars and going on a random trip to the cinema to see Goya's Ghosts, which was pretty good. The cinema was almost empty, but then it was a late showing and a bit of an 'arthouse' film. It was well done, but don't expect a happy story!

Slackademic

It has been a busy week. Foolishly I have been doing two modules of my OU course at once (hey, they were 'short courses' and looked easy!) and the two main pieces of coursework were both due in on midday Thursday. This meant that, thanks to having to work and earn a living, they had to be in by Wednesday night. After a weekend and every evening I got them in. They could have been better, but hey, in the end I was just happy to submit them. I don't think it matters how old I get - when it comes to academic coursework I will always leave it until the last minute. When I'm sat there typing drivel in the small hours it brings back memories of undergrad days... all of us sat in the computer science labs, hacking away all night for a 10am deadline. Happy days! We always got it done though, and that makes you feel a bit invincible.

Anyway, the course has taken all of my free time for ages, but I did manage to get into London on Thursday to record the Girl Geek Dinner. More about that here on my 'tech' blog.

I've just been in the cinema to see The Painted Veil, based on the Somerset Maugham novel, at the Little Theatre. It was really good... slightly sad, but then aren't all the best dramas? I can't think of a bad film with Edward Norton in it, and this doesn't disappoint. Check it out.

New Job

On Monday I started a new job. It's still programming - I haven't decided to become a stuntman or something - but it's in quite a different area. No more telco stuff for me, at least for a while, as I'm now in the exciting world of Internet startups and fun things. I'm also programming on a Mac so I don't have to suffer Windows on a regular basis again. Huzzah! I've now got a shiny quad-core Mac Pro under my desk, which is pretty darn nippy.

So all is good on the work front. The weather has also been exceptional recently of course, so that has been nice. My new job is a bit further from home (about 45 minutes walk rather than 30) so I've decided to cycle in. Since there is nowhere to put a bike in my new office I decided to get a folding one. Not only can this be left under my desk and out of the way, but I can sling it into the back of the car for weekends away and so on. After looking at various makes and models I went for a Dahon Speed TR. This was a tough choice as I really wanted to buy a British bike (support local industry and all that), but although the Brompton folds much smaller it just doesn't have the gear range I need for Bath. The new bike arrived quickly and I've been cycling into work fine on it. The smaller wheels make it look slightly girly I suppose, but that's something I have to live with if I want the folding! The rolling resistance of smaller wheels also make it slightly harder to move - I feel that on the hill on the way home! Good exercise though, I suppose.

I bought a PS3 - much nicer to look at than the XBox 360, and nicer firmware too. It also doesn't sound like a aeroplane taking off! I've just got 'Resistance' for it at the moment, but there are some more games on my list from ScreenSelect, so I'll get those at some point. The rental system works really well for games actually as I don't have to shell-out 50 quid for something I lose interest in pretty quickly. If only they carried Wii games they would be perfect. Anyway, if you want to 'friend' me then my handle is 'DominicUK'.

One final thing that I've been appreciating is the new Nine Inch Nails album, Year Zero. It's really good, but you don't have to take my word for it since you can listen to it on the NIN web site. The CD itself is pretty funky as it is heat sensitive. When you put it in the CD player it's black, but when it comes out it's white (with 'hidden' text). Cool! It goes black again when it cools down. It's a nice touch, and it makes me happier that I still buy CDs rather than downloading dodgy copies like skanky cheapskate pirates.

Crowded House

Last night we went to the first Crowded House gig for years at the Thekla in Bristol. It was really very good. They played some stuff of their new album that is being released in June, but there were enough old favourites there to keep everyone more than happy, and they played for 2.5 hours so it was a good long set. The tickets sold out pretty quickly and the 15 quid original price went up to about 400 quid on eBay, which was a bit mad.

Crowded House are one of those bands that are a bit like the Beautiful South - I know I like them but I don't realise how many songs I know until I'm at a gig! I guess I've got three Crowded House albums and I listen to them reasonably often, so that might explain it. It was a pleasant surprise to find myself able to sing along to most of the tracks though. The band themselves seemed to enjoy it although there were some rough edges, but that isn't completely surprising seeing as it has been so long since they've played together in public, and this is a new line-up. Anyway, top stuff - catch them on their new tour if you can...

Back

Well I got back from Tokyo in one piece, despite a slightly unnerving landing at Heathrow where we pulled away sharply after almost touching down - it turned out that an Emirates 'plane was rather unexpectedly on the runway we wanted to land on. What fun. Still, once more around London and we landed 15 minutes later.

My final week in Tokyo wasn't bad. On Thursday evening we went to a sushi place in the big shopping centre by Kawasaki station and shared big sashimi and sushi platters. The sashimi was very fresh - the fish was caught and prepared in front of us, and most of it was still quite intact when it arrived on the plate. That wasn't a problem, but a few minutes after we started eating it started to move around in a rather energetic way. I'm pretty sure that they were post-mortem twitches, but it was vaguely unsettling (and went on for about 20 minutes!). Still, it sure was fresh fish!

My plane on the way back was fairly empty so I had a chance to stretch-out a bit for the 12 hours. I also caught 'The Departed' which was pretty good, as well as another couple of films that I was clearly too tired to remember. I remember them being good though. After the efficiency of Tokyo's Narita airport I was expecting the worst from Heathrow, but my baggage was out quickly and the trip back to Bath was really painless. Mind you, travel makes you appreciate things more - I don't think any airport baggage handling can be quite as inefficient as San Francisco when we flew there from Vegas. That involved more than half an hour of waiting by the conveyor belt and was pretty painful. Airports eh? You would have thought that they could have got them right by now...

It Is Considered Disgusting To Blow Your Nose In Public

I had a weekend of poking around slightly less cultural sights. On Saturday I went and had a poke around Akihabara to see the shops etc. It certainly has a good range of electronics and manga porn. Being unable to appreciate Manga porn I stuck to the electronics shops though. There are some great gadgets and the Japanese seem to have a large number of options for really lightweight laptops which I liked the look of, but they're not cheap. I also looked at buying a camera since they are a bit cheaper here, but the Japan-only warranty didn't sound like a good idea, plus the possible duty to pay if I keep hold of the box. VAT in Japan is only 5% so even being a tourist doesn't save you much money.

Akihabara is of course teeming with thousands of people looking for a bargain. They also have large numbers of women hanging around outside the station in strange French maid outfits handing out stuff. Not sure what they're advertising, but the Japanese don't bat an eyelid at such things. Most odd. Other than that, and the strange placing of sex shops between computer shops, it's all quite tame really. For shopping it's great as you don't get pushy salesmen grabbing you as soon as you stop to look at something. They do stand around and shout stuff, but it's to no-one in particular.

After Akihabara I had a quick kip before heading out to Roppongi, an area known for its nightlife. I went there early evening as I wanted to just have a look around before it got too crowded. There's certainly lots to do though, even at that time of day - a lot of the bars seem to optimistically open all day. I went for a drink in some 'British pub' to check out the local take on what British pubs are like, and from all of the St Patricks Day flags it felt a bit more Irish than British, but never mind! I then had a drink at the Gaspanic Cafe, which was empty, then a burger at the New Zealand Centre (oddly), which promised many NZ beers but only had one. After that I headed to Geronimo's which was highly recommended in my Lonely Planet. There I met a bunch of expats and went for a Chinese with them, which was all highly random and entertaining, but I was back in time for the last train home!

On Sunday I went for a drink and a bite to eat with someone from CouchSurfing not far from Roppongi again. We chatted and watched the water from the pier and had a most pleasant evening. I caught the last train back to the hotel and arrived there to find all of the electricity off. The hotel had decided to rewire something, so I had an entertaining time preparing for bed and generally getting around the hotel. It's easy to forget how much you depend on electricity. It's not so bad at home, but believe me, it has its uses when you're staying on the 22nd floor of a hotel!

Woo - another weekend!

Made it through another week of working in Japan and negotiating the transport system! Actually, until today it wasn't too bad - we've been heading out of Ikebukuro away from town so the metro is really quiet. However, my colleague from the UK left today and I started on a week of a new journey to an office in Kawasaki. This new route on the train (rather than the Metro) takes me right around Tokyo so I've now experienced crowded trains! To be honest they're not that bad though - they go every few minutes, so if the current one is a bit of a crush you can just wait for the next one. This doesn't seem to occur to the locals though who are clearly in a rush to get everywhere, and they happily cram on until the train is about to burst. Madness. Mind you, they give me odd looks while I just stand aside to let them on.

The train I get takes me on the Yamanote line, and I don't know if this is unique, but all of the stations have their own little tune when you arrive. It's quite cute and I guess pretty useful when you get to know your tune, but some of the choices are a bit odd. One of them plays the tune from Goodfellas (or some other gangster film - I can't remember which)... you know, the guitar-y
Italian sounding one. Anyway, the trains are pretty smart and there are screens showing where
you are going, where you are, and so on. Also, Japanese railway stations seem to be much less
confusing than their Metro stations! All of the lines are clearly marked along with their
destinations, unlike places like our previous local Metro station Negatacho, where you know that there's a connection to the Ginza line, but the signs don't tell you that
you have to head for the Yurakucho line, walk all the way along the platform and up stairs
the other end, and then along corridors for another 10 minutes. They're huge.

The Japanese themselves are almost model users of public transport. Most people (bar the odd rebellious teenager) queue for the trains on the handy painted lines on the platform, wait for people to get off when the train arrives, and then get on (although they never stop doing this, of course!). People tend to either sleep or stare at their feet, but if you do make eye contact they seem friendly. I have to say though, the women seem to be much chirpier. I'm not deluded enough to think this is because they all fancy me... rather, there seems to be a bit of a macho thing with the men where they're not allowed to have facial expressions or something. The women, in comparison, giggle away at pretty much anything. The difference is quite noticeable... much more so than the UK. I can't begin to guess why this is. Perhaps it has something to do with a lot of the men openly reading porno comics on the way to work? It's an odd thing to see men in suits doing at 8 in the morning. You can't tell what most people are reading though since they tend to put their books into little covers so you can't see the title. Perhaps they're all reading porn?! Can't see why they would want to cover the book otherwise, but then there are many bits of Japanese culture that I haven't got to grips with yet.

Anyway, work went ok today and I'm now trying to plan what to do this weekend. It might be
my last weekend in Japan for a while, so I have to make it count!

First Weekend in Tokyo

It's Sunday evening here now, almost a whole week since I arrived. Since my last post I've mostly been working. Days here are long and it doesn't leave much time for anything else, but we've been eating well! Food and drink is possibly more expensive here than anywhere else. It doesn't help that we get back from work too late to eat in most of the restaurants, so we have to resort to the bar at the top of the hotel (where a couple of beers and some fried chicken each is 60 quid - urgh).

Anyway, on Saturday we had a chance to see some sights. We went to the temple at Senso-Ji as we'd heard it was one of the best, and indeed it was. There are many tourist-tat shops that line the street (Nakamise-dori) between Asakusa Metro station and the temple compound and are interesting to poke about in. The temple itself is interesting but we were unlucky that when we visited there was some restoration going on, but there was still plenty to see.

After the temple we decided to take the Sumida-Gawa river cruise to see the city from a different aspect. Unfortunately the boat was completely enclosed with no deck to walk about on, so it was hard to see much! What we did see was mostly bridges and skyscrapers, so it was a lot less interesting than something like a cruise on the Thames. I wouldn't recommend it unless you manage to get an open boat anyway.

The boat took us to a commercial district near the Tokyo Tower. Everything was closed and nobody was around - it was a bit bizarre really. There was a McDonalds in the bottom of one of the office buildings where we reluctantly bought lunch before heading into whatever bit of Tokyo we were in, in an attempt to find a Metro station to get home. We walked under a monorail, which is an excitingly futuristic thing to have, and we saw a bullet train too. Very Japanese! Eventually we randomly found Mita station and got the metro back to the hotel.

On Sunday we had to move hotels. We're now in the Crowne Plaza Metropolitan, and I have another decent view from my room. The hotel is in a much busier area than the Akasaka Prince, so it looks like there will be more to do. We're right by Ikebukuro station which, like many Japanese stations, is absolutely massive. Still, it's a bit closer to the office so we'll shave half an hour off each leg of the commute from tomorrow.

In the afternoon we went to the Meiji-Jingu shrine. To get there you have to walk through an interesting bit of Japanese culture - Cos-play-zoku, or the 'costume play gang'. These are teenagers who dress up in goth and punk dress and then hang around every weekend, while tourists come and pose with them for photos. It's very bizarre. We had to walk though them to get to the shrine so it was an interesting diversion, although I didn't take any photos as it felt a bit 'wrong' to take photos of scantily-clad 14 year olds. Anyway, the shrine itself is in a massive (by Tokyo standards) site full of trees and 'countryside', which is very pleasant. I think I saw more tourists there than anywhere else in Tokyo. Most days you don't see any Westerners, but the shrine was crawling with them. It was an impressive site, and we saw a couple of traditional Japanese weddings taking place. It must have been a bit weird for the people getting married as they had loads of tourists taking photos, but I suppose they wouldn't have done it there if they had minded. Odd though.

After the shrine we went back to the area of the hotel and poked around BIC Camera, which is a bit like Richer Sounds. I don't think things are really that much cheaper in Japan though so I haven't succumbed to any impulse purchases yet. From BIC it was a short stroll back to the hotel where we had a rather nice meal. Hurrah! Bizarrely, an English sixth form college and a ballet company are staying at the hotel at the moment, so there's an interesting mix of people. It's a lively hotel so I'm happier about staying two weeks here than I would have been in the Akasaka Prince...

Big In Japan

So here I am again in yet another country with difficult to read signs. I don't know what it is about countries that use different alphabets that makes my company send me there, but I'm not complaining. Actually Tokyo isn't too bad as most signs have the English on them as well, which is rather more user-friendly than China was.

The flight over here was ok. I caught Babel (not great), Flags Of Our Fathers (better than I thought it would be), and The Illusionist (really good), which took my mind off my increasingly cramped legs during the 12 hours. Tokyo airport is a model of efficiency and we were out of there literally 20 minutes after landing, and straight onto a bus that stopped at our hotel. The hotel itself (the Akasaka Prince) is nice enough - I've got a great view and a large amount of sofa space. The many restaurants in the hotel do seem to close bizarrely early though, which is inconvenient when we get back late from work. For example, on Monday night we went to the office after checking into the hotel around 2pm and ended-up getting back at 11. No food being available when you've not slept for 36 hours just makes you feel annoyed!

Getting around Tokyo is pretty easy using their rather good underground system. It's not particularly cheap but it runs on time and is very clean. The famously crowded trains certainly exist but are very directional, so our train (heading out of the centre in the morning) is going against the main flow and is practically empty, while trains going on the same line the other way are absolutely rammed. A fair number of people (about 10% I'd guess) seem to wear surgical masks for some reason best known to themselves. There are also 'women only' carriages for the trains at busy times thanks (I assume) to groping men. On the outside everyone looks like they wouldn't step out of line at all, so the idea of this seems odd. I don't doubt it happens though.

Japanese people seem very friendly and quite genuine about it. On the way back to the tube station today a girl bumped into me and apologised far more than she needed to. A few minutes later at the tube station she came up and apologised again before starting a conversation about where I'm from, her plans to visit Britain to improve her English, and so on. It says something about Britain that when she started talking to me I assumed she was after something or trying to con me or wind me up in some way. It's little things like that which give you a good impression of a place.

The work is hard and the hours long, but I'm looking forward to the weekend when I should be able to actually go out and see something. Even at this early stage I can forsee it being difficult not to automatically bow to people on returning to the UK. Not a bad thing though - I think all of this mutual respect thing is pretty great.

Billie is a Treat

Last Thursday we went to the theatre to see Christopher Hampton’s Treats, starring the lovely Billie Piper, that guy from 'My Family' and the BT adverts (Kris Marshall), and Laurence Fox. It was an odd play really - you know the film 'Closer' with Clive Owen? Well, it was a bit like that in that you didn't really feel for any of the characters. It was well acted and produced, but at the end there was a general feeling of 'ah right, so is that it?' in the theatre. Some random bloke said "Well that was a load of old rubbish wasn't it?" to me on the way out, which I've never had before! I didn't think it was rubbish, but then it wasn't brilliant either. After the performance there was a brief (and well attended) Q&A session with the actors. They all seemed quite nice and their answers were pretty interesting, but I can't remember any of them well enough to repeat here.

We were a bit peckish when we left the theatre so we nipped into the Garrick's Head for a bite to eat. I had the excellent Devilled Kidneys, but everyone else's food looked great too, plus the beer was good. A top end to the evening!

Hot Fuzz

Last night I was at a preview showing of Hot Fuzz, the new comedy from Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright. Yes, that's right, the guys behind the brilliant Spaced and Shaun of the Dead. So, apart from the excitement of seeing a film a week or two before general release and getting a bag full of goodies, what can I say? Basically it's very good - starts off a bit slowly and you wonder where they are going with it, but it soon turns into the highly amusing nonsense that you expect. It's vaguely interesting from a local perspective for me as well since it's filmed in Wells, just down the road. While I enjoyed the film, I did think that the cinema had the volume cranked-up a bit too much. Perhaps I'm getting old but some of the load bits hurt my ears... I thought age was meant to make you deaf!

The Most Fantastic Alarm Clock Ever

This has to be the most fantastic thing I've seen all week. Completely brilliant! The story behind its creation is also very interesting, especially for budding entrepreneurs.

Labyrinthine Pleasures

At the weekend we were at an engagement party in Wimbledon. Now Wimbledon is a part of London that I don't think about much since it is south of the river, and I have memories of trying to get a night bus back from there after a party once. Urgh. However, this time I saw a nicer side of it. Not only can you get to it without changing lines from Paddington, but you can also drive back from there to Bath in less than two hours when the traffic is good. That's pretty cool. I was already slightly impressed then when we went for lunch at The Fire Stables, a gastropub near 'Wimbledon Village' that is pretty good (it won Time Out's best gastropub award in 2001). We only had a light lunch, but the food was good. The beer front was slightly disappointing though, since it's a Youngs pub. They only had one bitter on tap (Youngs, funnily enough), but it was nice enough. Certainly worth popping-in if you're after a bite to eat anyway.

On Tuesday we went to see Pan's Labyrinth, which is really, really good. Catch it while you can at the cinema - you won't regret it. I'd say it's possibly the best film of 2006. It's pretty freaky though - the white thing with the food?? My God. You'll know what I mean if you've seen it.

The Joys of Heathrow, and the lack of them in Uganda

Last week I was at the Radisson Edwardian in Heathrow for a week of training with my company. It was interesting and worthwhile, but it's a bit odd not going outside for almost a whole week. The trouble is, there isn't much to go outside for when you're in an industrial estate next to Heathrow airport. Actually, 'industrial estate' is unfair - it's more of a strip of hotels, much like the Strip in Las Vegas, only without the gambling, strippers, and so on.

Come the weekend I was going a bit crazy so it was time to kick back a bit. Apart from generally chilling out I somehow knackered my knee, which still hurts. I blame this 'going to the gym' nonsense that I've managed to maintain since the New Year. We also managed to catch The Last King of Scotland, which is very good. It starts off fairly light-heartedly, but make sure that you don't have anyone too squeamish with you near the end. It's pretty gripping the whole way through though and really well done.

I hate to go on, but my knee is giving me jip. I'm going to have to drive to work tomorrow I think - I couldn't make the walk today and caught the bus after the first ten minutes. I don't think I could even do that tomorrow. I'm rubbish at pain, and I'm not afraid to admit it!

Water

Bottled water is pretty stupid. Everyone knows this deep down, even if they insist on buying it. I must admit that if I'm out of the house and have to choose a soft drink, I do tend to pick water over Coke or something. However, there's no hiding the fact that drinking it in the home is pretty idiotic. If any of your acquaintances can't see this, then the fact that it is not particularly safe either might help to convince them. If that fails, you really should find the Marcus Brigstoke rant on the last series of the Now Show - the Podcast is still available!

This Life

A happy New Year to you all!

This year I spent New Year's Eve at a party in Bristol. There were drinks and snacks, champagne at midnight, then an hour or two of playing music 'intro' identification board games. We made the most of the fireworks other people let off around midnight, and all in all it was a splendid evening. This is how I know I'm in my thirties.

I'm back at work now of course, and it still has a certain novelty value to it. I have made a positive start to this year too - I joined a gym. This sounds like the sort of thing that lots of people do as one of their 'resolutions', and while I'm generally not a 'New Year resolutions' person (if something is worth doing, do it immediately!) this seemed like a good time. I walk past the gym every day on my way to work and back, so it makes sense to pop in there every morning and at least use their shower instead of mine. Might get some exercise in too!

Last night I watched the one-off This Life +10. Retro memories abound! It was pretty good... always interesting to see characters as they are a few years after the end of a story. They're still messed-up of course, which is reassuring in some ways. (Potential spoiler coming up) I don't know why they killed-off Ferdy. The actor is still alive and well and they don't really mention why he's dead, unless I missed something. I guess his funeral served to get them back together, but that's a bit harsh for him...